Although the contemplative elite may deny the real existence of gods and demons together with the rest of phenomenal existence, the majority of Buddhists have preserved indigenous religious beliefs and practices. It has already been noted how Mara, the manifestation of spiritual evil, was presented in the earliest literature in terms of local demonological beliefs. It is also the case that the early stupas and entrances to cave temples were decorated with local male and female deities (usually referred to as yakshas and yakshinis) who were seen as converted defenders of the new faith. This proved to be a satisfying way of justifying the continuance of the cult of local deities, and it has been employed in varying degrees in every Buddhist land. Thus, there developed a pantheon of minor deities that continued to take in new members wherever Buddhism was established.

The Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions welcomed these local deities and have admitted some of their cults into the liturgies in honour of buddhas and bodhisattvas. Such favoured deities include Mahakala, the great black divinity; the mother goddess Hariti; Kuvera, the god of wealth; and especially Hayagriva, a fierce horse-faced god who is powerful in driving off unconverted demonic forces. The Mahayana and Vajrayana traditions have also identified local deities as manifestations of various buddhas and bodhisattvas. This process is particularly prominent in Japan, where the identification of buddhas and bodhisattvas with indigenous kami (Japanese: “god” or “spirit”) has included both the great gods (for example, in the identification of the buddha Mahavairochana with the great ancestral Sun goddess, Amaterasu) and the kami of local territories.

In other cases that are equally widespread, local gods and demons have been conquered, converted, and taken into the pantheon or relegated to the periphery (where they may still require propitiation). Perhaps the most interesting example is found in Tibet, where it is commonly believed that Buddhism became established in the 8th century only as the result of the wholesale subjugation of local deities—a subjugation that must, from time to time, be repeated through the performance of rituals marked by their dynamism and ferocity.

In Theravada, Buddhism has had to come to terms with local beliefs. In some cases well-organized pantheons have been built. In Sri Lanka, for example, various local, Hindu, and Buddhist deities hold places within a hierarchy headed by the Buddha himself. In Myanmar the traditional hierarchy of local nats is headed by Thagya Min. Identified with Indra, he becomes a divine protector of Buddhism, who reigns in the Heaven of the Thirty-three Gods.

These neatly organized systems, even where they exist, are, however, only a small part of the story. Throughout the various Theravada countries, a wide variety of deities and spirits have been incorporated into the Buddhist world as the inhabitants of particular realms within the Buddhist cosmos or as the guardians of various images, stupas, and temples. At the same time, there are others who, like the demons of Tibet, remain only partially encompassed within the Buddhist domain.

Female deities

In many Buddhist traditions female deities and spirits have been relegated to minor and secondary positions in the pantheon. Among the Theravadins, for example, it is rare for female deities to play a major role. An important exception is the goddess Pattini, who is a significant figure in the Theravada pantheon in Sri Lanka.

In the Mahayana tradition several female deities became major figures. Notably, Supreme Wisdom (Prajnaparamita) is often personified as the Mother of All Buddhas, who is manifest especially in Maha Maya, the virgin mother of Shakyamuni. Tara, the female saviour, is a much more popular figure who has often been seen as the female counterpart of the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. In China and Japan, Avalokiteshvara himself gradually assumed a female form. As Guanyin (Japanese: Kannon), Avalokiteshvara became probably the most popular figure in the entire panoply of buddhas and bodhisattvas.

It was, however, in the Vajrayana traditions that female deities became ubiquitous at the highest levels of the pantheon. From the 7th century onward, a riot of female divinities found their way into certain circles of Buddhist yogis, where they were actually represented by women partners in a special kind of sexual yoga (physical and mental discipline). The process was gradually interpreted as an internal form of celibate yoga, for, in accordance with Vajrayana theory, enlightenment is achieved by the union of Wisdom and Method, now conceived of symbolically as female and male. Thus, it became possible to present supreme Buddhahood as the union of a male and female pair and then to represent every celestial buddha or quasi-buddha by a pair of male and female forms. The actual sexual ritual was certainly performed at one time in India and Nepal, seemingly to a very limited extent in Tibet, and perhaps not at all in China and Japan. Nonetheless, this form of Tantric symbolism, with its plethora of female buddhas and quasi-buddhas, has been taken for granted as part of the received tradition of virtually all Vajrayana Buddhists.

Kings and yogis

The great Buddha myth is a combination of the ideals of universal kingship and universal religious preeminence. This is clearly expressed in the myth of the prophetic utterance of future greatness by the sage Asita, who examined auspicious signs on the infant Gautama and determined that he was a Mahapurusha (a Great Man capable of attaining universal rulership or Buddhahood) who was destined to become a buddha.

According to the Jataka tradition, Gautama, in his penultimate life as Vessantara (Sanskrit: Vishantara), had already realized the perfection of the extraordinary combination of kingship and all-abandoning asceticism. As crown prince, Vessantara was famous for his vast generosity, and, to the despair of his more practical-minded father, he accepted banishment to the forest. There he attained ultimate self-abnegation by giving away his children and his wife, and in some accounts even his own eyes. In the end all the things Vessantara had given up were miraculously restored to him, and, responding to the demands of his countrymen, he returned home to become the best of kings. Similarly, the last life of Gautama, up to the time of his great renunciation, is told entirely as a royal story.

Although the practice of Buddhist religion strictly required withdrawal from the world, or at least renunciation of its pleasures, the Buddha and his followers were eager to win royal support. They needed benefactors, and what better benefactor than a king. Any suggestion of royal benefaction thus resulted in the revival of the “myth” of the vastly generous monarch. Even within the Theravada tradition, the notion of the beneficent king as a bodhisattva has been prominent.

The most famous example of the mythologized kings is the Indian emperor Ashoka, who helped spread Buddhism and became the protagonist in many Buddhist legends. He is credited with having built 84,000 stupas as well as having disseminated Buddhism to neighbouring countries. On a smaller scale, legends embellish the life of King Tissa of Sri Lanka (3rd century bce), who presided over the arrival of Buddhism. Similar legends developed around other royal supporters of Buddhism, including Prince Shōtoku of Japan (died 622 ce)—whose enthusiasm for Buddhism is genuinely historical—Srong-brtsan-sgam-po of Tibet (died 650 ce), and Tibet’s two other great “kings of religion”: Khri-srong-lde-btsan (reigned 755–797 ce) and Ral-pa-can, who was assassinated in 838 ce.

The great 8th/9th-century stupa of Borobudur in central Java deliberately represents the ruling monarch of Java as a king who exhibited aspirations toward Buddhahood. The king presents himself as the bodhisattva par excellence. The Tibetans developed a similar idea when they identified their reincarnating Dalai Lama as a manifestation of their great patron, the bodhisattva Avalokiteshvara. The Manchu emperors of China were regarded as manifestations of the bodhisattva Manjushri.

From early in the history of Buddhism, the Buddha was recognized as a fully perfected yogi who possessed great religious insight and miraculous powers. Among the Buddha’s disciples, Maha Moggallana was especially known for his yogic attainments and magical powers. Notably, he traveled through various cosmic realms, bringing back to the Buddha reports of things that were transpiring in those worlds. In later Theravada accounts Maha Moggallana’s successor, the monk Phra Malai, visited the Tushita Heaven to question the future buddha Maitreya concerning the time when he was to be reborn on earth in order to complete his buddha mission.

At a more general level, the early disciples of Shakyamuni, known as arhats when they achieved perfection, were conceived of as miracle-working yogis and were presented in the early canonical literature in this way. This same ideal was acknowledged in the Theravada tradition, and all Theravada areas have claimed their share of arhats. But it was in Tibet, which drew on the more developed Indian myth of the mahasiddha (Sanskrit: “great yogi”) of the Tantric period (8th to 12th century ce), that this theme was most effusively developed. Especially famous are Padmasambhava (also called Guru Rimpoche), an 8th-century Indian yogi credited with having quelled the evil spirits of Tibet, and Pha-dam-pa Sangs-rgyas (died 1117), a Brahman of South India who became a Buddhist and visited Tibet and possibly China in the 11th century. Doubtless historical, Pha-dam-pa Sangs-rgyas passed out of history into myth with his fantastic powers and equally fantastic longevity. Better known in Europe is the story of the great Tibetan yogi Milarepa (1040–1123).

Early in the history of Chinese Buddhism, the same mythical tendencies appeared. Bodhidharma (6th century), the founder of Chan (Zen) Buddhism, was considered to be an Indian yogi. Subsequently, the ideal of the Buddhist sage, as typified by the arhats, coalesced in Chinese thought with the Daoist immortals (xian) in mythical figures known as lohans. In Japan new mythicized stories developed, some associated with the founders of Japanese schools such as Kūkai and Shinran, others with popular holy men who were the Buddhist counterparts of indigenous shamans and ascetics. Through the continued generation of such new myths and stories, Buddhism was able to move from culture to culture, taking root in each one along the way.