chakravartin

chakravartin, the ancient Indian conception of the world ruler, derived from the Sanskrit chakra, “wheel,” and vartin, “one who turns.” Thus, a chakravartin may be understood as a ruler “whose chariot wheels roll everywhere,” or “whose movements are unobstructed.”

Buddhist and Jain sources distinguish three types of secular chakravartin: chakravala chakravartin, a king who rules over all four of the continents posited by ancient Indian cosmography (i.e., a universal monarch); dvipa chakravartin, a ruler who governs only one of those continents and is, therefore, less powerful than the first; and pradesha chakravartin, a monarch who leads the people of only a part of a continent, the equivalent of a local king. The first reference to a secular king who achieved the status of a chakravala chakravartin appears in texts and monuments from the Mauryan dynasty that praise the exploits of King Ashoka (3rd century bce). Buddhist and Jain philosophers of this period conflated the notion of the universal monarch with the idea of a king of righteousness and maintainer of moral law. In Buddhism, for example, the chakravartin was considered to be the secular counterpart of a buddha (“enlightened one”), with whom he shared many attributes.