
Indra's Net
300 CE
A Net Over Indra's Sky Palace
The traditional image is simple and strange. Far above, over the palace of the god Indra, stretches a net in every direction. At each intersection of the net there hangs a clear jewel. Each jewel is polished so perfectly that it reflects every other jewel. If you lean in and look into a single jewel, you see the whole net. Within each tiny reflection, the net appears again, and within that reflection again, without end.
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The traditional image is simple and strange. Far above, over the palace of the god Indra, stretches a net in every direction. At each intersection of the net there hangs a clear jewel. Each jewel is polished so perfectly that it reflects every other jewel. If you lean in and look into a single jewel, you see the whole net. Within each tiny reflection, the net appears again, and within that reflection again, without end.
This is not just fantasy decor for a deity's home. The net is a picture of reality. Each jewel stands for a single phenomenon. A person, a tree, a memory, a galaxy. The image says that nothing exists alone. What anything is, is made of its reflections and relations with everything else.






























































