Chakravarti (Sanskrit term)
[citation needed] The Tibetan equivalent ཁོར་ལོས་སྒྱུར་བའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་ (khor los sgyur ba'i rgyal po) translates to "monarch who controls by means of a wheel".
[citation needed] According to the traditions "Vishnu, in the form of Chakra, was held as the ideal of worship for Kings desirous of obtaining Universal Sovereignty",[6]: 48 a concept associated with the Bhagavata Puranas, a religious sanction traceable to the Gupta period,[7] which also led to the chakravartin concept.
In Southern India, the Pallava period beginning with Simhavishnu (575–900 CE) was a transitional stage in southern Indian society with monument building, establishment of Bhakti sects of Alvars and Nayanars, flowering of rural Brahmanical institutions of Sanskrit learning, and the establishment of Chakravartin model of emperorship over a territory of diverse people; which ended the pre-Pallavan era of territorially segmented people, each with their culture, under a tribal chieftain.
[8] The Pallava period extolled ranked relationships based on ritual purity as enjoined by the shastras.
[9] During the each motion of the half-cycle of the wheel of time, 63 Salakapurusa or 63 illustrious men, consisting of the 12 Chakravartin regularly appear.
[3]: 175–176 The early Buddhist Mahāvastu (1.259f) and the Divyāvadāna, as well as the Theravadin Milindapañha, describe the marks of the chakravarti as ruler: uṣṇīṣa, chhatra "parasol", "horn jewel" or vajra, whisk and sandals.
Plastic art of early Mahayana Buddhism illustrates bodhisattvas in a form called uṣṇīṣin "wearing a turban/hair binding", wielding the mudras for "nonviolent cakravarti rule".
