Triratna: The Three Jewels of Tibetan Buddhism

Every Tibetan Buddhist prayer begins somewhere, and more often than not it begins here: namo ratna trayāya, "homage to the Three Jewels." The phrase is Sanskrit, it is old, and it opens liturgies across the Himalayan world. In Tibetan the same three are called dkon mchog gsum — usually translated "the Three Jewels," though that translation is doing more work than it looks.

The Three Jewels are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha. They are what a Buddhist takes refuge in, which makes them less a set of deities to petition than a statement of where a person has chosen to stand. This guide covers what the triratna is, where its symbol came from, how it is read in Tibetan art, and where it differs from three neighbouring sets that English readers keep confusing it with.

What the Triratna Is (Definition & Identity)

The name is Sanskrit: tri-ratna, "three jewels," also given as ratna-traya; in Pali, ti-ratana. The three are the Buddha, the Dharma and the Sangha.

• Buddha — the awakened teacher, Shakyamuni, and, in the Mahayana reading, the awakened nature that is the goal rather than only the person who first pointed at it.
• Dharma — the teaching and its realisation: the words, and the understanding the words are meant to produce. The Sanskrit term covers both at once.
• Sangha — the community of practitioners. Tibetan usage often tightens the object of refuge here to the noble sangha, the community of realised beings, rather than every person who has taken a vow.

Here is the first thing the Tibetan wording should teach an English reader. dkon mchog is not a literal translation of ratna. dkon carries the sense of rare, scarce, hard to find; mchog means supreme or highest. Put together, dkon mchog reads closer to "rare and supreme" or "rare excellence." The jewel metaphor is inherited from the Sanskrit, not invented on the plateau. "Three Jewels" is a fair rendering of the Indian term and a slightly loose gloss on the Tibetan one.

Committing to the three is refuge — Tibetan skyabs 'gro, literally "going for protection." It is the formal entry to the Buddhist path, recited three times, once for each jewel, and it marks the line between an interested reader and a practising Buddhist.

The Three Jewels of Tibetan Buddhism

Origins & History

Refuge in the three is as old as the community it describes. The formula is already present in the earliest layers of the Pali canon, which is why it is one of the few Buddhist commitments shared, without much argument, by every school that followed. Theravada, Chinese and Tibetan traditions all recite a version of the same vow, though they parse the third jewel differently.

The image, meanwhile, is older than the word we use for the symbol. On the great Indian stupas the triratna appears as a sculpted motif long before any surviving text bothers to explain it. At Sanchi, on gates and railings dated roughly the second century BCE to the second century CE, it crowns a flag standard and appears on the Buddha's throne. Buddha footprints from the Gandharan region carry it from about the first century CE. Amaravati dome slabs of the second and third centuries CE show rows of triratnas resting on lotuses. It also appears on first-century BCE coins of the Kuninda kingdom, and as a finial on a first-century phial stopper now in the British Museum. What began as a mark on monumental architecture became small enough to carry.

Symbolism (Core Meaning)

The core symbolism of the triratna is simple once you separate it from its shape. The three jewels are the three things a practitioner relies on: the teacher who showed the way, the teaching that describes it, and the people walking it alongside you. Remove any one and the arrangement stops working — a teacher without a teaching is a personality, a teaching without a community is a book.

The symbol most associated with the three is a trident-like standard with three branches, usually rising out of a lotus, often surmounted by a dharma wheel. The three prongs read as the three jewels; the lotus as purity arising in the world; the wheel, when present, as the teaching in motion. Gandharan artists sometimes rendered the same idea as three dharma wheels, or as three lotuses.

There is a physical shorthand taught alongside this, though it is commonly taught rather than quoted from any single canonical passage: the three supports (rten gsum) that stand for the three jewels. A statue stands for the Buddha's body. A scripture stands for his speech. A stupa stands for his mind. Walk into a Tibetan shrine room and the three are there in that order.

In Tibetan painting the Three Jewels frequently sit at the lower part of a thangka, sometimes encircled by flames — the refuge at the base of the picture, as it is the base of the practice.

In Ritual & Daily Practice

Refuge is not a mood. It is a procedure, and it is short. Most Tibetan liturgies open with it, which is why the three-jewel formula is the single most repeated line in the tradition.

• As the entry to the path. Taking refuge is the formal beginning. Before it, a person is interested. After it, a person has made a commitment.
• As the opener of almost every sadhana. Refuge comes first, followed closely by bodhichitta — the wish to awaken for the sake of others. A Tibetan sadhana that skipped its refuge would feel like a door without a frame.
• As the object of merit. The three are the field in which merit is accumulated — offerings, prostrations and recitations are all directed toward them, which is where the seven offering bowls come in.
• As a gesture. The refuge-granting hand position, the sharanagamana mudra, is the visual counterpart to the spoken formula — a hand granting protection, which is what skyabs 'gro actually claims.

Practitioners repeat the triple refuge daily, which is why it is the first thing a new student is asked to learn. For how the objects of this practice are made and consecrated, the guide to self-consecration and filling for sacred statues covers the other side of the same commitment.

Reading the Motif in Tibetan Art

Recognising the three-jewel symbol takes adjustment if you read Buddhist art by its figures: the triratna is abstract, easy to mistake for ornament.

The standard form is the three-branched emblem: a stem, three prongs, and very often a lotus base. Look for it as a finial on a standard or a roof, on the lower register of a thangka, and on small metalwork where it is compressed into a few millimetres. When it is painted with flames around it, that is not a separate symbol — the fire is part of the same statement, marking the emblem as sacred rather than decorative.

Where the three appear as objects rather than as a symbol, Tibetan shrine rooms keep them in the classic triad of supports: a statue for the body, a text for the speech, a stupa for the mind. A great deal of Tibetan devotional art is organised around the same three-part logic, and once you see the triad, thresholds, altars and thangka layouts stop looking arbitrary.

The same logic runs through the wider painted tradition. The symbols and offerings series puts the triratna in the company of motifs that each do one job, and the triratna's job is to mark the ground on which all the rest stand. Where you see the wheel flanked by deer, that is the teaching in another guise; see the wheel with two deer for how the Dharma jewel is drawn on its own.

Common Misconceptions & Distinctions

Most confusion about the Three Jewels comes from three other sets that share vocabulary or count to three. Keeping them apart is most of the work.

They are not three gods. Refuge is a commitment to a path, not the worship of a creator, and the three jewels are not a pantheon to pray to for favours. The Buddha is not a deity who grants wishes; the Dharma is not scripture to be appeased; the Sangha is not a priesthood mediating between a person and a power.

They are not the Three Roots. The tsa wa gsum — lama, yidam and dakini (in Tibetan, khandro) — are a different set with a different job, and English readers mix them up constantly. The Three Jewels and the Three Roots are related but do not substitute for one another: the jewels are what you take refuge in, the roots are where the blessing of a tantric practice is traced.

They are not the three kayas. Dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya are an analysis of awakened being — three aspects of buddhahood — rather than three objects of refuge. Same number, different subject.

They are not the ratna family. In the five-buddha-family scheme there is a ratna (jewel) family, and it shares the word ratna with the Three Jewels and nothing else. The coincidence is linguistic. For the deities and families this belongs to, see the guide to Tibetan Buddhist deities and yidams.

They are not the same in every tradition. In the Chinese and Chan formulation the sangha jewel is treated differently — more as the community of practitioners than as the noble sangha of realised beings — and the "three refuges and five precepts" lay ceremony is one setting in which the triple refuge is used, not the whole of it.

The trident is not Shiva's trishula. The three-jewel emblem and the trident of Shiva belong to the same broad shape family and mean entirely different things. The resemblance is what makes them easy to conflate and worth telling apart.

Conclusion & Collecting Guide

The Three Jewels are where Tibetan Buddhism starts. Long before the elaborate pantheons, the mudras and the ritual implements, there are three things a person relies on, and the tradition returns to them at the opening of every liturgy. Understand the triratna and a good deal of Tibetan art stops looking like a wall of symbols and starts looking like a curriculum.

The symbol rewards close looking when you are handling objects. The three-branched emblem appearing as a finial, pressed into a stupa amulet, or tucked low on a thangka is a maker signalling what the piece is for. Worked in silver or carved in stone, it is a good test of precision: three clean prongs over a lotus base tolerate no sloppiness. Pieces that carry it include scripture buckles and small amulets, alongside the statues, texts and stupas that embody the three supports directly.

Further reading: background drawn from Loden Sherap Dagyab Rinpoche, Buddhist Symbols in Tibetan Culture, and Robert Beer, The Encyclopedia of Tibetan Symbols and Motifs. See also Refuge in Buddhism and Three Jewels and Three Roots.