Ratnasambhava — “the Jewel-Born” — is one of the Five Wisdom Buddhas of Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism: the Buddha of the South, the lord of generosity and the precious jewel, who transmutes the poison of pride and greed into the wisdom of equanimity, the awareness that sees the fundamental sameness of all beings. He is the Buddha of giving and of the equality of all things.
The Jewel-Born Buddha
Ratnasambhava’s name means “the origin of jewels” or “the jewel-born,” and his emblem is the ratna, the wish-fulfilling jewel, and the gesture of varada mudra — the open hand of giving and granting. He embodies the perfection of generosity (dana), the open-handed giving that is the first of the Buddhist virtues and the foundation of the bodhisattva path. As the source of the precious jewel, he is associated with abundance, with the granting of wishes, and with the spiritual wealth of the dharma.
The Wisdom of Equanimity
Among the Five Wisdom Buddhas, Ratnasambhava presides over the South and embodies the wisdom of equanimity (samata-jnana) — the enlightened awareness that perceives the essential equality and sameness of all beings and all phenomena, beyond the distinctions of self and other, high and low, that feed pride and greed. He is the transmuter of the poison of pride, conceit, and avarice: the grasping ego, purified, becomes this wisdom of even-minded equality, the recognition that all beings share the same fundamental nature. He is associated with the colour yellow or gold, the element of earth, the horse as his vehicle, and the season of growth and ripening.
The Lord of the South
Ratnasambhava is invoked for the cultivation of generosity and equanimity, the overcoming of pride and miserliness, and the granting of both material and spiritual abundance. In the great mandalas he sits in the south, completing with the other four the map of the transformation of the five poisons into the five wisdoms. In Ratnasambhava, Buddhism gave form to generosity and equality — the jewel-born Buddha of the open hand, the lord of the South, the transmuter of pride and greed into the wisdom that sees all beings as equal and grants the precious jewel of the dharma to all.