The bodhisattva of wisdom is now called Mañjuśrī. The word of Mañjuśrī primarily means an adolescent youth endowed with eternal or everlasting beauty. In Gandhāran monasteries male homosexuality or pederasty was tolerated and valued to a certain extent. On the other hand, copying and making book of sūtra (Prajñāpāramitāsūtra) were recommended and popular in Gandhāran Mahāyāna Buddhism. Eventually, the combination of pederasty or adoration of young, beautiful man including monastics and the cult of the book engendered an image of the Bodhisattva Mañjuśrī. Therefore, Mañjuśrī was originally not the bodhisattva of wisdom but rather a visualization of extremely beautiful and good Buddhist youth to copy sūtra and make its pustaka. It was when Mañjuśrī became an independent cultic image or one of the two flanking attendants in the Gandhāran Amida or Śakya triad that he was assumed for the first time to be wisdom incarnate or as the bodhisattva of wisdom.
