Buddhist and Jain literatures describe their enlightened founders (the Buddha or Buddhas and the tīrthaṅkaras, respectively) in similar terms, the notion being that religious truth transcends local or national limitations and applies to all people everywhere. This idea is particularly evident in Buddhist oral and scriptural traditions, which frequently refer to Gautama as a cakravāla cakravarti, an illuminator of dharma (life in adherence to compassionate truth) in all regions of the world.