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The Dharma-wheel, the symbol of the Buddha's teachings―here celebrated as a gift by its donors―has been central to Buddhist practice from its beginnings. The Lalitavistara, an early Sanskrit text recounting the life of the Buddha, describes its veneration: "It was an exquisite wheel adorned with all kinds of jewels…. It had a hub, a rim, and a thousand spokes. It was adorned with flower garlands, lattices of gold, tassels with bells[, and] various marks of auspiciousness, beautifully wrapped in divine fabrics and dyed in different colors. It was strewn with flowers of the heavens, and rubbed with perfumed ointments" (translated by the Dharma-chakra Translation Committee).