Key Terms/trikāya

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त्रिकाय trikāya
three bodies
སྐུ་གསུམ།
sku gsum
三身
sānshēn
Sanskrit - Noun
1·Discover

Basic Meaning

The three enlightened forms of a buddha one attains when one becomes fully enlightened. They include the truth body (dharmakāya), enjoyment body (saṃbhogakāya), and the emanation body (nirmāṇakāya). The three bodies comprise the many qualities and powers associated with buddhahood and thus are the result sought through Mahāyāna Buddhist practice.

2·Explore

Has the sense of

The three aspects of perfect enlightenment of a buddha: the enlightened state of one's mind after full transformation, the pure physical existence one attains as a result of inner perfection, and the myriad forms one can emanate from the enlightened state to help others.

In other languages
Tibetan
སྐུ་གསུམ།
sku gsum
kusum
Sanskrit
त्रिकाय
trikāya
Chinese
三身
sānshēn
How translators render it
three bodiesBuddha-nature Standard
three kayasRichard Barron
the three exalted bodiesJeffrey Hopkins
three buddha bodiesIves Waldo
In the dictionaries
Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary

three Bodies [thd]. *. {chos sku}. dharmakaya, {longs spyod rdzogs pa'i sku}. or sambhogakaya, and {sprul pa'i sku}. nirmanakaya. trikaya, the three bodies of the buddha. Three kayas. Dharmakaya, sambhogakaya and nirmanakaya. The * as ground are 'essence, nature, and capacity'; as path they are 'bliss, clarity and nonthought,' and as fruition they are the '* of buddhahood.' The * of buddhahood are the dharmakaya, which is free from elaborate constructs and endowed with the 'twenty-one sets of enlightened qualities;' the sambhogakaya, which is of the nature of light and endowed with the perfect major and minor marks perceptible only to bodhisattvas; and the nirmanakaya, which manifests in forms perceptible to both pure and impure beings

Term type
Noun
Source language
Sanskrit
Topic
trikāya
On this topic