Bhavacakras

Refers to Buddhist, particularly Tibetan, paintings portraying the endless process of birth, death, and rebirth (samsara) as a wheel. The many pictures on the wheel represent the conditions of samsara as well as the moral and mental factors that cause an individual to remain within samsara. The wheel is clutched by a demon monster, symbolizing death and impermanence. Bhavacakras are usually found on tankas or painted in the doorways of Tibetan temples. The earliest surviving example is a 6th-century fresco at Ajanta. The drawing of the bhavacakra was originally developed, supposedly by the Buddha himself, as a pedagogic device that could be used to teach the non-literate about Buddhist truths. The term, which is Sanskrit, translates to the 'wheel of existence.'