gotra
gotra
Basic Meaning
Disposition, lineage, or class; an individual's gotra determines the type of enlightenment one is destined to attain.
Has the Sense of
Gotra is used in Buddhist literature in a wide variety of ways. In Yogācāra it is used in the sense of family, lineage, or type to classify beings according to their innate capacity for progress on the path to enlightenment.
Term Variations | |
---|---|
Key Term | gotra |
Topic Variation | gotra |
Tibetan | རིགས་ |
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration | rigs |
Devanagari Sanskrit | गोत्र |
Romanized Sanskrit | gotra |
Chinese | 鍾姓, 種性 |
Chinese Pinyin | zhōng xìng |
Buddha-nature Site Standard English | potential |
Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term | disposition |
Richard Barron's English Term | spiritual affinity, spiritual potential |
Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term | type, kind, lineage |
Ives Waldo's English Term | nationality, bloodline, variety, status |
Term Information | |
Source Language | Sanskrit |
Basic Meaning | Disposition, lineage, or class; an individual's gotra determines the type of enlightenment one is destined to attain. |
Has the Sense of | Gotra is used in Buddhist literature in a wide variety of ways. In Yogācāra it is used in the sense of family, lineage, or type to classify beings according to their innate capacity for progress on the path to enlightenment. |
Related Terms | dhātu, buddhadhātu |
Term Type | Noun |
Definitions | |
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism | See page 325: In Sanskrit, “family” or “lineage,” used in a figurative sense. The vinaya explains that those in a noble family or line are those monks who are content with their robes, with whatever they receive in their begging bowls, and with low-quality bedding, and who take pleasure in forsaking the unwholesome (akuśala) and cultivating the wholesome (kuśala). In the Pāli abhidhamma, the moment when one’s concentration or insight moves from one “family” to another is called “change of lineage” (gotrabhū). In Mahāyāna literature (especially that associated with the Yogācāra), gotra refers to a destiny, almost in the sense of a spiritual disposition, that prompts one to follow a particular path to enlightenment. There is typically a list of five such spiritual destinies (pańcagotra) found in Yogācāra literature: (1) the tathāgata lineage, for those destined to become buddhas; (2) the pratyekabuddha lineage, for those destined to become arhats via the pratyekabuddhayāna; (3) the Śrāvaka lineage, for those who will become arhats via the śrāvakayāna; (4) those of indefinite (aniyata) lineage, who may change from any of three vehicles to another; and (5) those without lineage (agotra), who are ineligible for liberation or who have lost the prospect of becoming enlightened by being “incorrigibles” (icchantika). Another division of lineage is into Prakṛtisthagotra (naturally present) and samudānitagotra (developed). According to the Yogācārabhūmiśāstra, the former refers to one’s innate potential for spiritual achievement; the latter refers to the specific individual habits one can develop that will help speed the mastery of that potential. See also Faxiang zong; Śrāvakabhūmi. |
Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary | kinds, types (ggd). 1) kinds, varieties, types, aspects. 2) caste, bloodline, lineage, extraction, birth, descent, lineage, family, noble, potential, class, gene (spiritual genes), type, category, status. 2) specific spiritual family, Buddha family. 3) Buddha nature. 4) nature. Syn (snying po) 5) reason. 6) certain (in end of sentence) it is certain!. 7) will understand. 8) causal ground. 9) possibility, capability, potential. 10) philosophy. 11) realm. Syn khams. 12) appropriateness. 13) gotra, here "go" comes from guna, quality. "Tra" means to protect. So gotra means to protect the qualities (yon tan skyob pa). |
Synonyms | kula; vaṃśa |
Grammatical / Etymological Analysis | Following Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra III.4cd and its Bhāṣya, the hermeneutical etymology of gotra is often explained as meaning guṇottāraṇa, with the syllable go in gotra standing for guṇa ("qualities") and the syllable tra representing uttāraṇa ("delivering," "setting free"). Thus, the got is the disposition from which qualities arise and increase or which sets them free... Gotra can also mean "what protects qualities" (guṇatraya)." - Karl Brunnhölzl, When the Clouds Part, pp. 95-96.
According to John W. Pettit, the term comes from the combination of go (cow) and tra (protection), which was a reference to livestock enclosures. In ancient India this was representative of family or clan wealth and thus the term came to represent hereditary pedigree. -Public talk at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, "Basics of Buddha-Nature: Mipham’s Roaring Lions Public." March 27, 2019. |
Works About this Term
Books
There are major differences between our Sanskrit text of the Ratnagotravibhāga and its classical Chinese translation, which had an immeasurable influence on East Asian Buddhist thought and has yet to be fully explored. No commentary on the Ratnagotravibhāga in Chinese Buddhism has survived, so scholars have maintained the opinion that it was not regarded too much in Chinese and East Asian Buddhism. However, the findings of my research show that the Chinese translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga had more influence than previously imagined in East Asian Buddhist intellectual history.
I explore the ideological background of the classical Chinese translation of the Ratnagotravibhāga, with reference to the Pusa dichi jing 菩薩地持經, several commentaries on the Śrīmālā-sūtra, the Da boniepan jing 大般涅槃經 and the Rulengqie jing 入楞伽經. In comparison to the surviving Sanskrit text, the Chinese version of the Ratnagotravibhāga downplays the significance of the expression gotra and instead reflects a strong interest in zhenru 真如 (Skt. tathatā) and foxing 佛性 (Buddha-nature) – for instance, 'zhenru foxing' becomes the foundation or reason for transmigration in the world. In this context, reality (Skt. tathatā) acts like a conditioned dharma, an idea that deeply influenced later understanding of Buddha-nature in East Asian Buddhism. I furthermore discuss the relationship between the Ratnagotravibhāga and other significant East Asian authors and teachings, such as Paramārtha 真諦 (499-569), the Dasheng qixin lun 大乘起信論, Fazang 法藏 (643-712), the Sanjie school 三階教, and trace the influence of the Ratnagotravibhāga beyond China into the writings of Wonhyo 元曉 (617-686) in Korea and the Japanese authors Juryō 寿霊 and Chikei 智憬 in Nara era (710-784). (Source Accessed May 25, 2021)
The book's contribution to the broader field of the History of Religions rests in its presentation and analysis of the Buddhist Enlightenment as the salvific-transformational moment in which Tathatā 'awakens' to itself, comes to perfect self-realization as the Absolute suchness of reality, in and through phenomenal human consciousness. The book is an interpretation of the Buddhist Path as the spontaneous self-emergence of 'embryonic' absolute knowledge as it comes to free itself from the concealments of adventitious defilements, and possess itself in fully self-explicitated self-consciousness as the 'Highest Truth' and unconditional nature of all existence; it does so only in the form of omniscient wisdom.
In particular she does this with reference to the only surviving Indian commentary on the Tathagatagarbha doctrine, the Ratnagotravibhaga. This text addresses itself directly to the issue of how to relate the doctrine of emptiness (the illusory nature of the world) to that of the truly existing, changeless Absolute (the Buddha Nature).
This is the first work by a Western writer to present an analysis of the Shentong tradition based on previously untranslated sources. The Shentong view rests on meditative experience that is inaccessible to the conceptualizing mind. It is deeply rooted in the sutra tradition of Indian Buddhism and is central to an understanding of the Mahamudra and Dzogchen traditions and Tantric practice among the Kagyupas and Nyingmapas.
(Source: SUNY Press)As Chögyam Trungpa writes in his foreword: "It is in the flow of karma that this book materialized in 1959 on the very eve of the destruction of the spiritual land of Tibet. Professor Guenther was instrumental in making available the only commentary and guide in English to the bodhisattva tradition of Tibet, Japan, and China. The book remains the classic text of all Buddhists."
sGam.po.pa, who lived in the eleventh and twelfth centuries, was the organizer of the Kagyü order of Tibetan Buddhism.
Herbert V. Guenther is Professor Emeritus in the Department of Far Eastern Studies at the University of Saskatchewan.
(Source: back cover)The Buddha taught buddha nature in three steps, each more profound than the previous one. The last step is regarded by most Tibetan Buddhist schools as the most profound teaching of the sutras, the very essence of what the Buddha was trying to communicate to his followers. It is the same teaching as found in Mahamudra and Dzogchen, so is important for all Buddhists to understand, but especially for those who are studying the Mahamudra and Dzogchen teachings.
The very learned Nyingma teacher Ju Mipham Namgyal gave a teaching that clearly showed this ultimate non-dual buddha nature. It was recorded and published by his students in a text called The Lion's Roar that is A Great Thousand Doses of Sugatagarbha which forms the basis of this book. The text needs clarification, so a very extensive explanation has been provided by the author of the book, the well known Western Buddhist teacher and translator, Tony Duff. As with all of our books, and an extensive introduction, glossary, and so on are provided to assist the reader.Articles
America—but also, and no less importantly, in the course of its development
within historical India itself.
One way in which Buddhism has responded to these intellectual and cultural encounters can be related to hermeneutics: that is, the modes by which a tradition explains its sources and thereby interprets (or reinterprets) itself
in a continuing process of reactivation and renewal of its heritage.[1]
In the case of Buddhism this process—perhaps comparable in part to what in another context is now frequently referred to as aggiornamento—had both endogenous and exogenous causes. It was, in other words, set in train both by internal, systemically generated requirements and tensions within the
Buddhist tradition as it evolved in geographical space and historical time, and by external impulses received from its intellectual and social environment, which could be, according to the case, either positive or negative in character.
The purpose of this paper is to explore this process with respect to the Buddhist hermeneutics of the ideas of non-self (anatman) and of a spiritual matrix or germ (gotra, tathagatagarbha or Buddha-nature) and the relationship of this pair of ideas to Vedantic notions and Brahmanical social groups in classical India. Reference will be made also to certain exegetical developments that either originated in Tibet or were at least fully realized there for the first time. Our analysis will revolve around the fact that, however historically antithetical and structurally contrasting these two ideas are in Buddhism, they in fact have not invariably been treated by Buddhist hermeneuticians as contradictory or even as systematically exclusive of each other.
Because of its philosophical and religious significance in the fields of soteriology and gnoseology, the Mahāyānist theory of the tathāgatagarbha—the Germ of Buddhahood latent in all sentient beings—occupies a crucial position in Buddhist thought, and indeed in Indian thought as a whole. In virtue of both their extent and their contents, the sūtras treating the tathāgatagarbha—and the systematically related doctrines of the natural luminosity (prakṛtiprabhāsvaratā) of mind (citta) and the spiritual germ existent by nature (prakṛtistha-gotra)[2]—are amongst the most important in the Mahāyāna. The idea that the doctrine of the tathāgatagarbha and Buddha-nature is one of the supreme teachings of the Mahāyāna is explicitly stated in
the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sutra.[3]
In the course of his monumental work on the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtras E. Conze has written: 'It is quite a problem how the Dharma-element which is common to all can be regarded as the source of a variety of "lineages" [gotra]'.[1] It has been the endeavour of the present writer in a series of publications starting in 1968 to shed light on this very fundamental and interesting question. An article in the Festschrift dedicated to the late E. Frauwallner was devoted to the interconnexion between the single, unique and undifferentiated dharmadhātu, the naturally existent spiritual element or germ (prakṛtisthaṃ gotram) and the variously conditioned psycho-spiritual categories (gotra)[2] recognized by the Buddhist texts as explained by Ārya Vimuktisena (ca. 500 ?) and his successor Bhadanta Vimuktisena in their commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra (i. 37-39), which they correlate with the topics of the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā.[3] And shortly afterwards there followed a more detailed study of this question as it relates to the notion of the tathāgatagarbha or buddha-nature in La théorie du tathāgatagarbha et du gotra: Études sur ta sotériologie et la gnoséologie du bouddhisme (Paris, 1969) and Le traité du tathāgatagarbha de Bu ston Rin chen grub (Paris, 1973). In the last publications Haribhadra's commentaries on the Prajñāpāramitā were discussed, and the importance of the doctrine of the One Vehicle (ekayāna), was taken up at some length not only from the point of view of soteriology but also from that of gnoseology
Between the two Vimuktisenas and Haribhadra (fl. c. 750-800) on the one side and the Tibetan exegetes on the other there lived a number of important Indian commentators whose work could be only briefly touched on in the Théorie. Amongst the most important of these later Indian masters of the Prajñāpāramitā are Dharmamitra and Abhayākaragupta, both of whom have been reckoned by Buddhist doxographers as being, for certain systematic reasons, close to the Svātantrika-Mādhyamika school, and Ratnākaraśānti (first half of the 11th century), a Vijñānavādin (of the Alīkākāravāda branch) who appears to have undertaken a harmonization of the Vijñānavāda and the Madhyamaka in the manner of the synthesizing movements especially characteristic of later Buddhist thought in India.
One of Ratnākaraśānti's main works on the Prajñāpāramitā—the Sārottamā (or Sāratamā ?), a Pañjikā on the Aṣṭasāhasrikā, which until recently was known only by its Tibetan version in the Bstan 'gyur—has now been recovered in an incomplete Sanskrit manuscript. Since the promised publication of this text is awaited with keenest interest by students of this literature, his work must be left for another occasion.[4] The present paper will therefore consider the discussions by Dharmamitra and Abhayākaragupta of the relation between the gotra, the dharmadhātu, the ekayāna, and the tathāgatagarbha. (Ruegg, "The Gotra, Ekayāna and Tathāgatagarbha Theories of the Prajñāpāramitā," 283–284)
Notes:
1. E. Conze, The Large Sūtra on Perfect Wisdom (London 1961), p. 105 note 2. References hereunder to the folios of Tibetan translations of Indian texts contained in the Bstan 'gyur relate to the Peking edition as reproduced in the Japanese reprint published by the Tibetan Tripiṭaka Research Institute (Tokyo and Kyoto). Prints of other editions of the Bstan 'gyur were unfortunately unavailable during the writing of the present paper.2. On the meanings of the term gotra, and in particular on the two meanings '(spiritual) element, germ, capacity' and '(spiritual) lineage, class, category' which might be described respectively as the intensional and extensional meanings of the word when the gotra as germ determines the classification of persons possessing it in a gotra as category, see the present writer's article in BSOAS 39 (1976) p. 341sq.
3. "Ārya and Bhadanta Vimuktisena on the gotra-theory of the Prajñāpāramitā," Beitriige zur Geistesgeschichte Indiens (Festschrift fur Erich Frauwallner), WZKSO 12-13 (1968/1969), pp. 303–317.
4. Ratnākaraśānti's other work on the subject, a commentary on the AA entitled Śuddhimatī, (or: Śuddhamatī) will be referred to below.
The word gotra is frequently used in the literature of Mahāyāna Buddhism to denote categories of persons classified according to their psychological, intellectual, and spiritual types. The chief types usually mentioned in this kind of classification are the Auditors making up the śrāvaka-gotra, the Individual Buddhas making up the pratyehabuddha-gotra, and the Bodhisattvas making up the bodhisattva-gotra.[2] In the Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra these three types constitute altogether different gotras, which thus coincide with the three separate Vehicles (yāna) as recognized by the Yogācārin/Vijñaptimātratā, school.[3] To these three some sources add the further category of the undetermined (aniyatagotra), which is made up of persons not yet definitively attached to one of the three preceding classes; and the non-gotra (agotra), that is the category made up of persons who cannot be assigned to any spiritual class.[4] Each of the first three categories is thus comprised of persons capable of achieving a particular kind of maturity and spiritual perfection in accordance with their specific type or class, the Auditor then attaining the Awakening (bodhi) characteristic of the Śrāvaka and so on.[5] Especially remarkable in this connexion, and somewhat anomalous as a gotra, is the non-gotra, i.e. that category of persons who seem to have been considered, at least by certain Yogācārin authorities, as spiritual ‘outcastes’ lacking the capacity for attaining spiritual perfection or Awakening of any kind; since they therefore achieve neither bodhi nor nirvāṇa, they represent the same type as the icchantikas to the extent that the latter also are considered to lack this capacity.[6]
The three gotras mentioned first together with the aniyatagotra and the agotra are discussed chiefly in the Śāstras of the Yogācārins[7] and in the commentaries on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra.[8]
In addition, the gotra functions so to speak as a spiritual or psychological 'gene' determining the classification of living beings into the above-mentioned categories, which may be either absolutely or temporarily different according to whether one accepts the theory that the three Vehicles (yāna) are ultimately and absolutely separate because they lead to the three quite different kinds of Awakening of the Śrāvaka, Pratyekabuddha, and Bodhisattva—namely the extreme triyāna doctrine-or, on the contrary, the theory that the Vehicles are ultimately one because all sentient beings are finally to attain Awakening and buddhahood which are essentially one—in other words the characterized Mādhyamika version of the ekayāna theory.[9]
Notes:
1. (Note 1 belongs to title): A shortened version of this paper was read before the Indological section of the twenty-ninth International Congress of Orientalists in Paris in July 1973.
The following abbreviations are used.
IBK Indogaku-Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū.
MSA Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra (ed. Lévi).
RGV Ratnagotravibhāga (Sanskrit text ed. E. H. Johnston).
RGVV Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā (Sanskrit text ed. E. H. Johnston).
TGS Tathāgatagarbhasūtra (Tibetan translation in the lHa-sa ed. of the bKa'-'gyur).
Théorie D. Seyfort Ruegg, La théorie du tathāgatagarbha et du gotra (Publications de l'École Française d'Extreme-Orient, LXX, Paris, 1969).
2. v. Laṅkāvatārasūtra, ed. Nanjō, 2, pp. 63-6, and the other sources quoted in Ruegg, Théorie, 74 f.
3. Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra 7.15, 24; cf. Théorie, 73-4.
4. Laṅkāvatārasūtra 2, p. 63.
5. v. Laṅkāvatārasūtra 2, pp. 63-5; MSABh. 3.2.
6. Laṅkāvatārasūtra 2, pp. 65-6; MSABh. 3.11: aparinirvāṇadharmaka. There are two categories of persons not attaining nirvāṇa, those who do not attain it for a certain length of time (tatkālāparinirvāṇadharman) and those who never do so (atyantāparinirvāṇadharman). The theory that some persons are destined never to attain nirvāṇa and buddhahood is considered characteristic of the Yogācārin school, which does not admit the doctrine of universal buddhahood implied by the usual interpretation of the ekayāna theory (see Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra 7.24) and the theory of the tathāgatagarbha present in all sentient beings. (MSA 9.37 does not, it seems, refer to the fully developed tathāgatagarbha theory which is based on three factors—the irradiation of the dharmakāya, the non-differentiation of the tathatā, and the presence of the gotra [see RGV 1.27 f.]—and concerns only the non-differentiation of the tathatā, and the tathāgatatva, which all beings possess as their embryonic essence. Cf. below, n. 50.)
The agotra doctrine to the extent that it assumes a class of spiritual 'outcastes' being evidently incompatible with the tathāgatagarbha theory, the question arises as to the significance of the allusion to persons without a gotra in RGV 1.41. The reference there seems to be to a hypothetical case (opposed to the author's own view expressed before in RGV 1.40-41c), which is not, however, admitted by the author; and the revised reading of pāda 1.41d agotrāṇāṃ na tad yataḥ (cf. L. Schmithausen, WZKS, xv, 1971, 145) 'since this is not so for those without gotra ' makes this interpretation easier (see p. 346). Indeed, according to RGVV 1.41, any allusion to an icchantika who does not attain nirvāṇa is to be interpreted as referring to a certain interval of time (kālāntarābhiprāya) only, and not to a permanent incapacity. On the icchantika cf. D. S. Ruegg, Le traité du tathāgatagarbha de Bu ston Rin chen grub, Paris, 1973, p. 12, n. 1. The aparinirvāṇagotra is also mentioned in RGVV 1.32-3, 1.38, and 1.41, and the aparinirvāṇadharman in 1.41.
7. cf. MSA, ch. 3; Madhyāntavibhāgabhāṣya and ºṭīkā, 2.1, 4.15-16.
8. cf. Théorie, 123 f.
Tibet. Particularly, it relates to Tibetan commentary on Abhisamayālaṃkāra (AA) I:39, in which it is taught that the foundation (pratiṣṭhā) for religious practice is the dharmadhātu and that since the dharmadhātu is undifferentiated (asaṃbhedā), there are ultimately no distinct gotras corresponding to the three vehicles. This teaching is usually interpreted as a Mādhyamaka justification for one final vehicle, as opposed to the three-vehicle theory, attributed to Cittamātra/Vijñaptimātratā, and which is closely related to the doctrine of three gotras found in sutras such as Saṃdhinirmocana and Laṅkāvatāra and śāstras such as Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra. However, there are some Tibetan writers outside the influential Gelug tradition who see the equation of gotra with dharmadhātu as an essentially Yogācāra doctrine. This alternative viewpoint implies that Yogācāra and Cittamātra are not, as is commonly held to be the case, the same thing and brings to the fore the question of whether Yogācāra is better understood as a tradition that transcends traditional doxographic categories. Through an analysis of Śākya-mchog-ldan’s explanation of AA I:39, which includes a differentiation of two other terms that are also often held to be synonymous, namely gotra and buddha-essense (or tathāgatagarbha), I aim to highlight some of the ways in which his ‘reformulation’ of Yogācāra implies a reformulation of certain Cittamātra doctrines. Finally, I conclude the paper with a brief discussion on the extent to which doxographical discourse
both restricts and allows for the formulation of an individual point of view. (Gilks, introduction, 1)Source Texts
Interviews
Thupten Jinpa is a former Tibetan monk and a Geshe Lharampa with B.A. in philosophy and a Ph.D. in religious studies, both from Cambridge University. Since 1985, he has been the principal English translator to H.H. the Dalai Lama and has translated and edited numerous books by the Dalai Lama, including the New York Times Bestsellers Ethics for the New Millennium and The Art of Happiness. Jinpa’s own publications include works in Tibetan, English translations as well as books, the latest being Tsongkhapa: A Buddha in the Land of Snows and Illuminating the Intent, a translation of Je Tsongkhapa's commentary on Entering the Middle Way. Jinpa is the general series editor of the 32-volume Bod kyi tsug lag gces btus series, whose translations are published in English as The Library of Tibetan Classics. His current projects include the editing of classical Indian Buddhist texts from Tengyur for a special anthology known as Rgya gzhung gnad che bdam bsgrigs (Selected Indian Buddhist treaties). He is the main author of CCT (Compassion Cultivation Training), an eight-week formal program developed at Stanford University, and co-founder and president of the Compassion Institute. He is the Chair of Mind and Life Institute, founder of the Institute of Tibetan Classics, and an adjunct professor at the School of Religious Studies at McGill University. Jinpa lives in Montreal and is married with two daughters.
Karl Brunnhölzl is one of the most prolific translators of Tibetan texts into English and has worked on all of the Five Treatises of Maitreya. He was originally trained as a physician and then studied at Kamalashila Institute, Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso's Marpa Institute, and Hamburg University. Since 1989, Karl has served as a translator, interpreter, and Buddhist teacher mainly in Europe, India, and Nepal. Since 1999, he has acted as one of the main translators and teachers at Nitartha Institute (director: Dzogchen Ponlop Rinpoche) in the USA, Canada, and Germany. He has translated and written about buddha-nature extensively and he is the author of several books on Buddhism, such as The Center of the Sunlit Sky, Luminous Melodies, Milarepa's Kungfu, and The Heart Attack Sutra. He has also completed several ground-breaking translations in the Tsadra Foundation series, including a three-volume work on the Abhisamayālaṃkāra. He has also completed the work Prajñāpāramitā, Indian "gzhan stong pas", and the Beginning of Tibetan gzhan stong in the Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde series. When the Clouds Part: The Uttaratantra and Its Meditative Tradition as a Bridge between Sutra and Tantra, formed the basis for the Buddha-Nature website project. In 2019 his translation of the Mahāyānasaṃgraha with Indian and Tibetan commentaries was published and won the Khyentse Foundation Prize For Outstanding Buddhist Translation.