Three Jewels · Pāli: tiratana; Skt: triratna

Also called the Triple Gem or the Threefold Refuge, the Three Jewels are the three things a Buddhist turns to and relies on. The Pali term is tiratana, which Access to Insight’s glossary gives as “The ‘Triple Gem’ consisting of the Buddha, Dhamma, and Saṅgha — ideals to which all Buddhists turn for refuge”. Ṭhānissaro Bhikkhu makes the same point in his introduction to the subject: “The refuges in Buddhism — both on the internal and on the external levels — are the Buddha, Dhamma, and Sangha, also known as the Triple Gem.”

The Dhammapada sets these three against the refuges people run to out of fear, “to hills, woods, groves, trees and shrines”, and says plainly that “such, indeed, is no safe refuge”. Of the Three Jewels it says instead that one “who has gone for refuge to the Buddha, the Teaching and his Order, penetrates with transcendental wisdom the Four Noble Truths”, and that “this indeed is the safe refuge, this the refuge supreme”.

Each jewel repays a second look. Dhamma is a wide word, covering “(1) Event; a phenomenon in and of itself; (2) mental quality; (3) doctrine, teaching; (4) nibbāna”; as a refuge it is sense three, the teaching. Sangha carries two senses at once: “On the conventional (sammuti) level, this term denotes the communities of Buddhist monks and nuns; on the ideal (ariya) level, it denotes those followers of the Buddha, lay or ordained, who have attained at least stream-entry.” So someone reciting the refuges may have the monastic order in mind, or the awakened community, or both. Our guide to taking refuge covers what that involves.