Buddhas & Bodhisattvas: The Sacred Figures

By Tim Yu · Updated 2026-06-08

Across the Buddhist world there are countless sacred figures — buddhas, the fully awakened, and bodhisattvas, beings on the path to awakening who are moved above all by compassion for others. From Avalokiteshvara, the bodhisattva of compassion, to Amitabha, the buddha of the Pure Land, these figures are revered, depicted in art, and called upon in prayer across Asia. This guide explains who they are — and how the traditions understand them differently.

What is a bodhisattva?

The word bodhisattva means, in Encyclopædia Britannica’s gloss, “one who seeks awakening (bodhi) — hence, an individual on the path to becoming a buddha.” But the term carries two quite different senses depending on the tradition.

In early Buddhism and the Theravada, “bodhisattva” was used primarily for Gautama in his former lives — the many existences, told in the Jātaka tales, in which the being who would become the Buddha cultivated generosity, virtue, and wisdom over countless lifetimes. Here the bodhisattva is a single, specific figure on his long road to becoming the Buddha of our age.

Mahayana Buddhism widened the idea immeasurably. It taught that anyone who makes the aspiration to awakening — the arising of bodhicitta, vowing to become a buddha for the sake of all beings — is thereby a bodhisattva. This is the heart of the bodhisattva ideal: not to seek liberation for oneself alone (the path of the arahant), but to attain full buddhahood in order to free everyone. The bodhisattva path is structured by the six perfections and carried by boundless compassion.

Out of this ideal grew a great cosmos of celestial bodhisattvas — exalted beings who, Britannica notes, possess “wisdom, compassion, and powers: their compassion motivates them to assist ordinary beings, their wisdom informs them how best to do so.” They are not abstractions but living presences to those who revere them, each embodying a particular quality.

Buddhas beyond the historical Buddha

In the Theravada, attention rests on the one historical Buddha, Gautama, and the buddhas of past ages. Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, however, opened onto a far wider universe populated by many celestial buddhas — fully awakened beings presiding over their own buddha-fields, approached with heartfelt devotion. The most beloved is Amitabha, the Buddha of Infinite Light, whose Pure Land of Sukhāvatī is the goal of millions of practitioners across East Asia. This expansion of buddhahood from a single historical event into a cosmic principle is one of the clearest ways Mahayana differs in feel from the more restrained Theravada — and it connects to the teaching of buddha-nature, the seed of awakening said to be innate in all beings.

The great figures, one by one

Each of these figures has its own in-depth guide on this site.

Great bodhisattvas

• Avalokiteshvara — the bodhisattva of infinite compassion, “possibly the most popular of all figures in Buddhist legend” (Britannica). Known across Asia under many names and forms.
• Guanyin (Kuan Yin) — the East Asian form of Avalokiteshvara, the beloved “Goddess of Mercy,” whose image stands in homes and temples throughout China, Japan, Korea, and Vietnam.
• Tara — the Tibetan savioress, said to have been born from a tear of Avalokiteshvara; worshipped especially as Green Tara and White Tara.
• Mañjuśrī — the bodhisattva of wisdom, who raises a flaming sword to cut through ignorance.
• Kṣitigarbha (Jizō) — the Earth-Store bodhisattva, who vowed to save even the beings of the hells, and who watches over the dying, travellers, and lost children.
• Maitreya — the future Buddha, now awaiting his time in the Tushita heaven, who will restore the Dharma when it has been wholly forgotten. He is the one bodhisattva generally honoured even in Theravada.

Celestial buddhas

• Amitabha — the Buddha of Infinite Light, lord of the Pure Land of Sukhāvatī, reached through faith and the recitation of his name.
• The Medicine Buddha (Bhaiṣajyaguru) — the lapis-blue buddha of healing, venerated across Tibet, China, and Japan.

Are they gods?

This is the question newcomers ask most, and the honest answer is no — not in the way that word usually means. Buddhism is non-theistic: it teaches no eternal creator God who made the universe. Buddhas were beings — originally human — who awakened; bodhisattvas are beings on the path to that same awakening. They are revered, depicted, and prayed to as embodiments of the highest qualities — compassion, wisdom, fearlessness — and in the devotional life of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism that devotion is heartfelt and real. But they are not worshipped as the makers or rulers of existence. To venerate Avalokiteshvara is to turn toward compassion itself; to call on Amitabha is to lean toward awakening — not to petition a cosmic sovereign. (For the fuller picture, see Do Buddhists believe in God?)

How the traditions differ

As always on this site, it is worth naming the difference plainly rather than flattening it:

• Theravada keeps its gaze on the historical Buddha and the path to becoming an arahant. “Bodhisattva” means chiefly Gautama-in-the-making, and — according to Britannica — Maitreya is the only bodhisattva generally honoured.
• Mahayana makes the bodhisattva the central ideal and reveres a vast company of celestial buddhas and bodhisattvas, approached with devotion.
• Vajrayana (Tibetan Buddhism) develops this furthest of all, with elaborate practices of visualising and identifying with these figures — Avalokiteshvara as Chenrezig, embodied for Tibetans in the Dalai Lama, and Tara invoked daily for protection.

To meet the buddhas and bodhisattvas is to see how a single root — the Buddha’s discovery that awakening is possible — branched into one of the richest devotional worlds humanity has known. (For the wider map, see the branches of Buddhism; unfamiliar terms are in the glossary.)