Akṣayamati (; also called Inexhaustible Awareness) is a

bodhisattva In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is a person who has attained, or is striving towards, '' bodhi'' ('awakening', 'enlightenment') or Buddhahood. Often, the term specifically refers to a person who forgoes or delays personal nirvana or ''bodhi'' in ...

who appears in the

Lotus Sutra The ''Lotus Sūtra'' (Sanskrit: ''Saddharma Puṇḍarīka Sūtram'', ''Sūtra on the White Lotus of the True Dharma'', zh, p=Fǎhuá jīng, l=Dharma Flower Sutra) is one of the most influential and venerated Buddhist Mahāyāna sūtras. ...

and the Akṣayamatinirdeśa Sūtra within the larger Mahāvaipulya Mahāsamghāta Sūtra. He is recognized as one of the sixteen bodhisattvas of the auspicious aeon (''bhadrakalpa''). He also has the ability to perceive and understand all actions of cause and effect (Skt. aparuṣā).

Lotus Sutra

In Chapter 25 of the

, Akṣayamati asks

the Buddha Siddhartha Gautama, most commonly referred to as the Buddha (),* * * was a śramaṇa, wandering ascetic and religious teacher who lived in South Asia during the 6th or 5th century BCE and founded Buddhism. According to Buddhist lege ...

to elaborate on the character of the bodhisattva

Avalokiteśvara In Buddhism, Avalokiteśvara (meaning "the lord who looks down", International Phonetic Alphabet, IPA: ), also known as Lokeśvara ("Lord of the World") and Chenrezig (in Tibetan), is a Bodhisattva#Bhūmis (stages), tenth-level bodhisattva associ ...

. After receiving a detailed explanation on the Bodhisattva's wanderings throughout the world, Akṣayamati offers Avalokiteśvara a pearl necklace of great value. Avalokiteśvara refuses at first, but Akṣayamati entreats him to accept it for the Dharma, out of compassion. Avalokiteśvara finally accepts the necklace out of compassion for the fourfold assembly, devas,

nāga In various Asian religious traditions, the Nāgas () are a divine, or semi-divine, race of half-human, half-serpent beings that reside in the netherworld (Patala), and can occasionally take human or part-human form, or are so depicted in art. ...

s, yakshas,

gandharvas A ''gandharva'' () is a member of a class of celestial beings in Indian religions, such as Hinduism, Buddhism, and Jainism, whose males are divine performers such as musicians and singers, and the females are divine dancers. In Hinduism, they ...

asuras Asuras () are a class of beings in Indian religions, and later Persian and Turkic mythology. They are described as power-seeking beings related to the more benevolent Deva (Hinduism), Devas (also known as Suras) in Hinduism. In its Buddhism, ...

garuda Garuda (; ; Vedic Sanskrit: , ) is a Hindu deity who is primarily depicted as the mount (''vahana'') of the Hindu god Vishnu. This divine creature is mentioned in the Hindu, Buddhist, and Jain faiths. Garuda is also the half-brother of the D ...

s, kinnaras, mahoragas, humans, non-humans, etc.

Sources

* * Bodhisattvas {{Buddhist-myth-stub