Refuge in Buddhism
Refuge in Buddhism begins with a carved stone panel from Chorasan in Gandhara, dated to the 2nd century AD and now kept in the Ethnological Museum of Berlin, showing veneration of what the tradition calls the Three Jewels. That panel is nearly two thousand years old. The recitation it depicts is still performed every morning in monasteries across Asia. Three words summarize it: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. Yet what those three words mean turns out to be one of the most contested questions in the entire tradition. Does taking refuge mean submitting to an authority? Is it a single act or a lifelong orientation? And what happens when a school decides the three jewels are not really three things at all?
Early Buddhist texts describe the Sangha as a "field of merit," a phrase that tells you a great deal about how the practice worked on the ground. Lay devotees made offerings to the monastic community believing those gifts generated karmic benefit and drew them closer to enlightenment. That exchange was not just transactional. The monk was also expected to sustain lay faith in return.
When monks misbehaved, the texts record that the Buddha shaped his response around lay perception. His stated rationale for new monastic rules was direct: bad conduct would fail to "persuade non-believers" and would cause "believers to turn away." The Buddha wanted monastics to support the spiritual life of others, but he drew a line: they were not to court favor by giving items to laypeople or by taking up occupations outside monastic life.
The Dharma jewel honors the truth and efficacy of the Buddha's teaching, including the impermanence of all phenomena and the Noble Eightfold Path to liberation. The Buddha jewel recognizes a supremely awakened being as teacher of both humans and devas, heavenly beings in Buddhist cosmology. The Kalama Sutra clarifies what faith here does not mean. The Buddha explicitly argued against simply following authority or tradition, naming the religions of his own time as examples to resist. Buddhist faith arises from accumulated experience and reasoning.
Lay followers often take the five precepts in the same ceremony as the refuges, and the combination is not accidental. Monks administer the precepts to laypeople, which the texts note creates an additional psychological effect beyond the words themselves. The five precepts are: not killing, not stealing, not misusing sex, not engaging in false speech, and not indulging in intoxicants. A layperson who upholds all five is described in the Pali texts as a "jewel among laymen."
Early Buddhism did not include bodhisattvas in the Three Refuges because they were considered still on the path to enlightenment, not yet fully arrived. The boundary of who counts as Sangha also extended carefully. It could stretch to lay people and even devas, but only those who were nearly or completely enlightened. The monastic community remained the core definition in the Pali Canon, and the role monks played in promoting faith among laypeople was treated as a formal responsibility, not a personal choice.
The Ratnagotravibhaga, a Mahayana treatise whose name means Analysis of the Jeweled Lineage, reframes all three jewels through the doctrine of the three bodies of a Buddha, known as the trikaya. The Buddha jewel in this text is described as without beginning, middle, or end; as peace; and as spontaneous Dharmakaya. The Dharma jewel becomes a non-conceptual reality that is neither existence nor non-existence, a luminous and stainless awareness that removes all defilement.
The Tibetan master Longchenpa summarized the Mahayana view this way: the Buddha jewel encompasses the totality of the three kayas; the Dharma jewel includes both scriptural transmission in sutras and tantras and the direct realization of self-knowing timeless awareness; the Sangha jewel consists of bodhisattvas, masters of awareness, and spiritually advanced beings still on the paths of learning.
In practice this expansion means the Buddha jewel now includes Amitabha, Vajradhara, and Vairocana alongside Sakyamuni. The Sangha jewel includes Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani, and Manjushri, figures absent from any early monastic definition. The gap between Sravakayana and Mahayana readings is not merely philosophical. It changes who a practitioner is actually turning toward.
The Srimala Sutra draws a hierarchy that many readers find surprising. According to that text, the Dharma and the Sangha are only "partial refuges." The Buddha, possessed of limitless compassion and not bound by time, is the supreme and ultimate refuge. The reasoning runs as follows: the Dharma attains the Dharmakaya while the Sangha, being afraid, looks to the Tathagata for refuge. Therefore taking refuge in the Dharma and Sangha is ultimately an act of taking refuge in the Buddha.
The Ratnagotravibhaga makes the same case by a different route. The Dharma as doctrine is like a boat: useful for crossing, abandoned on the far shore. The Dharma as realization divides into the truth of the path, which is artificial and impermanent, and the truth of cessation. That cessation is, according to the sravakas, simply an absence of defilement. An absence, the text argues, can be neither a refuge nor a non-refuge. The Sangha still fears, still has work to do, still relies on the Buddha. Anything that goes for refuge in another cannot itself be a refuge. Only the Buddha jewel, which possesses the Dharmakaya and neither arises nor disappears, is an eternal and lasting refuge.
The Srimala Sutra adds one further point: of the Four Noble Truths, only the noble truth of the extinction of suffering qualifies as a true refuge. It is permanent and separate from the conditioned world. The other three noble truths are conditioned, impermanent, and therefore, the sutra says bluntly, false and deceptive in nature.
Huineng, the sixth Chan patriarch, relocated the three refuges entirely. The Platform Sutra records him urging listeners to take refuge in the three jewels of their own essential nature rather than in any external figure. "Buddha" in his reading means awareness; "Dharma" means truth; "Sangha" means purity. The sutra is explicit: "if we do not take refuge in the buddha within ourselves, there is no other place for us to retreat."
The second patriarch Huike, quoted in the Records of the Transmission of the Lamp, put it in a single breath: "This Heart is Buddha, this Heart is Dharma; Dharma and Buddha are not two. The jewel of the Sangha is like this too." The Tsung Ching Record of Dazhu Huihai carried the logic to its conclusion, stating that mind is the Buddha and it is pointless to use this Buddha to seek the Buddha, and that Buddha and Dharma together form the Sangha. That formulation is named there: Three Jewels in One Substance.
The Mahaparinirvana Sutra supports the same direction from a different angle. It states that the Dharma and the Sangha exist within the buddha-nature itself, that distinctions between the three refuges were taught only to ferry sravakas and ordinary people to the other shore. Because the Buddha is permanently abiding and immutable, the sutra affirms, the Three Jewels all abide permanently. Vajrayana practitioners in Tibet work with still further layers: an outer Triple Gem, an inner form called the Three Roots, and a secret form identified with the trikaya itself, each employed according to the specific practices being undertaken.
The Triratna is the visual form of the Three Jewels, composed of a lotus flower within a circle, a diamond rod or vajra, an ananda-chakra, and a trident with three branches. Each branch of the trident stands for one of the three jewels: Buddha, Dharma, Sangha. On representations of the Buddha's footprint, the Triratna is usually also surmounted by the Dhamma wheel.
At Sanchi, the symbol appears in multiple forms across several centuries. Frieze sculptures dated to the 2nd century BCE show the Triratna crowning a flag standard. At the same site it marks the Buddha's throne, also from the 2nd century BCE. The later gates at Sanchi, dated to the 2nd century CE, use it again as a crowning decorative element. Hindus have their own name for the same form: nandipada, meaning bull's hoof.
The symbol also traveled onto coins issued by Buddhist kingdoms across the Indian subcontinent. The Kuninda Kingdom struck coins bearing the Triratna in the 1st century BCE. Abdagases I of the Indo-Scythians placed it above stupa images on his coins in the 1st century CE. Vima Kadphises of the Kushan Empire minted coins with the same symbol in the same century. The appearance of the Triratna on coins of three distinct kingdoms within a single century suggests it functioned as a recognized mark of Buddhist identity across political boundaries, carried in purses and market stalls as readily as it appeared on temple walls.
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Common questions
What are the Three Jewels in Buddhism?
The Three Jewels, also called the Triple Gem, Three Treasures, or Three Refuges (Pali: ti-ratana; Sanskrit: tri-ratna), are the Buddha, the Dharma (Buddhist teachings), and the Sangha (the community of followers). Taking refuge in all three is the foundational act of Buddhist practice shared by all major schools.
What does taking refuge actually involve?
Taking refuge is a recitation or prayer performed at the start of a day or a practice session. In early Buddhist scriptures it expresses determination to follow the Buddha's path but is not a surrender of personal responsibility. Lay followers often take the five precepts in the same ceremony.
What are the five precepts taken alongside refuge?
The five precepts are: not killing, not stealing, not misusing sex, not engaging in false speech, and not indulging in intoxicants. A layperson who upholds all five is described in the Pali texts as a 'jewel among laymen.'
How does Mahayana differ from early Buddhism in its understanding of the Three Jewels?
Mahayana expands all three categories. The Buddha jewel includes innumerable Buddhas such as Amitabha, Vajradhara, and Vairocana. The Dharma jewel includes Mahayana sutras and tantras in addition to the earlier Tripitaka. The Sangha jewel extends to advanced bodhisattvas like Avalokiteshvara, Vajrapani, and Manjushri.
Why does the Ratnagotravibhaga say only the Buddha is a true refuge?
The Ratnagotravibhaga argues that the Dharma as doctrine is ultimately abandoned like a boat, and the Dharma as cessation is merely an absence that cannot function as a refuge. The Sangha still relies on the Buddha for its own refuge, so it cannot independently serve as a refuge for others. Only the Buddha jewel, which possesses the Dharmakaya and neither arises nor disappears, is considered an eternal and lasting refuge.
What is the Triratna symbol and how old is it?
The Triratna is a Buddhist symbol representing the Three Jewels. It is composed of a lotus flower within a circle, a vajra, an ananda-chakra, and a trident with three branches. At Sanchi it appears in frieze sculptures dated to the 2nd century BCE, making it at least 2,200 years old in its documented form. It also appears on coins of the Kuninda Kingdom from the 1st century BCE.