(Bhaisajaguru / Yakushi Nyorai <Japanese>)
Emanating from a palace adorned with healing jewels and surrounded by forests of fragrant herbs and medicinal plants, the Medicine Buddha is the primordial image of the divine healer. The sky-blue Light radiating from his body disperses the darkness of afflictive emotions and all related physical disorders. Surrounded by a retinue of gods, sages and naked ascetics (described as sleeping at night under blankets of leaves and by day wearing only the bark of trees), the Medicine Buddha - the supreme benefactor known as the King of Aquamarine Light (also Lapis Lazuli Light) - expounded the quintessence of healing and longevity in a discourse entitled the 'Tantra of Secret Instructions on the Eight Branches of the Essence of Immortality', more commonly referred to as the Gyushi, or Four Medical Tantras.
-- Image and text courtesy "The Tibetan Art of HeaIing" ; text by Jan A. Baker / Chronicle Books/ Thames & Hudson Ltd. London copyright 1997