The Bhavacakra or Wheel of Becoming is a complex symbolic representation of saṃsāra in the form of a circle, used primarily in Tibetan Buddhism. Saṃsāra is the continuous cycle of birth, life, and death from which one liberates oneself through enlightenment. Legend has it that the Buddha himself created the first depiction of the bhavacakra, and the story of how he gave the illustration to King Rudrāya?a appears in the anthology of Buddhist narratives called the Divyavadana. In the Buddhist depiction, different karmic actions contribute to one's metaphorical existence in different realms, or rather, different actions reinforce personal characteristics described by the realms. Leading from the human realm to the outside of the wheel depicts the Buddhist path. The Bhavacakra is sometimes displayed with five sections, but the more recent and more common form has six sections. The areas between the six spokes represent the six forms of unenlightened existence.
