 Further, it was assumed in Indian Buddhism that two buddhas could not appear in a single epoch of a world system, any more than two “universal monarchs” (cakravartin) could rule simultaneously. Thus, the existence of innumerable buddhas implied that there are myriads of purified buddha-fields over which they preside, for it may be expected that, through aeons of history in numberless worlds, countless beings will have attained supreme awakening by following the bodhisattva path, and these beings all work for the liberation of others in their own spheres of realization. Mahayana writings often refer to the concept of the “great chiliocosm,” which is made up of one billion universes. In the Mahayana cosmology, there are great chiliocosms countless as the sands of the Ganges throughout the ten quarters, and most are buddha-fields, or parts of buddha-fields, in which a buddha teaches dharma for the benefit of its inhabitants. Our own universe—called the Sahā world, or “world in which pain must be endured”—is the buddha-field of Sakyamuni, the sphere in which he appeared in order to save the beings within it. Thus, the entire cosmos is a panoply of countless buddha-fields in which the drama of the salvation of all beings is carried out, with buddhas and bodhisattvas radiating the light of wisdom-compassion for all living things.