The Wheel of Life is a presentation of the Buddhist teaching on suffering and impermanence of life cycle.The Lord of Death, Yama, holds the wheel of life between his teeth, hands and feet.

At the center of the wheel are three delusions represented by a toxic red rooster (passion and desire), a green snake (the hatred and aggression) and a black pig (ignorance and confusion). These three creatures chase and bite the tail of one another, giving rise to endless cycle or becoming homeless.

In the next circle rise to be among the three kingdoms higher, or fall to enter the three kingdoms lower. The six areas are represented in the spokes of the wheel.

Hell area in the lower part of the wheel is characterized by extreme suffering of various hot and cold hells. The hungry ghost or preta field in the bottom left is characterized by thirst and hunger enormous. The inhabitants of this vast area with an empty stomach and mouth as injections. The animal area is characterized by extreme stupidity. The gods jealous in the upper left corner, suffer the competitiveness and ambition in their efforts to achieve their desires. The god kingdoms are sensual heaven, where people are fully involved in the search for pleasure. Only in the human, with its constant fluctuation of pleasure and pain Dharma can be clearly heard and achieved liberation.

In the outer ring are the twelve links in the chain of dependence that arise. Clockwise from the top, they are:

• The ignorance (a blind person)
• Action (a potter)
• Consciousness (a monkey holding fruits)
• The name and form (a person a rowing boat)
• Sources (an empty house with five windows and a door)
• Contact (sexual contact)
• Feeling (a person with an arrow in the eye)
• Craving (a person to drink alcohol)
• Grasping (a monkey picking fruit of a tree)
• Becoming (a pregnant woman)
• Rebirth (a baby being born)
• Old age and death (an old person who walks with a cane)

The wheel of Life is considered an endless life cycle of human being. It is believed to have been drawn first by the Buddha himself As seen in the picture, a minister demon, usually identified as Yama the god of death, clutches the whole wheel. In the smallest circle at the centre a pig, snake and cock symbolize the three cardinal sins of ignorance (Pig), anger (Snake) and lust (Cock), and are biting each others tails to show that these evils are inseparably connected. In the narrow circle around the innermost circle the light half at the viewer’s left shows figures ascending to higher levels of existence, the dark half at the right shows figures descending to lower levels. The six main segments of the wheel depict the six world existence. In the upper half are the relatively happier realms of the gods, the asuras or demigods and human being. In the lower half are the more wretched realms of the animals, pretas or hungry ghosts, and those tortured in hell.

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