Board Thread:Naruto: The Last Discussion/@comment-945885-20150113144756/@comment-945885-20150126200217

As I interepret it, the Rinnegan basically gives Hagoromo the power to make and unmake reality. He can create form from nothing and so forth. Create and destroy.

The purpose behind Hamura's Tenseigan is either to destroy the world to punish mankind (as Toneri believed), or to regenerate the world in the event that mankind destroyed it (Hamura's true intent). Extinction / Regeneration.

Of course, there's so many weird little powers with both that... who knows, really?

The names for the two doujutsu come from "Rinnetensei," a four character idiom that would literally translate as something like, "the wheel rotates and life revolves," meaning "everything is in a constant state of flux through the endless circle of birth, death, and rebirth." The two individual words are Rinne (samsara -- "rotating wheel") and Tensei (reincarnation - "revolving life"). The samsara is the repeating cycle of life, death and rebirth, and reincarnation is the actual act of moving through the samsara by dying and being reborn.