Skip to content
Home » The Four Attributes and Archetypes of the Vajra

The Four Attributes and Archetypes of the Vajra

Adam Willis shares his illustrations of the Vajra

The vajra has been a familiar but elusive symbol in Buddhist iconography for me over the years, cropping up in many images of Akshobhya, Padmasambhava, Vajrapani, Vajrasattva and even Amoghsiddhi holding a double vajra. I never quite understood its full significance until last year when I read a great short book called The Vajra and Bell by Vessantara, which helped clarify its many qualities.

He details that the vajra represents an enlightened mind embodied by four attributes of a diamond, philosopher’s stone, thunderbolt and royal sceptre.

💎 A diamond is one of the hardest enduring natural substances known to man and evokes the immutable nature of an enlightened mind.

🔸 The philosopher’s stone is a mythic alchemical substance with the power to transmute metals and represents the capability to transform ourselves.

⚡ A thunderbolt symbolises a momentary flash of transcendental insight which destroys ignorance and delusion.

👑 A sceptre is a royal ceremonial staff bestowed to a monarch empowered to rule by a deity.

He also goes on to point out that the four attributes of a vajra incidentally correspond to four traditional masculine archetypes identified by Jungian psychologists Robert Moore and Douglas Gillette.

These four deep patterns in the male psyche include the king who brings order, the warrior who fights courageously, the magician who conjures transformations and the lover who connects eternally to people of the world.

This unification of the attributes and archetypes helped clarify for me the multi-faceted, rich symbolism of the vajra and the inspiring qualities it holds to enlighten the mind.

The Vajra and Bell by Vessantara is unfortunately no longer available on Windhorse Publications but you can download an ebook edition from Amazon.

You can also check out my other dharmic illustrations and creative work on Instagram @addwillis.