Sanskrit Noun
dharmakāya
true being
धर्मकाय
ཆོས་སྐུ་
法身
Basic Meaning
"Truth body" or "true being" — One of the three bodies of a buddha. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, it often refers to a kind of fundamental principle or the true nature of reality itself.
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| Term Variations | |
|---|---|
| Key Term | dharmakāya |
| Topic Variation | dharmakāya |
| Tibetan | ཆོས་སྐུ་ ( chö ku) |
| Wylie Tibetan Transliteration | chos sku ( chö ku) |
| Devanagari Sanskrit | धर्मकाय |
| Romanized Sanskrit | dharmakāya |
| Chinese | 法身 |
| Chinese Pinyin | fǎ shēn |
| Japanese Transliteration | hosshin |
| Buddha-nature Site Standard English | true being |
| Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term | Dharma Body |
| Richard Barron's English Term | dharmakaya, dimension/ stratum of authentic/ true being |
| Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term | Truth Body, Actual Body |
| Dan Martin's English Term | Dharmabody |
| Gyurme Dorje's English Term | buddha body of reality, buddha body of actual reality |
| Ives Waldo's English Term | body of enlightened qualities, Dharma-body |
| Term Information | |
| Source Language | Sanskrit |
| Basic Meaning | "Truth body" or "true being" — One of the three bodies of a buddha. In Mahāyāna Buddhism, it often refers to a kind of fundamental principle or the true nature of reality itself. |
| Term Type | Noun |
| Definitions | |
| Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism | See page 246: In Sanskrit, often translated as “truth body,” one of the two (along with the rūpakāya) or three (along with the saṃbhogakāya and nirmāṇakāya) bodies of a buddha. In early discussions of the true nature of the Buddha, especially regarding the person of the Buddha to whom one goes for refuge (saraņa), the term dharmakāya seems to have been coined to refer to the corpus or collection (kāya) of the auspicious qualities (dharma) of the Buddha, including his wisdom, his compassion, his various powers, etc.; it also referred to the entire corpus (kāya) of the Buddha’s teachings (dharma). In the Mahāyāna, the term evolved into a kind of cosmic principle that was regarded as the true nature of the Buddha and the source from which his various other forms derived.... |
