tathāgatagarbha

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Glossarytathāgatagarbha

Sanskrit Noun

tathāgatagarbha

buddha-nature
तथागतगर्भ
དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་
如来藏

Basic Meaning

Buddha-nature, literally the "womb/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)."

Has the Sense of

The seed or essence of enlightenment. Tathāgata loosely translates as "one who has gone to a state of enlightenment," while garbha has the sense of "womb," "essence," and "embryo." Tathāgatagarbha thus suggests a potential or an innate buddhahood possessed by all sentient beings that is either developed or revealed when one attains enlightenment.

Read It in the Scriptures

Son of good family, the True Nature (dharmatā) of the dharmas is this:
whether or not tathāgatas appear in the world, all these sentient beings contain at all times a tathāgata.  
~ Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā 73.11-12. As translated in Zimmerman, A Buddha Within, 2002, p 40.
On this topic
Book
A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra
A translation, study, and annotated editions of the Tibetan and Chinese translations of the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra.
Zimmermann, Michael. A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra; The Earliest Exposition of the Buddha-Nature Teaching in India. Biblotheca Philologica et Philosophica Buddhica 6. Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2002. http://lirs.ru/lib/Tathagatagarbhasutra,Zimmermann,2002.pdf.
Article
A Comparative Study of Taehyŏn, Wŏnhyo, and Fazangs’ Views on Ālayavijñāna and Tathāgatagarbha
Lee, Sumi. "A Comparative Study of Taehyŏn, Wŏnhyo, and Fazangs’ Views on Ālayavijñāna and Tathāgatagarbha." (In Korean.) East Asian Buddhist Culture 32, no. 12 (2017): 101–29.
Lee, Sumi. "A Comparative Study of Taehyŏn, Wŏnhyo, and Fazangs’ Views on Ālayavijñāna and Tathāgatagarbha." (In Korean.) East Asian Buddhist Culture 32, no. 12 (2017): 101–29.
Article
A Multi-associative Term: Why Tathāgatagarbha Is Not One and the Same
Zimmermann, Michael. "A Multi-associative Term: Why Tathāgatagarbha Is Not One and the Same." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Akira Saitō. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 41–55.
Zimmermann, Michael. "A Multi-associative Term: Why Tathāgatagarbha Is Not One and the Same." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Akira Saitō. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 41–55.
PhD Diss
A Prolegomena to the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra and the Tathāgatagarbha Theory: The Role of Women in Buddhism
The Śrīmālādevī siṁhanāda sūtra (ŚDS) (The Treatise on the Lion's Roar of Queen Śrīmālā) is a Mahāyāna text no longer extant in Sanskrit but preserved in both the Chinese and Tibetan Tripiṭakas. This text is a unique development within the Buddhist tradition because of its egalitarian view concerning women, portraying, on the one band, the dignity and wisdom of a laywoman and her concern for all beings, and on the other, the role of woman as a philosopher and teacher. Doctrinally, the major emphasis is upon the Tathāgatagarbha and Ekayāna.
      Because of the number of citations and references which are retained in Sanskrit Buddhist texts, the Śrīmālādevī sūtra seems to have been widely circulated throughout India. This text is

quoted in the Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottara-tantra śāstra (The Supreme Exposition of Mahāyāna: A Commentary on the Jewel Lineage)[1] and the Śikṣāsamuccaya (A Compendium on Instruction)[2] with allusions made in the Laṅkāvatāra sūtra[3] and the Mahāyāna sūtrālaṁkāra (The Ornament of the Mahāyāna sūtras).[4] The Ch'eng wei-shih lun (Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi) by Hsüan-tsang also quotes from the Śrīmālādevī sūtra but does not identify the sūtra by name.[5]
      According to the Sung kao seng chuan[6] Bodhiruci used a Sanskrit text of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra for reference in translating the text into Chinese. From the above evidence, it may be concluded that a Sanskrit original of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra did exist and that this text was part of the Indian Buddhist tradition.
       The classical Chinese text is extant in two recensions:
1) Sheng-man shih-tzu-hou i-ch'eng ta-fang-pien fang-kuang ching (1 ch.) (T.v.12, no. 353, pp. 217-223), translated by Guṇabhadra (394-468) in 435.
2) Sheng-man-fu-jen hui which is the forty-eighth assembly in the Ratnakūṭa anthology (Ta-pao chi ching) (T.v.11, no. 310, pp. 672-678), translated by Bodhiruci[7] (572-727) of T'ang between 706 and 713.
      Because Guṇabhadra's translation is almost three hundred years older than Bodhiruci's, it has been chosen as the basic text in order to trace the development of Tathāgatagarbha thought in its original form. Bodhiruci's translation is used when Guṇabhadra's translation is ambiguous and when differences in interpretation are indicated.
      The Tibetan recension, Hphags-pa lha-mo dpal-phreṅ gi seṅ-geḥi sgra shes-bya-ba theg-pa chen-poḥi mdo (Tōhoku no. 92, Bkaḥ-ḥgyur), which is part of the Ratnakūṭa anthology, will not be used. When significant differences between the Chinese and Tibetan recensions occur, the Tibetan text will be noted also.[8]
      The commentaries which are extant are few and only in Chinese and Japanese. There are no Tibetan commentaries now extant, which discuss only the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.[9] According to the Kao seng chuan,[10] immediately after the translation of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra many commentaries were composed by monks who had studied and memorized the Śrīmālādevī sūtra. These texts, now lost, were dated between the fifth and sixth centuries A.D. According to Chi-tsang's Sheng-man ching pao-k'u, monks studied and composed commentaries on the Śrīmālādevī sūtra from the North-South dynastic periods through the Sui (i.e. from approximately 440-618 A.D.).
      The major commentaries[11] extant in Chinese are:
1) Hsieh-chu sheng-man ching (T.v.85, no. 2763) - Although the commentator is unknown, this text was probably the composition of a noble woman of Northern Wei, attested to by the calligraphy and literary style of the Tun-huang manuscript. Completed before 500 A.D., it is the oldest extant commentary on the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.[12] Only Chapter 5, "Ekayāna" is discussed.
2) Sheng-man ching i-chi (2 ch.) (Dainihon zokuzōkyō, v.1, no. 30-1) by Hui-yüan, (523-692) of Sui - Only the first half of the text is extant, corresponding to the first four chapters of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.
3) Sheng-man ching pao-k'u, (3 ch.) (T.v.37, no. 1744) by Chi-tsang (549-623) of Sui.
4) Sheng-man ching shu-chi, (2 ch.) (Dainihon zokuzōkyō v.1, no. 30-4) by K'uei-chi (632-682) of T'ang.
5) Sheng-man ching su-i ssu-ch'ao, (6 ch.) (Dainihon bukkyō zensho, v.4) by Ming-k'ung[13] of T'ang in 772.
      The major commentaries extant in Japanese are:
1) Shōmagyō gisho (1 ch.) (T.v.56, no. 2184) attributed to Prince Shōtoku (573-621) but probably the composition of a North Chinese Buddhist scholar.[14]
2) Shōmangyō shosho genki, (18 ch.) (Dainihon bukkyō zensho, v.4) by Gyōnen (1240-1321). First five chüan are missing. The extant text begins with the chapter "The Ten Ordination Vows".
3) Shōman-shishikugyō kenshūshō (3 ch.) (Nihon daizōkyō, v. 5; Dainihon bukkyō zensho, v.4) by Fūjaku (1707-1781)
      The Sheng-man ching pao k'u and the Shōmangyō gisho are the two primary commentaries upon which the present study's interpretation of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra is based. These two commentaries have been selected because the former, written by a San-lun master, interprets Tathāgatagarbha from a Mādhyamikan perspective whereas the latter is representative of the North Chinese scholars' interpretation and frequently overshadows the sūtra itself in popularity, particularly in Japan. The Sheng-man ching i-chi and the Hsieh-chu sheng-man ching are used as references in analyzing Chapters 4 and 5, "The Acceptance of the true Dharma" and the "One Vehicle" respectively of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.
      In Chapter One, a historical analysis will be attempted, suggesting the place and time of composition on the basis of external and internal evidence now available. In Chapter Two, the evolution of the Tathāgatagarbha will be outlined, based upon the first two Tathāgatagarbhan texts, the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra and the Pu tseng pu chien ching, which predate the Śrīmālādevī sūtra.[15]
      In Chapter Three the characteristic format of the Śrīmālādevī sūtra is summarized in relation to the Tathāgatagarbha sūtra and the Pu tseng pu chien. In Chapter Four the Tathāgatagarbha as presented in the Śrīmālādevī sūtra is analyzed with relation to the text as a whole, and in Chapter Five the annotated translation of the Śrīmālādevī-siṁhanāda sūtra is presented with notations of key differences between the two Chinese recensions and with references made to the two commentaries, Sheng-man ching pao-k'u and Shōmangyō gisho, and to the Sanskrit fragments noted above.
      Appendix I is an attempt to lay the groundwork for a methodology of Buddhist studies which would provide a foundation for the skills needed for a critical analysis and interpretation of Buddhist phenomena. Appendix II is an annotated bibliography for studying the Śrīmālādevī-siṁhanāda sūtra. Appendix I is admittedly limited and will provide only the most general outline of the requisite methodological procedure in analyzing a Buddhist text. (Paul, introduction, 1–6)

Notes

1) There are two English translations of the Ratnagotravibhāga-mahāyānottara-tantra śāstra: E. E. Obemiller, The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation Being a Manual of Buddhist Monism (Rome: Acta Orientalia, 1932), (Shanghai reprint: 1940) and Jikido Takasaki, A Study on the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra): Being a Treatise on the Tathāgatagarbha Theory of Mahāyāna Buddhism (Rome: Series Orientale Rome XXIII, 1966). The Sanskrit text of the Ratnagotra-vibhāga-mahāyānottara-tantra śāstra, ed., by E. R. Johnston (Patna: Bihar Society, 1950) cites the Śrīmālādevī sūtra on pp. 3, 12, 15, 19, 20, 22, 30, 33, 34, 36, 37, 45, 50, 55, 56, 59, 72, 73, 74, 76, and 79. A portion of these Sanskrit fragments have been noted below, in the translation, wherever differences or ambiguities in the Chinese recensions occur.
2) Cf. Çikshāsamuccaya (A Compendium on Buddhist Teaching, ed. by Cecil Bendall (St. Petersburg: Imperial Academy of Sciences, (1897-1902), vol. I of Bibliotheca Buddhica, reprinted by Indo-Iranian Journal (The Hague: Mouton & Co., 1957), pp. 42 and 43.
3) Cf. Laṅkāvatāra sūtra, ed. by Bunyiu Nanjio, (Second edition, Kyoto: Otani University Press, 1956), p. 222 line 19 and p. 223 line 4.
4) Cf. Mahāyāna sūtrālaṁkāra, ed. by Sylvain Lévi (Paris: 1907), (Shanghai reprint : 1940), Tome 1 (XI, 59), p. 70. The cited passage, attributed to the Śrīmālādevī sūtra, could not be found in either Chinese recension. Lévi also was unable to find the passage but does allude to the citation as being in the Çikshāsamuccaya, ed. by Cecil Bendall, op. cit., but these two citations are not of the same passage.
5) The following citations are quoted in the Ch'eng wei-shih lun, translated by Hsüan-tsang (T.v.31, no. 1585, p. 1-60): (The remainder of this note is handwritten in Chinese and is unavailable.)
6) (The first part of this note is handwritten in Chinese and is unavailable.) In the second year of T'ang emperor Chung-tsung in the reign of Shen-lung (706) he (Bodhiruci) returned to the capital (Loyang) to Chao ch'ung-fu temple to translate the Mahāratnakūṭa anthology. This anthology bad forty-nine old and new assemblies, totaling 120 ch., which were finished in the fourth month, eighth day of the second year of Hsun-t'ien (713). In the translation hall, the monks Ssu-chung and the Indian director Iśara (?) translated the Sanskrit: while the Indian monks Prajñāgupta (?) and Dharma were consulted concerning the Sanskrit meaning." (T.v.50, no. 2061, p. 720b)
The Sung kao seng chuan, 30 ch., was compiled by Chih-lun and Tsang-ning of the Sung dynasty during the period from the beginning of the T'ang dynasty until 967 according to Ui Hakuju, Bukkyō jiten (A Buddhist Dictionary), (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1971), p. 654 and until 988 according to Nakamura Hajime, Shin-bukkyō jiten (The New Buddhist Dictionary), (Tokyo: Seishin shobō, 1972), p. 329.
7) According to the Sung kao seng chuan, op. cit., (p. 720c) Bodhiruci died in the fifteenth year of K'ai-yuan (727) of T'ang at the age of 156.
8) The differences noted between the Chinese and Tibetan recensions are based upon the Shōmangyō hōgatsu dōji shomongyō (Kyoto: Kōkyō shoin, 1940) by Tsukinowa Kenryū.
9) Tibetan commentaries on the Ratnagotravibhāga do interpret the passages which cite the Śrīmālādevī sūtra. These are not discussed within the present study.
10) Kokuyaku-issaikyō hōshaku-bu shichi, Ono Masao (gen. ed.) (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1958), p. 84 lists the monks who attempted to write commentaries now lost. The Kao seng chuan, compiled by Hui-chao of the Liang dynasty, is the record of approximately 253 eminent monks from 67 A.D. through 519 A.D. Cf. Ui, Shin-bukkyō jiten, op. cit., p. 303.
11) For a complete listing of all commentaries in both Chinese and Japanese, extant and no longer extant, see below - Appendix II, Annotated Bibliography.
12) Fujieda Akira, "Hokucho ni okeru Shōmangyō no tenshō" in Tōhō gakuhō, v.XL, 1973, p. 334. (Journal of the Institute of Humanities) (Jimbun Kagaku kenkyūsho) (Kyoto University).
13) According to the Bussho kaisetsu daijiten, Ono Masao {gen.ed.) (Tokyo: Daitō shuppansha, 1966), vol. V, p. 350, this text was composed by both Prince Shōtoku and Ming-k'ung.
14) Prince Shōtoku most probably did not compose the Shōmangyō gisho since many of the texts which the Gisho cites were not known to Prince Shōtoku but were introduced to Japan at a much later date. For the transmission of the Chinese commentaries on the Śrīmālādevī-siṁhanāda sūtra, see "Hokucho ni okeru Shōmangyō", op. cit. For the "original" Gisho, composed by a Chinese scholar of the North-South dynastic period, residing in North China, see "Shōman gisho hongi" in Shōtoku taishi kenkyū, v. 5 (Osaka: Shitennoji Joshi Daigaku, 1973) by Koizumi Enjun in which the original Chinese commentary is edited and later almost entirely copied in the Shōmangyō gisho.
      The research on these commentaries at the time of this writing has been undertaken by members of the Jimbun Kagaku kenkyusho who are affiliated with Kyoto University. From analyzing the Tun-huang manuscripts, two very similar hypotheses have been developed: a) The Gisho itself was written by a Chinese scholar, or b) The original for the Shōmangyō gisho, viz. Shōman gisho hongi (or, Sheng-man i-su ben-i), was composed by a Northern Chinese scholar and later almost entirely interpolated into the Shōmangyō gisho by Prince Shōtoku or one of his followers.
15) The analysis of Tathāgatagarbha was undertaken in consultation with Professors Yuichi Kajiyama, Chairman of Buddhist Studies, Kyoto University, and Gadjin Nagao, Professor Emeritus

in Buddhist Studies, Kyoto University.
Paul, Diana. "A Prolegomena to the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra and the Tathāgatagarbha Theory: The Role of Women in Buddhism." PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1974.
Article
A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle: Tathāgatagarbha, Tīrthikas, and the True Self
Jones, Christopher V. "A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle: Tathāgatagarbha, Tīrthikas, and the True Self." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 39 (2016): 115–70.
Jones, Christopher V. "A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle: Tathāgatagarbha, Tīrthikas, and the True Self." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 39 (2016): 115–70.
PhD Diss
A Study of Master Yinshun’s Hermeneutics: An Interpretation of the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine
Abstract

This study is an examination of Master Yinshun's hermeneutics. It focuses especially on his interpretation of the Buddhist concept known as the tathagatagarbha, which refers to the idea that all sentient beings intrinsically possess the "womb of the Buddha." In some explanations of this teaching, the tathāgatagarbha is symbolic of the practitioner's potential for attaining enlightenment. In others, it functions as a synonym for the Ultimate and becomes the eternalistic substrate for all of existence. It is this latter view to which Yinshun takes exception, seeing it as antithetical to the doctrine of emptiness which espouses the notion that all things, including ideas, material objects, and living beings, lack a permanent and independent nature and thus cannot possess an unchanging, eternalistic form.
      I focus particularly on Yinshun's text A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha, for it serves as a concise statement of his interpretation of the tathāgatagarbha and its relationship to emptiness. In this text, Yinshun continually asserts the doctrine of emptiness as the definitive expression of Buddhist truth and relegates the tathāgatagarbha to the category of expedient means. He does this by examining the development of the tathāgatagarbha emphasizing particularly its evolution within pre-Mahāyāna and Mahāyāna textual sources said to have had their genesis in India such as the Āgamas, the Perfection of Wisdom Sūtras and the Ratnagotravibhāga. For Yinshun, to regard the tathāgatagarbha as the ultimate truth rather than as an expedient means can only result in misguided practice and confusion about how to attain enlightenment.
      I conclude by asking a number of general questions about Yinshun's thought and its relationship to the early to mid-twentieth century intellectual milieu in China. I also inquire about how Yinshun's ideas have contributed to the development of contemporary Chinese Buddhist movements flourishing in Taiwan today. (Source: Worldcat Library Materials Online)
Hurley, Scott. "A Study of Master Yinshun’s Hermeneutics: An Interpretation of the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine." PhD diss., University of Arizona, 2001. https://repository.arizona.edu/bitstream/handle/10150/279857/azu_td_3031364_sip1_m.pdf;jsessionid=7F7C9754E7B4C951472D8BB20D5B4BBE?sequence=1.
PhD Diss
A Study of Yogācāric Influence on Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine as Found in Laṅkāvatārasūtra
Abstract

Through a close examination on three Sanskrit compounds — i.e., tathāgatanairātmyagarbha, tathāgatagarbhālayavijñāna and pariniṣpannasvabhāvas tathāgatagarbhahṛdayam — in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra, this thesis will demonstrate how the tathāgatagarbha thought in the Laṅkāvatārasūtra is significantly enriched by Yogācāric influence.
      First, in regard to tathāgata-nairātmya-garbha, a doctrinal review of the term "nairātmya" is necessary, because its definition differs according to different traditions. In primitive Buddhism, the term "nairātmya" is a synonym of the term "anātman" (non-existence of a substantial self), which indicates that in the realm of suffering and the impermanence of life phenomena that arise according to the principle of co-dependent origination/ pratītyasamutpāda, no eternal and dependent ātman can be found. According to the Madhyamaka School, the term "nairātmya" is a synonym of the term "niḥsvabhāva" (no

intrinsic-nature) which implies that all beings, whether conditioned or unconditioned, are all devoid of an ever-abiding intrinsic nature. For the Yogācāra School, the reality of nairātmya is said to be grasped under the principle of mind-only. That is to say, the imagined self /kalpitātman that is the presentation of mind is unreal, while the indescribable self/ anabhilāpyātman that is the genuine mind itself is real. Finally, it can be said that the tathāgata-nairātmya-garbha in Laṅkāvatārasūtra accords well with the Yogācāra teaching. In other words, it is the Yogācāric sense of nairātmya that sheds an influence upon the tathāgatagarbha doctrine.
      Secondly, in regard to tathāgatagarbhālayavijñāna, a doctrinal development is promoted owing to the identification of tathāgatagarbha with ālayavijñāna, which according to the Yogācāra School is also named "sarvabīljavijñāna" (cognition as the seed of everything). This latter synonym references its function of bringing forth all beings just as a giant tree originates from a seed. As a result of its identification with the ālayavijñāna, the tathāgatagarbha is said to be endowed with the function of bringing forth all forms of existence and thus becomes the "producing cause" of all. This interpretation is not seen in earlier scriptures wherein the tathāgatagarbha is described simply as a static substance supporting all beings.
      Thirdly, in regard to pariniṣpannasvabhāvastathāgata-garbhahṛdayam, the implication of the tathāgatagarbha was expanded substantially by declaring that pariniṣpannasvabhāva is the very essence of tathāgatagarbha. The term "pariniṣpannasvabhāva" according to some important Yogācāra texts is defined as tathatā (ultimate realm of suchness). The combining of pariniṣpannasvabhāva with tathāgatagarbha that had formerly focused on the subjective potential of realizing wisdom, shifts the doctrinal emphasis toward the objective realm of realized perfection.
      This thesis reveals that, having assimilated the Yogācāric doctrine of dharmanairātmya, ālayavijñāna and pariniṣpannasvabhāva, the tathāgatagarbha thinking in Laṅkāvatārasūtra presents the comprehensive and distinctive features in comparison to the scriptures that preceded it.
Hsiao, Mei. "A Study of Yogācāric Influence on Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine as Found in Laṅkāvatārasūtra." PhD diss., University of Calgary, 2008.
Article
A Syntactic Analysis of the Term Tathāgatagarbha in Sanskrit Fragments and Multiple Meanings of Garbha in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra
The current of tathāgatagarbha thought that was born in Indian Mahayana Buddhism spread throughout the cultural sphere of Mahayana Buddhism in Asia and has also long held a fascination for people far beyond its geographical confines. The academic foundations for the study of tathāgatagarbha thought in India were laid by Takasaki Jikido, and the task left to us is to repeatedly reexamine each of Takasaki's findings on the basis of existing and newly discovered materials and corroborate or emend them.
      Takasaki argued that the first extant text to use the word tathāgatagarbha was the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. Since Takasaki's research was published, there have been some remarkable advances in research on the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra, and in recent years scholars such as S. Hodge and M. Radich have begun to argue that it was the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra that was the first Buddhist text to use the word tathāgatagarbha. The question of which of these two sūtras came first has not yet been definitively resolved, but it may be generally accepted that both belong to the oldest stratum of Buddhist texts dealing with tathāgatagarbha.
      On a previous occasion (Kano 2017), focusing on this point, I collected Sanskrit fragments of both texts containing the word tathāgatagarbha and discussed differences in the expressions in which it is used. In particular, taking into account the findings of Shimoda Masahiro, I argued that if the word tathāgatagarbha appearing in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra is interpreted as a bahuvrīhi compound qualifying stūpa, this would accord with the word's usage in this sūtra and with the gist of the chapter "Element of the Tathāgata" (Habata 2013: §§ 375–418). This does not mean, however, that this understanding needs to be applied uniformly to every example of its use in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra. Because in this earlier article I focused somewhat unduly on the interpretation of tathāgatagarbha as a bahuvrīhi compound, the fact that there are instances of wordplay making use of the multiple meanings of garbha in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra needs to be added, together with some concrete examples. (In the passages of this sūtra, it is natural to understand the term tathāgatagarbha as a substantive in the sense of "garbha of tathāgata" or "garbha that is tathāgata," namely, tatpuruṣa or karmadhāraya, and I do not exclude this possibility as discussed in Kano 2017: 39–42.) In addition, there were some redundant aspects in the structure of my earlier article. In this article I rework these aspects so as to sharpen the focus on the points at issue and add some supplementary points. In the first half I clarify some grammatical characteristics to be observed in examples of the use of tathāgatagarbha in Sanskrit fragments of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra, while in the second half I ascertain the polysemy of the word garbha on the basis of some concrete examples. (Kano, "A Syntactic Analysis," 17–18)
Kano, Kazuo. "A Syntactic Analysis of the Term Tathāgatagarbha in Sanskrit Fragments and Multiple Meanings of Garbha in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Akira Saitō. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 17–40.
Article
A Tree In The West: Competing Tathāgatagarbha Theories in Tibet
Magee, William. "A Tree in the West: Competing Tathāgatagarbha Theories in Tibet." Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 19 (2006): 445–511.
Magee, William. "A Tree in the West: Competing Tathāgatagarbha Theories in Tibet." Chung-Hwa Buddhist Journal 19 (2006): 445–511.
Article
Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood—The Universal Buddha of the San-chieh-chiao
Jamie Hubbard explores some specifically Chinese materials in his contribution "Perfect Buddhahood, Absolute Delusion—The Universal Buddha of the San-chieh-chiao". [sic] The San-chieh-chiao wanted to hold together a radically pessimistic view of the capacities of human persons for religious practice with a strong assertion of a fundamental identity between living beings and Buddha. The subtle scholastic discussion by the San-chieh-chiao of how these two affirmations were to be held together focused upon the theoretical question of the relations between pure, undefiled Suchness (tathatā) and the realm of ordinary living beings—for the assertion of a fundamental identity between the two cannot be allowed to call into question the pressing apparent reality of defilements in this degenerate age. The central soteriological affirmation running through these discussions is that all beings will inevitably realize Buddhahood; the metaphysical problem is to show how this can be the case; and the practical problem is to delineate the kind of religious practice that is appropriate if it is the case. All these

challenges the San-chieh-chiao attempted to meet, and it is the burden of Hubbard's careful exegesis to detail the subtle metaphysical and exegetical distinctions they

constructed to do so. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to Buddha Nature, 4–5)
Hubbard, Jamie. "Absolute Delusion, Perfect Buddhahood—The Universal Buddha of the San-chieh-chiao." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 75–94. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.
PhD Diss
Affirmation in Negation: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha Theory in the Light of the Bodhisattva Practices
The Tathāgatagarbha theory, also known as the Buddha-nature theory, is one of the most influential Mahāyāna doctrines in the East Asian Buddhism. In 1989, it was severely criticized by some Japanese scholars, namely, Shiro Matsumoto and Noriaki Hakamaya, for being contradictory to the Buddha's teaching of non-self (anātman) and accused of being a non-Buddhist theory in disguise. The purpose of this study is to refute such an accusation and to demonstrate the relationship between this theory and the Bodhisattva practices which are the very core of the Mahāyāna Buddhism.

This dissertation begins with definitions of the term "tathāgatagarbha" and some of its synonyms which are followed by a brief review of the historical development of the Tathāgatagarbha theory from India to China. With these as the background knowledge, it is easier to point out the fallacies of the two Japanese scholars' criticism on this theory. A key issue in their criticism is that they viewed the Tathāgatagarbha theory as the ātman of the Upaniṣads in disguise. It is therefore necessary to discuss not only the distinction between the ātman mentioned in the Tathāgatagarbha theory and that in the Upaniṣads but also the controversy over the issue of ātman versus anātman among the Buddhist scholars.

In the discussion to clarify the issue of ātman in the Tathāgatagarbha theory, it is demonstrated that the ātman in the Tathāgatagarbha theory is not only uncontradictory to the doctrine of anātman in Buddhism but very important to the Bodhisattva practices in the Mahāyāna Buddhism. It functions as a unity for the Bodhisattvas to voluntarily return to the world of saṃsāra again and again. Furthermore, the purport of the entire theory, that all sentient beings are endowed with the essence of the Buddha, supports various Bodhisattva practices such as the aspiration to save all beings in the world, the six perfections, etc. In a word, the Tathāgatagarbha theory is an excellent representative of the soteriology of the Mahāyāna Buddhism. Included in the end of this dissertation is an annotated translation of the Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra (Taisho nos. 666 and 667). (Source accessed May 26, 2020)
Chen, Shu-hui. “Affirmation in Negation: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha Theory in the Light of the Bodhisattva Practices.” PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1998.
Book
An Introduction to Buddhism (Takasaki)
This book is based upon notes prepared by the author for general lectures on Buddhism which he has been giving to students at a number of universities in Tokyo since around 1960. The initial version of the present work first saw the light of day as part of a textbook for university students entitled Bukkyo ippan 仏教一般 (Buddhism in General) which was compiled in concert with professors specializing in Chinese and Japanese Buddhism and published by the Department of Buddhist Studies at Komazawa University in Tokyo. Then, at a later date, the author was approached by the Tokyo Daigaku Shuppankai (University of Tokyo Press) to write an introductory work on Buddhism for the edification of the general reading public. By permission of the Department of Buddhist Studies at Komazawa University, he accordingly extracted those sections of the above textbook which he had himself written ("Outline of Buddhism" and "Indian Buddhism"), to which he then made some additions and corrections and also appended a brief history of Buddhism covering not only India but also China and Japan. This was then published in 1983 under the title of Bukkyo nyümon 仏教入門 (An Introduction to Buddhism), of which the present work is an English translation. (Takasaki, preface to the English version, iii)
Takasaki, Jikidō. An Introduction to Buddhism. Translated by Rolf W. Giebel. Tokyo: Tōhō Gakkai, 1987. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/en/files/2018/06/Takasaki-Jikido_An-Introduction-to-Buddhism.pdf
Article
Beings, Non-Beings, and Buddhas: Contrasting Notions of Tathāgatagarbha in the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta and *Mahābherī Sūtra
Jones, Christopher V. "Beings, Non-Beings, and Buddhas: Contrasting Notions of Tathāgatagarbha in the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta and *Mahābherī Sūtra." Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 10 (2016): 53–84. http://jocbs.org/index.php/jocbs/article/view/133.
Jones, Christopher V. "Beings, Non-Beings, and Buddhas: Contrasting Notions of Tathāgatagarbha in the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta and *Mahābherī Sūtra." Journal of the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies 10 (2016): 53–84. http://jocbs.org/index.php/jocbs/article/view/133.
Book
Buddha Nature (Sallie King)
This volume presents the first book-length study in English of the concept of Buddha nature as discussed in the Buddha Nature Treatise (Fo Xing Lun), attributed to Vasubandhu and translated into Chinese by Paramartha in the sixth century. The author provides a detailed discussion of one of the most important concepts in East Asian Buddhism, a topic little addressed in Western studies of Buddhism until now, and places the Buddha nature concept in the context of Buddhist intellectual history. King then carefully explains the traditional Buddhist language in the text, and embeds Buddha nature in a family of concepts and values which as a group are foundational to the development of the major indigenous schools of Chinese Buddhism.
      In addition, she refutes the accusations that the idea of Buddha nature introduces a crypto-Atman into Buddhist thought, and that it represents a form of monism akin to the Brahmanism of the Upanisads. In doing this, King defends Buddha nature in terms of purely Buddhist philosophical principles. Finally, the author engages the Buddha nature concept in dialogue with Western philosophy by asking what it teaches us about what a human being, or person, is. (Source: back cover)
King, Sallie B. Buddha Nature. Albany, NY: State University of New York Press, 1991.
Article
Buddha Nature as Myth
William G. Grosnick, in his essay "Buddha Nature as Myth", makes a distinction between "empirically verifiable propositions", statements that make claims about the nature of reality whose truth both is and is expected to be capable of clear articulation and demonstration, and "mythic views of reality" that provide a nonverifiable framework of great religious power for the expression of fundamentally important religious orientations. He then argues that Buddha Nature thought—at least as expressed in the early Indic sūtras devoted to it—is of the latter kind. Its function, he suggests, is to provide a mythic orientation toward the world and the religious potential of the individual Buddhist, and so to make the practice of Buddhism possible. It is just because "all beings universally possess Buddha Nature" that the practice of the path is possible. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to Buddha Nature, 4)
Grosnick, William. "Buddha Nature as Myth." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 65–74. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.
Article
Buddha in the Storehouse: Mi bskyod rdo rje on the Relationship between Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna
Higgins, David. "Buddha in the Storehouse: Mi bskyod rdo rje on the Relationship between Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 42 (2019): 169–230.
Higgins, David. "Buddha in the Storehouse: Mi bskyod rdo rje on the Relationship between Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 42 (2019): 169–230.
Article
Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?: Revisiting the Meaning of Tathāgata-garbha
Saitō, Akira. "Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?: Revisiting the Meaning of Tathāgata-garbha." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Akira Saitō. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 1–15.
Saitō, Akira. "Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?: Revisiting the Meaning of Tathāgata-garbha." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Akira Saitō. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 1–15.
Article
Buddyjska koncepcja świetlistego umysłu i jej rola w tradycji tathagatagarbhy
Zapart, Jarosław. "Buddyjska koncepcja świetlistego umysłu i jej rola w tradycji tathagatagarbhy" (The Buddhist Concept of a Luminous Mind and Its Role in the Tathāgatagarbha Tradition). Studia Religiologica 48, no. 2 (2015): 117–30. https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/item/18873/zapart_buddyjska_koncepcja_swietlistego_umyslu_2015.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Zapart, Jarosław. "Buddyjska koncepcja świetlistego umysłu i jej rola w tradycji tathagatagarbhy" (The Buddhist Concept of a Luminous Mind and Its Role in the Tathāgatagarbha Tradition). Studia Religiologica 48, no. 2 (2015): 117–30. https://ruj.uj.edu.pl/xmlui/bitstream/handle/item/18873/zapart_buddyjska_koncepcja_swietlistego_umyslu_2015.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
PhD Diss
Cataphatic Emptiness: rGyal-tshab on the Buddha-essence Theory of Asaṅga's Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā
Abstract


This doctoral dissertation studies the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttaratantra), the only surviving Indian Buddhist treatise on the Buddha-essence doctrine, by way of one of its major Tibetan commentaries, rGyal-tshab Dar-ma-rin-chen (1364-1432)'s Theg pa chen po rGyud bla ma'i ṭīkā. This project consists of three parts: a special edition of the first chapter of the Theg pa chen po rGyud bia ma'i ṭīkā, an English translation of the selected sections of that commentary, and a comparative analysis which follows six distinct lines of inquiry.
      The six lines are: rGyal-tshab's doctrinal classification of the text; his critiques of absolutism, skepticism, and quietism in connection with diverse interpretations of the Buddha-essence doctrine in Tibetan traditions as well as a tentative comparison with critiques of the theory of "Original-enlightenment" in modern Chinese Buddhism; his analysis of the title of Tibetan version and the structure of the text; rGyal-tshab's

philosophical positions on reality, Element, and natural luminosity of the mind; his expositions of the tripartite Buddha-essence, its ten aspects, and the eighteen similes; and the notion "spiritual gene" understood by dGe-lugs-pas.
      This comparative approach will provide a broader synthetic understanding of the role that Buddha-essence played as a doctrinal genre in Tibetan intellectual history.
Jiang, Bo. "Cataphatic Emptiness: rGyal-tshab on the Buddha-Essence Theory of Asaṅga's Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā." PhD diss., Columbia University, 2008.
Video
Christopher V. Jones at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
Christopher Jones discusses the development of the concept of buddha-nature in the first five hundred years of the Common Era. He postulates that the most likely trajectory of buddha-nature thought in India entailed a reimagining of the expression tathāgatagarbha away from its contentious "ātmavādin" origins.
Jones, Christopher V. "Selfhood, Secrecy, Singularity: Reassessing the Early Life of the Tathāgatagarbha in India." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 45:01. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ARzGpIOwFYc.
Book
Collected Papers on the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine
The volume brings together a selection of the late author's previously published papers written in English (and one in German). Their subject matter relates by and large to the tathāgatagarbha theory or the idea of Buddhanature, which have been the main subjects of his research over the years.
      In part 1 he has singled out those scriptures that use the term tathāgatagarbha as their principal term and identified three scriptures—Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra, Anūnatvāpurṇatvanirdeśa, and Śrīmālādevīnirdeśa—as the basis for the formation of the tathāgatagarbha theory. Next, he has placed the Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra, which uses the term buddhadhātu for the first time as a synonym of tathāgatagarbha, and associated scriptures in a second group, while in the third group we have the Laṅkāvatāra-sūtra and so on, in which the concept of tathāgatagarbha is identified with ālayavijñana, the basic concept of the Vijñānavāda.
      In part 2, he has dealt with the prehistory of the tathāgatagarbha theory in Mahāyāna scriptures that use terms synonymous with tathāgatagarbha, such as gotra and dhātu, tathāgatagotra, tathāgatotpattisambhava, āryavaṃsa, buddhaputra, dharmadhātu and dharmakāya, cittaprakṛti, and so on. The main points made in this work are discussed in the papers that have now been brought together in the present volume.
      This volume has for convenience' sake been divided into seven parts according to subject matter. Part 1 presents a textual study, namely, a critical edition of chapter 6 of the Laṅkāvatāra. Part 2 deals with subjects concerning scriptures such as the Laṅkāvatāra, part 3 with technical terms and basic concepts of the tathāgatagarbha theory, part 4 with tathāgatagarbha doctrine in general, and part 5 with Japanese Buddhism and Buddhism in East Asia (on the basis of scriptures translated into Chinese). Part 6 presents a historical survey of Japanese scholarship on Buddhism, and part 7 consists of several book reviews. (Source: Motilal Banarsidass)
Takasaki, Jikido. Collected Papers on the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2014.
Book
Contributions to the Development of Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology
The present paper is a considerably revised version of my doctoral dissertation entitled "Contributions to the Development of Tibetan Buddhist Logic - from the eleventh to the fifteenth century." This dissertation was submitted to the Faculty of Oriental Studies, University of Hamburg, in January of 1979. The title has been changed for two reasons. The first of these is a conceptual one. Namely, in the course of my subsequent studies of Buddhist tshad-ma (pramāṇa), I have decided to translate this fundamentally untranslatable term by 'epistemology'. While this rendition does also not do justice to its semantic range, I feel that it has at least the merit of being less misleading than the more widely used 'logic', especially for those who have no background in Indian or Tibetan studies, and who may chance to come across this title. It is and remains an untranslatable term.
      The second reason for my changing the original title of my dissertation, is that I felt obliged to change its scope. The vast literature on Tibetan Buddhist epistemology, which has become available during the last few years, necessitated such a curtailment. Especially the presently available Dga'-ldan-pa contributions by Rgyal-tshab-rje and Mkhas-grubrje, in particular, need to be properly assessed, and this takes time. Moreover, much but not all of the subsequent Sa-skya-pa literature in this area by Go-ram-pa and Gser-mdog Pan-chen must be read with the particular theories of these Dga'-ldan-pa philosophers in mind. To undertake such a comparative study cannot be done in a hurried fashion. Some references to the Dga'-ldan-pa contributions have, however, been made in the course of this paper on the basis of my original access to but a limited number of their writings. Nonetheless, a significant portion of my dissertation that deals with the fourteenth and fifteenth centuries, has been included in the footnotes of the present paper where I was concerned with historical or bio-bibliographical details. (van der Kuijp, preface, vii)

Read more here . . .
Kuijp, Leonard W. J. van der. Contributions to the Development of Tibetan Buddhist Epistemology: From the Eleventh to the Thirteenth Century. Alt- und Neu-Indische Studien 26. Wiesbaden: Franz Steiner Verlag, 1983. https://www.scribd.com/document/255465514/Contributions-to-the-Development-of-Tibetan-Buddhist-Epistemology.
Book
Die Anwendung der Tathagatagarbha-Lehre
The doctrine of tathāgatagarbha as the element inherent in every sentient being is a central concept within Mahāyāna Buddhism. Presenting this Buddha nature as the absolute in positive terms, as a state of gnosis with inconceivable qualities, is the core of the so-called gzhan stong view. Mind as such is understood to be empty of other (gzhan stong), i.e. empty of incidental stains, which are not mind’s nature; but mind is seen to be not empty of its enlightened qualities. Yet, as long as sentient beings are deluded by their incidental or superficial stains, they are incapable of directly relating to these inherent enlightened qualities. According to the relevant texts, this constitutes the only difference to the awakened ones, the buddhas, who, having removed the incidental stains, have actualized their inherent Buddha nature. From the perspective of the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha in general, and from the gzhan stong view in particular, Buddhist philosophy and any spiritual training in ethics, view, and meditation has as its goal the removal the incidental stains so that the buddha qualities can develop or manifest themselves. The book Die Anwendung der Tathāgatagarbha-Lehre in Kong spruls Anleitung zur gZhan stong-Sichtweise deals with the interpretation of Buddha nature in contexts of view and meditation advanced by the scholar monk ’Jam mgon Kong sprul Blo gros mtha’ yas (1813–1899). The introductory section of the book sketches Kong sprul’s historical context. This is followed by a short overview of the topic of Buddha nature from the perspective of its sources in Mahāyāna-sūtras and Indian treatises. Special attention is given to the Ratnagotravibhāga and its relevance to the Mahāmudrā teachings of the bKa’ brgyud pa-tradition of Tibetan Buddhism. The book then examines the development of the gzhan stong view in Tibet. In light of this historical and doctrinal background, attention turns to Kong sprul’s treatment of the gzhan stong position based on his text The Immaculate Vajra Moonrays, an Instruction for the View of Gzhan stong, the Great Madhyamaka. The main focus is on how Kong sprul guides a Buddhist yogin through the process of realization: The analysis of the correct mundane and supramundane view plays just as an important role as the question of which of the Buddha’s teachings are to be understood in a provisional sense (drang don, neyārtha) and which in a definitive sense (nītārtha, nges don). Kong sprul recommends for this analysis in particular the models of the Niḥsvabhāvavāda-Madhyamaka and the Yogācāra-Madhyamaka which to him are synonymous with rang stong- and gzhan stong-Madhyamaka respectively. The book concludes to show how according to Kong sprul the spiritual path which is based in the gzhan stong-view culminates in actualizing tathāgatagarbha. A critical edition of the text and its translation into German form the final part of the book. (Source Accessed Nov 14, 2019)
Draszczyk, Martina. Die Anwendung der Tathāgatagarbha-Lehre in Kong spruls Anleitung zur Gzhan stong-Sichtweise. Edited by Birgit Kellner and Helmut Tauscher. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 87. Vienna: Arbeitskreis für Tibetische und Buddhistische Studien Universität Wien, 2015.
Audio
Does a Dog Have Buddha Nature?
Tenshin Reb Anderson gives a dharma talk at Green Gulch Farm on the topic of buddha-nature, later addressing the question, "Does a dog have buddha-nature?"
Anderson, Tenshin Reb. "Does a Dog Have Buddha Nature?" Recorded July 22, 2018 at San Francisco Zen Center's Green Gulch Farm. Audio, 47:06. https://soundcloud.com/sanfranciscozencenter/does-a-dog-have-buddha-nature.
Article
Dolpopa and Gyaltsab Debate Tathāgatagarbha: Two Distinct Interpretations of Buddha-Nature in Tibet
Wangchuk, Tsering. "Dolpopa and Gyaltsab Debate Tathāgatagarbha: Two Distinct Interpretations of Buddha-Nature in Tibet." Religion Compass 4, no. 11 (2010): 669–78.
Wangchuk, Tsering. "Dolpopa and Gyaltsab Debate Tathāgatagarbha: Two Distinct Interpretations of Buddha-Nature in Tibet." Religion Compass 4, no. 11 (2010): 669–78.
Video
Donald S. Lopez, Jr. - Keynote of the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
In his keynote lecture to the Vienna Tathāgatagarbha Symposium, Donald Lopez provides an overview of the history and influence of tathāgatagarbha doctrine as well as its various interpretations across the Mahāyāna world.
Lopez, Donald S., Jr. “Tathāgatagarbha: A Brief History.” Keynote lecture at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 40:17. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0SSSdNNbeu8&list=PLHaerbJNKd99B9zBy4rcZS6pWlsEgh1hJ
Video
Dorji Wangchuk at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
Dorji Wangchuk discusses critiques of Buddha-nature theory as non-Buddhist and as opposed to the Buddha's teaching on dependent arising. In particular, he looks at how Rongzom Chökyi Zangpo interprets the tathāgatagarbha theory in relation to the pratītyasamutpāda theory.
Wangchuk, Dorji. "Rong-zom-pa on the Tathāgatagarbha and Pratītyasamutpāda Theories." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 45:33. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0slogomESI8.
Article
Emptiness–Buddhanature
The Buddhist schools are rich and varied in their perspectives, but these many points of view all advance the Buddhist concept of the middle view (madhya-drshti in Sanskrit and ume tawa in Tibetan).
Kyabgon, Traleg. “Emptiness/Buddhanature.” Lion's Roar, September 1, 2003. https://www.lionsroar.com/emptiness-buddhanature/.
Article
Image-likeness and the Tathāgatagarbha: A Reading of William of St. Thierry's Golden Epistle and the Ratnagotravibhāga
In Book 10 of his Confessions Augustine marvels as he meditates on the qualities of the memoria in human beings:

Great is the power of memory, exceeding great, O my God—an inner chamber large and boundless (penetrale amplum et infinitum)! Who has plumbed its depths? Yet it is a poer of mine, and apertains unto my nature; nor do I myself grasp all that I am (nec ego ipse capio totum, quod sum). . . . A great admiration rises upon me; astonishment seizes me. And men go forth to wonder at the heights of mountains, the huge waves of the sea, the broad flow of the rivers, the extent of the ocean, and the courses of the stars, and omit to wonder at themselves (et reliquunt se ipsos).

This concern with the memoria, and its function in the human mind, was to be one of the most important spiritual legacies Augustine would leave to the Latin, and especially monastic, Middle Ages. In fact, it would be possible to say without much exaggeration that the entire history of monastic spirituality in the Latin Middle Ages (at least until approximately A.D. 1200) is the record of the development of understanding of the power of memoria. A central reason for this is that memoria was described as a faculty that worked by recalling the human person to the knowledge and intuition that they were created in the image and likeness of God. Thus the words of Genesis 1:26–27 stand at the beginning of an entire spiritual tradition: "God said let us make man in our own image, in the likeness of ourselves. . . . God created man in the image of himself, in the image of God he created him, male and female he created them." Augustine frequently exhorts himself, as in Confessions 7.10, to "return to myself" (redite ad memet ipsum). This was also the continual refrain of the Cistercian author of the twelfth century, William of St. Thierry, in his Golden Epistle, and it serves as one of the themes on which he builds this work. William's treatise, folloing in the path of Augustine, is a call to discover the image and likeness of God in the individual person.

      In the presentation to follow I would like to set out two spiritual traditions for us to consider: the image-likeness tradition based on Genesis 1:26 and developed by the Latin and Greek Fathers of the Church until approximately A.D. 1200, and the tathāgatagarbha teachings on Buddha-nature in Mahayana Buddhism, which flourished in India and then spread to Tibet and other parts of the Far East in the first six centuries C.E. I shall do this bby presenting two texts: the Golden Epistle of William of St, Thierry, and the Ratnagotravibhāga (third to fifth centuries A.D.), variously attributed to Saramati or Maitreya. My thesis here is that while the language and concepts used in these two treatises are different, and the two worldviews of which they are representative also vary widely, we can find nonetheless underlying themes that express central concerns of each tradition, especially concerning the brith of a basic nature in the person, and the inability of either sin or defilements (kleśa) to cover over that nature that is coming to birth. (Groves, "Image-likeness and Tathāgatagarbha," 97–98)
Groves, Nicholas. "Image-likeness and Tathāgatagarbha: A Reading of William of St. Thierry’s Golden Epistle and the Ratnagotravibhāga." Buddhist-Christian Studies 10 (1990): 97–117.
Book
In Praise of Dharmadhātu
Nagarjuna is famous in the West for his works not only on Madhyamaka but his poetic collection of praises, headed by In Praise of Dharmadhatu. This book explores the scope, contents, and significance of Nagarjuna's scriptural legacy in India and Tibet, focusing primarily on the title work. The translation of Nagarjuna's hymn to Buddha nature—here called dharmadhatu—shows how buddha nature is temporarily obscured by adventitious stains in ordinary sentient beings gradually uncovered through the path of bodhisattvas and finally revealed in full bloom as buddhahood. These themes are explored at a deeper level through a Buddhist history of mind's luminous nature and a translation of the text's earliest and most extensive commentary by the Third Karmapa Rangjung Dorje (1284–1339), supplemented by relevant excerpts from all other available commentaries. The book also provides an overview of the Third Karmapa's basic outlook, based on seven of his major texts. He is widely renowned as one of the major proponents of the shentong (other-empty) view. However, as this book demonstrates, this often problematic and misunderstood label needs to be replaced by a more nuanced approach which acknowledges the Karmapa's very finely tuned synthesis of the two great traditions of Indian mahayana Buddhism, Madhyamaka and Yogacara. These two, his distinct positions on Buddha nature, and the transformation of consciousness into enlightened wisdom also serve as the fundamental view for the entire vajrayana as it is understood and practiced in the Kagyu tradition to the present day. (Source: Shambhala Publications)
Brunnhölzl, Karl, trans. In Praise of Dharmadhātu. By Nāgārjuna and the Third Karmapa, Rangjung Dorje (rang byung rdo rje). Nitartha Institute Series. Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion Publications, 2007.
Article
Indo kōki mikkyō ni okeru nyoraizō eno genkyū to sono kaishaku: Tantra chūshakusho wo chūshin to shite
Kano, Kazuo. "Indo kōki mikkyō ni okeru nyoraizō eno genkyū to sono kaishaku: Tantra chūshakusho wo chūshin to shite" (References to Tathāgatagarbha in Later Tantric Commentaries). Mikkyōgaku Kenkyū 44 (2012): 125–37.
Kano, Kazuo. "Indo kōki mikkyō ni okeru nyoraizō eno genkyū to sono kaishaku: Tantra chūshakusho wo chūshin to shite" (References to Tathāgatagarbha in Later Tantric Commentaries). Mikkyōgaku Kenkyū 44 (2012): 125–37.
Audio
Inherent Buddha Nature
Kaiji Jeffrey Schneider gives a general dharma talk on buddha-nature at the San Francisco Zen Center. He begins with a discussion of the five skandhas and discusses how the later notion of tathāgatagarbha represented a radical shift in the Buddhist understanding of the mind and consciousness.
Schneider, Jeffrey. "Inherent Buddha Nature." Recorded January 16, 2018 at San Francisco Zen Center's City Center. Audio, 32:01. https://soundcloud.com/sanfranciscozencenter/inherent-buddha-nature.
Video
Kazuo Kano at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
Kazuo Kano discusses the term tathāgatagarbha and its appearance in tantric scriptures and commentaries composed by Indic authors and shows how and for what purposes this term has been integrated into tantric contexts. In terms of precursors to the tantric usages, he notes mentions such as that found in the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, in which practitioners are taught to think of themselves as a stūpa—that is, a reliquary that contains a buddha within it and as such are objects of worship. As for Indian authors, he discusses the views of Ratnākaraśānti as representative of the Yogācāra school and the notion of the three vehicles (triyāna), and he discusses Abhayākaragupta as representative of the Madhyamaka school and the notion of a single vehicle (ekayāna). Some brief mention is also made of Kamalaśīla, who represents a synthesis of the two schools.
Kano, Kazuo. "Examples of the Term tathāgatagarbha Appearing in Indic Tantric Literature." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 42:13. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=vIVDu1Ig7H8.
Video
Khenpo Tamphel at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
Drawing on the text entitled A Mahāmudrā Investigation into Confusion: An Instruction for Identifying the Process of Confusion by Jikten Sumgon, Khenpo Tamphel explains how, according to this text, sentient beings and buddhas are related, how confusion arises that leads to saṃsāra, and how recognition of the true nature of sentient beings is the way to enlightenment.
Tamphel, Khenpo Könchok. "The Difference Between a Sentient Being and a Buddha: 'Jig rten gsum mgon’s Instruction on the Process of Confusion." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 47:23. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=3GbYgx3ozDM.
Book
La Théorie du Tathāgatagarbha et du Gotra
Le tathāgatagarbha, « embryon » ou « matrice » de Tathāgata, est le genre de la nature de Bouddha qui, selon certains textes du Mahāyāna, est présent en tous les êtres. Cette théorie joua un rôle considérable dans le bouddhisme de la Chine, du Japon et du Tibet. Elle est liée à d'autres points de doctrine importants, que M. Ruegg a examinés également ici, ceux du gotra ou « lignée » spirituelle, de l'Eveil universel, du Véhicule unique de salut, de la luminosité naturelle de la pensée. Toutes ces théories, étroitement liées entre elles, touchent de très près à l'essence même du bouddhisme du Grand Véhicule, comme l'a montré excellemment M. Ruegg. Celui-ci a pourtant limité le champ de ses investigations à certaines sources, sūtra sanskrits du Mahāyāna, traités des Mādhyamika et des Yogācāra, commentaires et traités tibétains d'époques diverses, laissant de côté notamment toute l'abondante littérature chinoise et japonaise sur le sujet. Prudemment, il s'en est tenu à une étude doxographique, sans traiter aucun des problèmes de philologie et d'histoire. Cependant, la maîtrise acquise par lui en sanskrit et en tibétain, et sa grande familiarité avec la pensée bouddhique, même dans ce qu'elle a de plus abstrus, permettent à M. Ruegg de se jouer aisément de toutes les difficultés, fort nombreuses et redoutables, dont un tel sujet était hérissé. On regrettera seulement qu'il n'ait guère fait effort pour rendre son livre accessible au lecteur non spécialiste. Pourtant, cet ouvrage, qui est une contribution capitale à notre connaissance de la pensée bouddhique, mérite d'être connu d'un large public de philosophes et d'historiens des religions. Souhaitons que son auteur en donnera bientôt un condensé sous une forme claire. Mais ce défaut, qui ne concerne que l'expression et est en quelque sorte la rançon de la compétence de M. Ruegg, n'enlève rien à la valeur intrinsèque de ce travail, l'un des meilleurs qu'ait produits l'étude du bouddhisme ces dernières années. (Source: Review by André Bareau, Revue de l'histoire des religions)
Ruegg, David Seyfort. La théorie du tathāgatagarbha et du gotra: Études sur la sotériologie et la gnoséologie du Bouddhisme. Publications de l'École Française d'Extrême-Orient 70. Paris: École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1969. https://archive.org/details/Ruegg1969LaTheorieDuTathgatagarbhaEtDuGotraEtudesSurLaSoteriologieEtLaGnoseologieDuBouddhisme/mode/2up.
Video
Lama Shenpen Speaks on Buddha Nature
Fresh from her return from the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia (July 16–19, 2019), Lama Shenpen Hookham speaks to the Awakened Heart Sangha about the topic of buddha-nature.
Hookham, Shenpen. "Lama Shenpen Speaks on Buddha Nature." Produced by Awakened Heart Sangha. Filmed at The Hermitage of The Awakened Heart, Gwynedd, North Wales, July 27, 2019. Video, 1:22:21. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=To4-nLGvSCU.
Article
Luminous Mind among the Logicians—An Analysis of Pramāṇavārttika II.205–211
Roger R. Jackson, in his essay "Luminous Mind Among the Logicians", treats the Indo-Tibetan commentarial discussions of the affirmation of the mind's natural luminosity (prabhāsvaratā) found in Pramāṇavārttika II.208. Such an affIrmation, as he shows, has deep roots in the Buddhist tradition, and is usually connected with tathāgatagarbha thought. That it is also affirmed by Dharmakīrti and discussed extensively by his commentators in India and Tibet shows that it is not without significance for the logicoepistemological tradition represented by Dignāga and his successors. The idea that the mind is naturally luminous or radiant and that its defIlements have only an adventitious status is of obvious relevance to Buddhist soteriology; it affirms that, in some important sense, the goal of Buddhist religious practice has already been attained or is already present. The importance of Jackson's study is that it shows the same idea to be relevant also to Buddhist epistemological theory: it is precisely the mind's natural radiance that makes apprehension of things as they really are a possibility. It is this metaphysical and epistemological fact which leads Jackson to categorize Dharmakīrti and his school as epistemological optimists. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to Buddha Nature, 5)
Jackson, Roger R. "Luminous Mind among the Logicians—An Analysis of Pramāṇavārttika II.205–211." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 95–123. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.
Book
The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine
Famously, tathāgatagarbha doctrine holds that every sentient being has within the body a womb for Buddhas, or an embryonic Buddha – the potential for full buddhahood. Previous scholars have seen this doctrine as originating in the Tathāgatagarbha-sūtra. In this book, Michael Radich argues that rather, the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra is most likely our earliest extant tathāgatagarbha text. Radich then argues that tathāgatagarbha ideas originated as part of a wider pattern of docetic Buddhology – ideas holding that Buddhas are not really as they appear. Buddhist docetic texts are clearly troubled by the notion that Buddhas could have flesh-and-blood human mothers. The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra is one such text, and tathāgatagarbha functions as a better substitute for imperfect human maternity: rather than a putrid, painful human womb, buddhahood springs from a “womb” inherent in every sentient being, which promises final liberation from flesh altogether. This book should interest readers concerned with the history of Buddhist ideas, gender in Buddhism, the early Mahāyāna, the cult of the Buddha’s relics, and relations between Buddhist ideas and practice. (Source: Hamburg University Press)
Radich, Michael. The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine. Hamburg Buddhist Studies 5. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2015. https://d-nb.info/1069352969/34.
Book
Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations
Originating in India, Mahayana Buddhism spread across Asia, becoming the prevalent form of Buddhism in Tibet and East Asia. Over the last twenty-five years Western interest in Mahayana has increased considerably, reflected both in the quantity of scholarly material produced and in the attraction of Westerners towards Tibetan Buddhism and Zen. Paul Williams’ Mahayana Buddhism is widely regarded as the standard introduction to the field, used internationally for teaching and research and has been translated into several European and Asian languages. This new edition has been fully revised throughout in the light of the wealth of new studies and focuses on the religion’s diversity and richness. It includes much more material on China and Japan, with appropriate reference to Nepal, and for students who wish to carry their study further there is a much-expanded bibliography and extensive footnotes and cross-referencing. Everyone studying this important tradition will find Williams’ book the ideal companion to their studies. (Source: Routledge)
Williams, Paul. Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 2nd ed. The Library of Religious Beliefs and Practices. New York: Routledge, 2009. https://archive.org/details/mahayanabuddhismthedoctrinalfoundationspaulwilliamsroutledgeseealtruismandreality_202003_445_W/mode/2up.
Video
Michael Zimmermann at the 2019 Tathāgatagarbha Symposium
In light of the argument that the theory of Buddha-nature is non-Buddhist, Michael Zimmerman summarizes more recent research on the earliest history of buddha-nature thought in India and discusses possible reasons for why the idea that all sentient beings have buddha-nature made its appearance.
Zimmermann, Michael. "New Research on the Concept of Buddha-Nature in India: The Beginnings." Paper presented at the University of Vienna Symposium, Tathāgatagarbha Across Asia, Vienna, Austria, July 2019. Video, 45:00. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=bYkBSSAJ-zo.
Article
Nehangyō kyōtengun ni okeru kū to jitsuzai
Suzuki, Takayasu. "Nehangyō kyōtengun ni okeru kū to jitsuzai" (The Non-emptiness of the Tathāgata in the Mahāparinirvānasūtra-Group). Tōyō bunka kenkyūsho kiyō (Bulletin of Institute of Oriental Culture) 139 (2000): 109–46.
Suzuki, Takayasu. "Nehangyō kyōtengun ni okeru kū to jitsuzai" (The Non-emptiness of the Tathāgata in the Mahāparinirvānasūtra-Group). Tōyō bunka kenkyūsho kiyō (Bulletin of Institute of Oriental Culture) 139 (2000): 109–46.
Article
Nonorigination and Nirvāṇa in the Early Tathāgatagarbha Literature
One of the most interesting notions found in the early tathāgatagarbha literature is the idea that nirvāṇa should be understood as nonorigination (anutpāda). This idea is explicitly formulated in two texts, the Ratnagotravibhāga, the only śāstra extant in Sanskrit which is completely devoted to the tathāgatagarbha and Buddha-nature teachings, and the Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra, the sūtra upon which the Ratnagotravibhāga bases its exposition of nonorigination. The Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra itself does not speak of the tathāgatagarbha or Buddha-nature doctrines, but the Ratnagotravibhāga takes the Jñānālokālaṅkārasūtra explanation of nonorigination and links it to the view of nirvāṇa found in two of the important early sūtras that do speak of the tathāgatagarbha, the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa and the Śrīmālādevīsūtra. This interpretation of nirvāṇa in terms of nonorigination is of considerable importance in understanding the early tathāgatagarbha teaching, for it clarifies certain notions frequently associated with the tathāgatagarbha like the "natural purity of mind" (cittaprakṛtiviśuddhi)—notions which have been hotly debated ever since the doctrine's inception. It may also tell us something about the conceptual issues which divided the schools of early Buddhism and so hold clues for understanding the origin of Mahāyāna Buddhism. (Grosnick, "Nonorigination and Nirvāṇa," 33)
Grosnick, William. "Nonorigination and Nirvāṇa in the Early Tathāgatagarbha Literature." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 4, no. 2 (1981): 33–43. https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8547/2454.
Book
Nyoraizō to Busshō
This book is part of a 10-volume "Series on Mahayana Buddhism" published between 2011 and 2014. The series consists of the contributions of over seventy authors from Japan and other countries. Mahayana Buddhism is an ideological movement that came into existence in the early years of the first millennium CE through the inheritance of the teachings of Buddhism as developed by the Buddha in India in the fifth century BCE, as well as through the development of new sutras both during and since that time. Throughout the following several hundred years, Mahayana Buddhism played a major role in deepening the development of Buddhist thought, particularly regarding epistemology and ontology. Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature, the themes of this book, are ideas developed in the final stages of Mahayana Buddhism, which had a significant effect on the formation of Buddhist thought in East Asia and Tibet. Especially in China, Mahayana Buddhism has received attention for both merging with the philosophy of Huayan Buddhism and for affecting the theoretical form of Neo-Confucianism, as well as for providing theoretical support for the leaders of the Xinhai Revolution.
      Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature are technical terms that indicate the existence of the true nature of the Buddha or Tathāgata who has attained enlightenment through totally unclouded insight (prajñā), within all living things, though these living things may be covered with the impurity of worldly desire and be seemingly incapable of attaining enlightenment. In essence, these terms refer to the fact that the Buddha or Tathāgata resides within the nature of all living things. The notions of Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature make assertions about the nature of enlightenment or salvation for living things still trapped in an unenlightened condition of suffering. They do so from the ideological position of those Tathāgatas or Buddhas who have already realized truth and been released from suffering and unenlightenment. These ideas are expressed as a kind of theodicy and soteriology, as they deal with the challenge of how super-temporal, absolute truth appears at a historical or personal level. Ideas that originate in the mature period of the history of an ideology produce higher-level notions that allow concepts born in various contexts in the previous history of the ideology to coexist. The ideas of Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature, which point to the Tathāgata or Buddha that dwells within all living things, encompass both all living things and Tathāgata, and so exist at a higher conceptual level than either.
      There are two foundations of the ideas of Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha nature, which simultaneously problematize both unenlightenment and enlightenment: the features of soteriology in general religious thought, and the view of truth that is unique to Buddhism. Soteriology, as conceived of in general religious thought, considers the world in a dualistic fashion, as being split into the world of humanity and the world of gods, the world of suffering and the world of liberation, the endless cycle of life and death (samsara) and supreme enlightenment (nirvana). On the one hand is a relative, limited, and impermanent world, and on the other an absolute, infinite, and eternal world. The movement from the former aspect to the latter is not ceaseless but, rather, requires a change in the dimension of our existence, such as religious conversion or enlightenment. The experience of the individual transforms the aspect of the world, which formerly appeared as a single layer, thus exposing its mysterious and unseen facets. In contrast to many religions, which end their exposition at this point, Mahayana Buddhism takes the appearance of this duality itself as a subjective experience and seeks to reach the point at which both aspects ultimately become indistinguishable. The scenery of this world as seen from the world of libreration, worldly desire purified by enlightenment, Samsara illuminated by nirvana are all accepted as they are, without the necessity of any negation or denial. The duality of the world is therefore overcome, and a higher-level equality emerges that still acknowledges individual differences. (Source Accessed June 29, 2020)
Shimoda, Masahiro, ed. Nyoraizō to Busshō (Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature). Vol. 8 of Shirīzu Daijō Bukkyō (Series on Mahāyāna Buddhism). Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2014.
Book
Nyoraizō to Daijō kishinron
Voluminous anthology of articles by eminent scholars about the Awakening of Faith's reception and influence among numerous major Chinese, Korean, and Japanese Buddhist figures and among modern scholars, doctrines of buddha-nature and tathāgata-garbha (womb of buddhas), textual borrowings, and its relationship to the Dilun school, from which many scholars believe it emerged. (Source Accessed July 3, 2020)
Hirakawa, Akira. Nyoraizō to Daijō kishinron. Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 1990.
Article
Nyraizōkyō saiko: Busshō no kyūyu wo chūshin to shite
Zimmermann, Michael. "Nyraizōkyō saiko: Busshō no kyūyu wo chūshin to shite" (Reconsidering the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra Focusing on the Nine Similes of Buddha-nature). In Nyoraizō to Busshō (Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature), edited by Masahiro Shimoda, 97–139. Vol. 8 of Shirīzu Daijō Bukkyō (Series on Mahāyāna Buddhism). Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2014.
Zimmermann, Michael. "Nyraizōkyō saiko: Busshō no kyūyu wo chūshin to shite" (Reconsidering the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra Focusing on the Nine Similes of Buddha-nature). In Nyoraizō to Busshō (Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature), edited by Masahiro Shimoda, 97–139. Vol. 8 of Shirīzu Daijō Bukkyō (Series on Mahāyāna Buddhism). Tokyo: Shunjūsha, 2014.
Article
Nītārtha, Neyārtha, and Tathāgatagarbha in Tibet
Lipman, Kennard. "Nītārtha, Neyārtha, and Tathāgatagarbha in Tibet." Journal of Indian Philosophy 8, no. 1 (1980): 87–95.
Lipman, Kennard. "Nītārtha, Neyārtha, and Tathāgatagarbha in Tibet." Journal of Indian Philosophy 8, no. 1 (1980): 87–95.
Article
On the Dge lugs-pa Theory of the Tathāgatagarbha
Ruegg, David Seyfort. "On the Dge lugs-pa Theory of the Tathāgatagarbha." In Pratidanam: Indian, Iranian, and Indo-European Studies; Presented to Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper on His Sixtieth Birthday, edited by J. C. Heesterman, G. H. Schokker, and V. I. Subramoniam, 500–509. The Hague: Mouton, 1968.
Ruegg, David Seyfort. "On the Dge lugs-pa Theory of the Tathāgatagarbha." In Pratidanam: Indian, Iranian, and Indo-European Studies; Presented to Franciscus Bernardus Jacobus Kuiper on His Sixtieth Birthday, edited by J. C. Heesterman, G. H. Schokker, and V. I. Subramoniam, 500–509. The Hague: Mouton, 1968.
Article
On the Ālayavijñāna in the Awakening of Faith: Comparing and Contrasting Wŏnhyo and Fazang’s Views on Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna
Lee, Sumi. "On the Ālayavijñāna in the Awakening of Faith: Comparing and Contrasting Wŏnhyo and Fazang’s Views on Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." Religions 10, no. 9 (2019): 1–15.
Lee, Sumi. "On the Ālayavijñāna in the Awakening of Faith: Comparing and Contrasting Wŏnhyo and Fazang’s Views on Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." Religions 10, no. 9 (2019): 1–15.
Article
Onto-theology and Emptiness: The Nature of Buddha-Nature
Duckworth, Douglas S. "Onto-theology and Emptiness: The Nature of Buddha-Nature." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 82, no. 4 (2014): 1070–90.
Duckworth, Douglas S. "Onto-theology and Emptiness: The Nature of Buddha-Nature." Journal of the American Academy of Religion 82, no. 4 (2014): 1070–90.
Article
Original Purity and the Arising of Delusion
Hubbard, Jamie. "Original Purity and the Origin of Delusion." Online Publications of Jamie Hubbard, October 31, 2008 (originally written in 1994). https://sophia.smith.edu/~jhubbard/publications/papers/OriginalPurity.pdf
Hubbard, Jamie. "Original Purity and the Origin of Delusion." Online Publications of Jamie Hubbard, October 31, 2008 (originally written in 1994). https://sophia.smith.edu/~jhubbard/publications/papers/OriginalPurity.pdf
Article
Painting Space with Colors: Tathāgatagarbha in the Mahāyānasūtrâlaṅkāra-Corpus IX.22-37
The early history of Tathagatagarbha thought in India remains obscure. In

attempting to elucidate it much depends upon how one chooses to categorize Tathagatagarbha as a system, upon the decisions one makes as to which terms, concepts, argument-patterns and so forth must be present in order for it to be proper to characterize some text or text-fragment as representing that system. These are large questions, much too large to enter upon in this paper; my purpose here is much more limited. I intend to offer a reasonably detailed exposition of a set of sixteen verses from the ninth chapter of the Mahāyānasūtrâlaṅkāra [MSA] (IX.22- 37). These verses deal, or so the bhāṣya tells us, with the "profundity of the undefiled realm" (anāsravadhātugāmbhīrya), and they conclude (37) with the only use of the term tathāgatagarbha in the entire text There is little doubt that this is one of the few early occurrences of the term in Indian Buddhist texts surviving in Sanskrit; a relatively detailed study of these verses may perhaps shed some light upon the historical and doctrinal questions just mentioned.
          The systematic question underlying my comments upon these verses throughout will be: what is the relation between the ground of awakening, that which makes it possible, and the fact of awakening, its essential properties?

          In what follows I shall provide ftrst a brief introduction to the of the MSA-corpus; I shall then place MSA IX.22-37 in its context within the text as a whole, and shall translate the verses in full and offer expository comments on them, drawing in so doing upon the surviving Indic commentaries. (Griffiths, Painting Space with Colors, 41–42)
Griffiths, Paul J. "Painting Space with Colors: Tathāgatagarbha in the Mahāyānasūtrâlaṅkāra-Corpus IX.22–37." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 41–63. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.
Article
Problems on Traditional Bifurcation between Tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra in East Asia
Lee, Sumi. "Problems on Traditional Bifurcation between Tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra in East Asia." [In Korean.] Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies 45 (2015): 85–108.
Lee, Sumi. "Problems on Traditional Bifurcation between Tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra in East Asia." [In Korean.] Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies 45 (2015): 85–108.
Article
Putting Buddha Nature into Practice
A central concept within Mahāyāna Buddhism is the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha, or buddha-nature (deshin shekpai nyingpo, deshek nyingpo), the element inherent to every sentient being. Presenting this buddha nature as the absolute in positive terms, as a state of wisdom with inconceivable qualities, is the essence of the so-called shentong view. Mind as such is understood to be shentong or "empty of other," meaning that it is empty of adventitious stains, which are not minds true nature. But mind is not empty of its enlightened qualities. Still, as long as sentient beings' perceptions are obscured by the

temporary stains, they are incapable of directly relating to wisdoms inherent enlightened qualities. According to the relevant texts,1 these stains constitute the only difference between normal beings and the awakened ones who have removed the stains and actualized their inherent buddha nature. From the perspective of both the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha in general and shentong in particular, proper Buddhist philosophy and spiritual training in ethics, view, and meditation have as their goal the removal of the stains of karma and afflictive emotions and their subtle tendencies of ignorance so that the mind's inherent qualities can manifest.
      This chapter deals with the corresponding approach in view and meditation taught by the cleric-scholar Jamgön Kongtrul Lodrö Thayé (1813–99). As one of the leading figures in the rimé movement in eastern Tibet, he worked to preserve practice traditions from the various Buddhist lineages of Tibet—in particular, practices from the Nyingma, Kadam, Jonang, Kagyü, and Sakya schools. His work exemplifies the idea that implementing philosophical understanding in meditative training is an essential part of all Tibetan Buddhist traditions. His Immaculate Vajra Moonrays: An Instruction for the View of Shentong, the Great Madhyamaka (abbreviated here as Instruction for the View of Shentong) is but one instance of the integral relationship between philosophical understanding and meditative training. The text guides meditators in a gradual practice that aims to achieve a direct realization of the true nature of mind—buddha nature with all of its inherent qualities. (Draszczyk, 251–52, 2017)

Notes:

1. For example, the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, the Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanāda Sūtra, and the

Ratnagotravibhāga, also referred to as the Uttaratantra Śāstra.
Draszczyk, Tina, trans. "Putting Buddha Nature into Practice." A translation of Immaculate Vajra Moonrays: An Instruction for the View of Shentong, the Great Madhyamaka (Gzhan stong dbu ma chen po'i lta khrid rdo rje zla ba dri ma med pa'i 'od zer). By Jamgön Kongtrul ('jam mgon kong sprul). In A Gathering of Brilliant Moons: Practice Advice from the Rimé Masters of Tibet, edited by Holly Gayley and Joshua Schapiro, 251–84. Somerville, MA: Wisdom Publications, 2017.
Article
Reburying the Treasure—Maintaining the Continuity: Two Texts by Śākya Mchog Ldan on the Buddha-Essence
Komarovski, Yaroslav. "Reburying the Treasure—Maintaining the Continuity: Two Texts by Śākya Mchog Ldan on the Buddha-Essence." Journal of Indian Philosophy 34, no. 6 (2006): 521–70. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=classicsfacpub.
Komarovski, Yaroslav. "Reburying the Treasure—Maintaining the Continuity: Two Texts by Śākya Mchog Ldan on the Buddha-Essence." Journal of Indian Philosophy 34, no. 6 (2006): 521–70. https://digitalcommons.unl.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1078&context=classicsfacpub.
Article
Reconsidering the "Essence" of Indian Buddha-Nature Literature
Jones, Christopher V. "Reconsidering the 'Essence' of Indian Buddha-Nature Literature." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Saitō Akira. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 57–78.
Jones, Christopher V. "Reconsidering the 'Essence' of Indian Buddha-Nature Literature." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Saitō Akira. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 57–78.
Audio
Shadows of a Former Self: The "True Self" Taught by the Tathāgatagarbha Literature
Christopher V. Jones discusses the concept of the "true self" as taught in the early Tathāgatagarbha literature.
Jones, Christopher V. "Shadows of a Former Self: The 'True Self' Taught by the Tathāgatagarbha Literature." Recorded March 3, 2015 at the Oxford Centre for Buddhist Studies. Audio, 1:04:11. https://soundcloud.com/user-715146666/shadows-of-a-former-self-the-true-self-taught-by-the-tathagatagarbha-literature.
PhD Diss
Study of the Tathāgatagarbha as True Self and the True Selves of the Brahmanic, Sāṅkhya and Jaina Traditions
Abstract:

The tathāgatagarbha is an intrinsically luminous consciousness naturally inscribed with the complete knowledge of the Buddha along with infinite Buddha-virtues and the potential to attain them. Studies in the past have focused on its potential aspect and negated it as an ontological entity. In this dissertation I examine it as a true self of sentient beings arguing that being beginningless, unborn, unconditioned, eternally unchanging, enduring and imperishable, it qualifies as true self. Also, the Mahāyāna-Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra unhesitatingly acknowledges it as true self, and its features conform to the definition of the true self of this sūtra and of Bhāvaviveka. I find ample support for its interpretation as true self in the sūtras on this doctrine. Besides, its features correspond with the features of the Brahmanic, Sāṅkhya and Jaina true selves. The Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine is recognized as a provisional teaching. The centrality of the doctrines of śūnyatā, tathatā, darmadhātu, dharmakāya and nirvāṇa suggest that it is truly Mahāyāna in spirit. According to the Ratnagotravibhāga, without realizing the emptiness of own being, nirvāṇa is not attained. This “Ultimate Doctrine”, it adds, is taught to remove the five defects. The defects, I find, are connected with not knowing emptiness or understanding the dharmakāya of the Tathāgata nihilistically. As a corrective to the nihilistic understanding of the Mahāyāna Doctrine, it qualifies as an ultimate teaching. I study the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine from the following perspectives: the tathāgatagarbha as true self; the all-pervading, undifferentiated Essence of Buddhahood as Cosmic Self; and the concept of liberation. I also compare this doctrine to the doctrines of the above-mentioned three traditions and study their concepts of true self, the concepts of Cosmic Self of the Brahmanic and Early Sāṅkhya doctrines; and the concepts of liberation of these three doctrines. I follow the trajectory of thought of the Ratnagotravibhāga and the Tathāgatagarbha group of texts.
Khosla, Usha. "Study of the Tathāgatagarbha as True Self and the True Selves of the Brahmanic, Sāṅkhya and Jaina Traditions." PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2015. https://tspace.library.utoronto.ca/bitstream/1807/77747/3/Khosla_Usha_201506_PhD_thesis.pdf
Article
Tathāgatagarbha Influences in the Three Nature (Trisvabhāva) Theory of the Maitreya Works
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter. "Tathāgatagarbha Influences in the Three Nature (Trisvabhāva) Theory of the Maitreya Works." Journal of Tibetology 20 (2019): 222–44.
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter. "Tathāgatagarbha Influences in the Three Nature (Trisvabhāva) Theory of the Maitreya Works." Journal of Tibetology 20 (2019): 222–44.
Article
Tathāgatagarbha Scriptures
Radich, Michael. "Tathāgatagarbha Scriptures." In Vol. 1, Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism: Literature and Languages, edited by Jonathan A. Silk, Oskar von Hinüber, and Vincent Eltschinger 261–73. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Radich, Michael. "Tathāgatagarbha Scriptures." In Vol. 1, Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism: Literature and Languages, edited by Jonathan A. Silk, Oskar von Hinüber, and Vincent Eltschinger 261–73. Leiden: Brill, 2015.
Article
Tathāgatagarbha Thought: A Basis of Buddhist Devotionalism in East Asia
Kiyota, Minoru. "Tathāgatagarbha Thought: A Basis of Buddhist Devotionalism in East Asia." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 12, no. 2/3 (1985): 207–31. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2311.
Kiyota, Minoru. "Tathāgatagarbha Thought: A Basis of Buddhist Devotionalism in East Asia." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 12, no. 2/3 (1985): 207–31. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2311.
Article
Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman: Self Where There Is No-Self
Laughlin, Aaron Alexander. "Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman: Self Where There Is No-Self." IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Humboldt State University 3 (2019): 57–61. https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/ideafest/vol3/iss1/11
Laughlin, Aaron Alexander. "Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman: Self Where There Is No-Self." IdeaFest: Interdisciplinary Journal of Creative Works and Research from Humboldt State University 3 (2019): 57–61. https://digitalcommons.humboldt.edu/ideafest/vol3/iss1/11
Article
Tathāgatagarbha et Ālayavijñāna
Masson-Oursel, Paul. "Tathāgatagarbha et Ālayavijñāna." (In French.) Journal Asiatique 210 (1927): 295–302. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k93310p/f299.image.
Masson-Oursel, Paul. "Tathāgatagarbha et Ālayavijñāna." (In French.) Journal Asiatique 210 (1927): 295–302. https://gallica.bnf.fr/ark:/12148/bpt6k93310p/f299.image.
Article
Tathāgatagarbha from the Perspective of Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje as Presented in His Lamp that Eloquently Highlights the Tradition of the Gzhan stong Madhyamaka Proponents
Draszczyk, Martina. "Tathāgatagarbha from the Perspective of Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje as Presented in His Lamp that Eloquently Highlights the Tradition of the Gzhan stong Madhyamaka Proponents." Hōrin 18 (2015): 141–60.
Draszczyk, Martina. "Tathāgatagarbha from the Perspective of Karma pa Mi bskyod rdo rje as Presented in His Lamp that Eloquently Highlights the Tradition of the Gzhan stong Madhyamaka Proponents." Hōrin 18 (2015): 141–60.
Article
Tathāgatagarbha, Emptiness, and Monism
The tathāgatagarbha doctrine is one of the most significant Buddhist doctrines to have come under the scrutiny of scholars in recent times.2 One of the more interesting aspects of this doctrine is that it focuses attention on the nature of the Buddhist “absolute” or highest truth in such a way as to make clear many of the problems and concerns of the Buddhist community after the advent of the doctrine of emptiness (śūnyatā). This is so because, while on the one hand the tathāgatagarbha is identified with emptiness (“The wisdom of the tathāgatagarbha is nothing but the Tathāgata's wisdom of emptiness”3), on the other hand this emptiness, which for Nāgārjuna and more so for Candrakīrti was a “non-affirming negation,” is redefined in terms of affirmative predications of the highest order (e.g. astitva, mahā-ātman, eternal, etc.). That an investigation of the tathāgatagarbha requires one to ask fundamental questions about the nature of the Buddhist absolute—e.g. is there an “absolute” in Buddhism, and if so, what are its characteristics, how does it differ from the substantialism of the ātmavāda, etc.—is also indicated by the fact that both those who assert tathāgatagarbha to be an absolute or monistic doctrine and those who interpret it in orthodox Buddhist terms do so based on the same line of reasoning, i.e. that tathāgatagarbha is but an expression of pratītyasamutpāda and śūnyatā. The difference is that the former group of scholars see Mahāyāna in general as monistic while the latter do not. This essay is concerned with this question of the equation of pratītyasamutpāda, śūnyatā, and tathāgatagarbha and the related issue of whether or not tathāgatagarbha thought represents a form of Buddhist monism.(Hubbard, introductory remarks, 1–2)

Notes:

1. (In title and not shown) This was originally written in 1994; the publisher seems to have fallen into a black hole, so I am putting it out here myself; I have not changed it (other than fonts and some formatting issues) in order to keep the historical in perspective. I think that I still agree with myself, especially with the idea that tathāgatagarbha represents more of a dualism than a monism and thereby leads to ethical problems with the less-than-real (accidental) kleśa.

2. Many of the questions considered here have been treated in David Ruegg's recent publication Buddha-nature, Mind and the Problem of Gradualism in a Comparative Perspective (Delhi: Heritage Publishers 1992); see especially Chapter One.

3. Jikido Takasaki, A Study of the Ratnagotravibhāga (Uttara-tantra), (Rome, 1966), p. 302. Hereafter cited as Ratnagotravibhāga.
Hubbard, Jamie. "Tathāgatagarbha, Emptiness, and Monism.” Online Publications of Jamie Hubbard, May 2009 (originally written in 1994). https://sophia.smith.edu/~jhubbard/publications/papers/TG-Emptiness-Monism.pdf.
Article
Textual and Philosophical Problems in the Translation and Transmission of Tathāgatagarbha Texts
Ruegg, David Seyfort. "Textual and Philosophical Problems in the Translation and Transmission of Tathāgatagarbha Texts: Sanskrit Avinirmuktakleśakośa, Amuktajña/Amuktajñāna, and Tathāgatagarbhaśūnyatārthanaya and Their Tibetan Translations in the bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78, no. 2 (2015): 317–32.
Ruegg, David Seyfort. "Textual and Philosophical Problems in the Translation and Transmission of Tathāgatagarbha Texts: Sanskrit Avinirmuktakleśakośa, Amuktajña/Amuktajñāna, and Tathāgatagarbhaśūnyatārthanaya and Their Tibetan Translations in the bKa' 'gyur and bsTan 'gyur." Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies 78, no. 2 (2015): 317–32.
PhD Diss
The Active Self: A Philosophical Study of the "Buddha Nature Treatise" and Other Chinese Buddhist Texts
        Buddha nature is the Thusness revealed by the twin
        emptiness of man and things. . . . If one does not
        speak of Buddha nature, one does not understand
        emptiness.[1]


The Buddhist notion of anātman, no self, has been a source of fascination and bewilderment to Western thinkers ever since the introduction of Buddhism to the West. Yet once we accept this notion and its centrality in Buddhist thought and practice, our bewilderment is redoubled when we learn that certain texts of the tathāgatagarbha/Buddha nature lineage speak in the most positive language of such things as a Buddha nature, a pure mind and even the perfection of selfhood. How can such language be used within a tradition which places so much importance on the anātman teaching? Similarly, we are at first puzzled by the Mādhyamika teaching that everything is empty (śūnya) and that the supreme truth is emptiness. This language is the product of a man, Nāgārjuna, who is regarded as second only to the Buddha by Mahāyāna Buddhists and whose thinking forms the core of Mahāyāna philosophy. How, then, do the Buddha nature theorists intend their remarks that the Buddha nature is revealed by emptiness and that the perfections of purity, self, bliss and eternity characteristic of the dharmakāya, with which the Buddha nature is identified, are not empty (aśūnya)? Such doctrines are astonishing in the context of Mādhyamika emptiness teachings.
      This study addresses these philosophical issues. What is the Buddha-nature? What is its ontological status? Why do certain texts speak of a Buddha nature? What is the place of a Buddha nature concept in the context of the history of Buddhist thought? In particular, can it be reconciled with the central teachings of anātman and śūnyatā? If so, how? In short, what does the term "Buddha nature" represent and how does it function?
      I shall approach these issues through an examination of the Buddha nature concept within the context of Chinese Buddhism. The Buddha nature idea achieved a popularity and an importance in China which greatly exceeded its importance in India. China was the site of the heated and sustained "Buddha nature controversy" which revolved around the issue of whether or not all beings possess a Buddha nature. Virtually all important Buddhist schools and thinkers were obliged to commit themselves to positions on this crucial issue of the time and these positions became one of the primary criteria by which they judged each other. As a result of its being made an object of such scrutiny, the importance of the Buddha nature concept for subsequent developments of Chinese Buddhism was assured. I shall therefore be concerned toward the end of the study to consider the influences the Buddha nature concept may have had on some of these subsequent developments. (King, introduction, 1–3)

Notes

1. Fo Hsing Lun, (Buddha Nature Treatise, BNT), attributed to Vasubandhu, translated by Paramārtha. T. 31, #1610, p. 787b.
King, Sallie B. "The Active Self: A Philosophical Study of the 'Buddha Nature Treatise' and Other Chinese Buddhist Texts." PhD diss., Temple University, 1981.
Book
The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna
One of the fundamental tenets of Mahayana Buddhism animating and grounding the doctrine and discipline of its spiritual path, is the inherent potentiality of all animate beings to attain the supreme and perfect enlightenment of Buddhahood. This book examines the ontological presuppositions and the corresponding soteriological-epistemological principles that sustain and define such a theory. Within the field of Buddhist studies, such a work provides a comprehensive context in which to interpret the influence and major insights of the various Buddhist schools. Thus, the dynamics of the Buddha Nature, though non-thematic and implicit, is at the heart of Zen praxis, while it is a significant articulation in Kegon, Tendai, and Shingon thought. More specifically, the book seeks to establish a coherent metaphysics of absolute suchness (Tathatā), synthesizing the variant traditions of the Tathagata-embryo (Tathāgatagarbha) and the Storehouse Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna).



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.

(Source: Book jacket inside cover)
Brown, Brian Edward. The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna. Buddhist Tradition Series 11. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1991. https://archive.org/details/tathagatgarbhabuddhanatureastudyofthetathagatagarbhaandalayavijnanabrianedwardbr/mode/2up.
PhD Diss
The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna (Dissertation)
Abstract

The present dissertation identifies the ontological presuppositions and the corresponding soteriological-epistemological principles that sustain and define the Mahāyāna Buddhist belief in the inherent potentiality of all animate beings to attain the supreme and perfect enlightenment of Buddhahood. More specifically, the study establishes a coherent metaphysic of Absolute Suchness (Tathatā), synthesizing the variant traditions of the Tathāgata-embryo (Tathāgatagarbha) and the Storehouse Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna).
      The dissertation interprets 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. It 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.
      Aside from Ruegg's La Theorie du Tathāgatagarbha et du Gotra and Verdu's study of the Ālayavijñāna in Dialectical Aspects in Buddhist Thought, Western scholarship treating of the subject is negligible. And while both sources are excellent technical treatises, they fail to integrate in any detailed analysis the dual concepts as complementary modes of each other. Thus, the dissertation, while adopting the methodology of textual analysis, has as its emphasis a thematic-interpretive study of its sources. Conducting a detailed analysis into the structure of the texts, the dissertation delineates and appropriates the inherent ontological, soteriological and epistemological foci which they themselves assume as their natural form.
      Structurally, the dissertation is divided into three major parts. The first focuses on the Tathāgatagarbha, the second on the Ālayavijñāna, the third on their relation and deeper significance in the human thought tradition. The first two parts are sub-divided into seven and four chapters respectively. The former seven chapters establish the ontological identity of the Tathāgata-embryo (Tathagātagarbha) through a critical examination of the major sūtral authority for the concept, i.e., the Śrī-Mālā-Sūtra, and the primary śāstral elaboration inspired by it, viz., the Ratnagotravlbhāga.
      Following the same pattern, the four chapters of part 2 note the role of the Laṅk¯āvatāra Sūtra as a principal scriptural advocate for the theory of the Storehouse Consciousness (Ālayavijñāna), while detailing the scholastic amplification of it in Hsüan Tsang's Ch'eng Wei-Shih Lun. Part 3 concludes the study by recapitulating the principal developments in the emergent complementarity of the two concepts, arguing that any adequate discussion of the Buddha Nature must be informed on the one hand by the theory of the Tathāgatagarbha which grounds and authenticates its ontological status, and on the other by the Ālayavijñāna, its noetic-cognitive determination. While the former tends to elucidate the process towards, and experience of enlightenment as a function of Absolute Suchness (Tathatā), the latter adopts the reciprocal perspective and examines the subject in the light and function of phenomenal consciousness.
      By way of comparison with Western thought, the chapter likewise demonstrates the analogous dynamic in the bilateral theory of the Tathāgatagarbha-Ālayavijñāna and the Hegelian Absolute Spirit in-and-for-itself. Focusing upon The Phenomenology of Spirit, the chapter notes that the self-becoming process in and through which consciousness realizes its own plenitude is strikingly homologous to the theory of Buddhist enlightenment presented through the concept of the Tathāgatagarbha-Ālayavijñāna. It suggests that these two representative thought systems

mutually illumine each other, and together illustrate a correspondent framework within which the relationship of the Absolute and relative may gain a more universal conception and therefore, a more comprehensive resolution.
Brown, Brian Edward. "The Buddha Nature: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha and Ālayavijñāna." PhD diss., Fordham University, 1981.
Review
The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhāga-Review by Need
Need, David. Review of The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga, by S. K. Hookham." Philosophy East and West 43, no. 3 (1993): 585–88.
Need, David. Review of The Buddha Within: Tathagatagarbha Doctrine according to the Shentong Interpretation of the Ratnagotravibhaga, by S. K. Hookham." Philosophy East and West 43, no. 3 (1993): 585–88.
Book
The Buddhist Feminine Ideal
This book contains many valuable contributions. It places the Śrīmālādevīsūtra in the early development of the Mahāyāna and includes surveys of earlier translations of key terms and an overview of tathāgathagarbha theory. Paul points out the key role that the bodhisattvas play for sentient beings as guides in the transition from ordinary being to buddha. The Śrīmālā, although it affirms that all beings share the same buddha-nature and emphatically embraces the idea of a Single Vehicle, nevertheless asserts that śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas cannot comprehend the needed steps to shed adventitious stains and reveal the intrinsic purity of mind; only bodhisattvas can. Paul notes that while the Lotus Sūtra proclaimed the universal salvation via the Single Vehicle, and the Tathāgathagarbhasūtra proclaimed universal buddha-nature, it was the Śrīmālā that first combined those concepts. (Alex Gardner, 2018)
Paul, Diana Mary. The Buddhist Feminine Ideal: Queen Śrīmālā and the Tathāgatagarbha. American Academy of Religion Dissertation Series 30. Missoula, MT: Scholars Press, 1980.
Article
The Buddhist Notion of an 'Immanent Absolute' (tathāgatagarbha) as a Problem in Hermeneutics
As a religious and philosophical tradition works out its own stock of ideas and encounters fresh ones among its neighbours, it must very often generate responses to developing tensions and oppositions unless it is simply to turn in on itself, both ossifying and isolating itself from its intellectual and human environment. Buddhism has not ossified and isolated itself in this way, and it has met such challenges not only in its spread outside the Indian subcontinent—in Central, East and Southeast Asia, and now also in Europe and

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]

      Mahāyānist doctrine is in large part concerned with the path (marga) of the Bodhisattva and supreme and perfect awakening (bodhi), that is, the state of a Buddha. The terms tathāgatagarbha and gotra are used to denote the base or support for practice of the path, and hence the 'cause' (hetu: dhatu) for attainment of the fruit (phala) of buddhahood. Even when the texts do not employ the term tathāgatagarbha to designate this factor as the one which makes it possible for all living beings ultimately to attain liberation and Buddhahood, the importance of the theme of the tathāgatagarbha is basic to the soteriology and gnoseology of the Mahāyāna. (Ruegg, "The Buddhist Notion of an 'Immanent Absolute'," 229–30)
Ruegg, David Seyfort. "The Buddhist Notion of an 'Immanent Absolute' (tathāgatagarbha) as a Problem in Hermeneutics." In The Buddhist Heritage, edited by Tadeusz Skorupski, 229–45. Tring, UK: The Institute of Buddhist Studies, 1989.
Book
The Buddhist Self
The assertion that there is nothing in the constitution of any person that deserves to be considered the self (ātman)—a permanent, unchanging kernel of personal identity in this life and those to come—has been a cornerstone of Buddhist teaching from its inception. Whereas other Indian religious systems celebrated the search for and potential discovery of one’s “true self,” Buddhism taught about the futility of searching for anything in our experience that is not transient and ephemeral. But a small yet influential set of Mahāyāna Buddhist texts, composed in India in the early centuries CE, taught that all sentient beings possess at all times, and across their successive lives, the enduring and superlatively precious nature of a Buddha. This was taught with reference to the enigmatic expression tathāgatagarbha—the “womb” or “chamber” for a Buddha—which some texts refer to as a person’s true self.

The Buddhist Self is a methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (otherwise the presence of one's “Buddha-nature”) and the extent to which different Buddhist texts and authors articulated this in terms of the self. C. V. Jones attends to each of the Indian Buddhist works responsible for explaining what is meant by the expression tathāgatagarbha, and how far this should be understood or promoted using the language of selfhood. With close attention to these sources, Jones argues that the trajectory of Buddha-nature thought in India is also the history and legacy of a Buddhist account of what deserves to be called the self: an innovative attempt to equip Mahāyāna Buddhism with an affirmative response to wider Indian interest in the discovery of something precious or even divine in one's own constitution. This argument is supplemented by critical consideration of other themes that run through this distinctive body of Mahāyānist literature: the relationship between Buddhist and non-Buddhist teachings about the self, the overlap between the tathāgatagarbha and the nature of the mind, and the originally radical position that the only means of becoming liberated from rebirth is to achieve the same exalted status as the Buddha. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)
Jones, Christopher V. The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, forthcoming.
Article
The Challenge of Tathāgatagarbha Tradition to Contemporary Political-Economic Discourse
Brockman, David R. "The Challenge of Tathāgatagarbha Tradition to Contemporary Political-Economic Discourse." Paper presented to the Buddhist Theology Group at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, CA, November 2011.
Brockman, David R. "The Challenge of Tathāgatagarbha Tradition to Contemporary Political-Economic Discourse." Paper presented to the Buddhist Theology Group at the Annual Meeting of the American Academy of Religion, San Francisco, CA, November 2011.
Article
The Concept of Tathāgatagarbha in the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra (Sheng-Man Ching)
Paul, Diana. "The Concept of Tathāgatagarbha in the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra (Sheng-Man Ching)." The Journal of the American Oriental Society 99, no. 2 (1979): 191–203.
Paul, Diana. "The Concept of Tathāgatagarbha in the Śrīmālādevī Sūtra (Sheng-Man Ching)." The Journal of the American Oriental Society 99, no. 2 (1979): 191–203.
Article
The Concept of the "Innate Purity of the Mind" in the Agamas and the Nikayas
Shih, Ru-nien. "The Concept of the 'Innate Purity of the Mind' in the Agamas and the Nikayas." Journal of World Religions 13 (2009): 117–76. http://libwri.nhu.edu.tw:8081/Ejournal/4082001304.pdf.
Shih, Ru-nien. "The Concept of the 'Innate Purity of the Mind' in the Agamas and the Nikayas." Journal of World Religions 13 (2009): 117–76. http://libwri.nhu.edu.tw:8081/Ejournal/4082001304.pdf.
Article
The Doctrinal Transformation of Twentieth-Century Chinese Buddhism: Master Yinshun's Interpretation of the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine
Hurley, Scott. "The Doctrinal Transformation of Twentieth-Century Chinese Buddhism: Master Yinshun's Interpretation of the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine." Contemporary Buddhism 5, no. 1 (2004): 29–46.
Hurley, Scott. "The Doctrinal Transformation of Twentieth-Century Chinese Buddhism: Master Yinshun's Interpretation of the Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine." Contemporary Buddhism 5, no. 1 (2004): 29–46.
Article
The Doctrine of Buddha Nature in Chinese Buddhism—Hui-K'ai on Paramārtha
John P. Keenan, in his essay on Paramārtha and Hui-K'ai, explores the complex process by which Indian Buddhist texts were transmitted into China, and argues for the pervasive influence, both linguistic and conceptual, of pre-Buddhist Taoist ideas upon that process. This influence, he argues, was essentially "centrist" in that Taoist thought then focused upon nonbeing as the source or matrix of being, and upon the importance of the "original nature" of human persons; such ideas were naturally conducive to an emphasis upon Tathāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature terms and concepts, for the interpretive tools for understanding them were already present in China, while this was not the case for Indian ideas about sūnyatā and the dialectic of the two truths.
      To illustrate this general point Keenan considers the case of the translator Paramārtha and his amanuensis Hui-k'ai, and shows that in their work on Indic texts they not infrequently added references to tathtāgatagarbha and Buddha Nature where no such mention was made in the originals; they thus contributed to the centrality of Buddha Nature thought in East Asian Buddhism. (Griffiths and Keenan, introduction to Buddha Nature, 5)
Keenan, John P. "The Doctrine of Buddha Nature in Chinese Buddhism—Hui K'ai on Paramārtha." In Buddha Nature: A Festschrift in Honor of Minoru Kiyota, edited by Paul J. Griffiths and John P. Keenan, 125–37. Tokyo: Buddhist Books International, 1990.
Article
The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature in Mahāyāna Buddhism
See, Tony Sin-Heng. "The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature in Mahāyāna Buddhism." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Universities 9, no. 1 (2016): 47–56. http://www.ojs.mcu.ac.th/index.php/jiabu/article/view/863.
See, Tony Sin-Heng. "The Doctrine of Buddha-Nature in Mahāyāna Buddhism." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Universities 9, no. 1 (2016): 47–56. http://www.ojs.mcu.ac.th/index.php/jiabu/article/view/863.
Article
The Eighth Karmapa Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507-1554) on the Relation between Buddha Nature and Its Adventitious Stains
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter, "The Eighth Karmapa Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507–1554) on the Relation between Buddha Nature and Its Adventitious Stains." Critical Review for Buddhist Studies 22 (2017): 63–104.
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter, "The Eighth Karmapa Mi bskyod rdo rje (1507–1554) on the Relation between Buddha Nature and Its Adventitious Stains." Critical Review for Buddhist Studies 22 (2017): 63–104.
Article
The Gotra, Ekayāna and Tathāgatagarbha Theories of the Prajñāpāramitā according to Dharmamitra and Abhayākaragupta
Ruegg, David Seyfort. "The Gotra, Ekayāna and Tathāgatagarbha Theories of the Prajñāpāramitā according to Dharmamitra and Abhayākaragupta." In Prajñāpāramitā and Related Systems, edited by Lewis Lancaster, 283–312. Berkeley: University of California, 1977.
Ruegg, David Seyfort. "The Gotra, Ekayāna and Tathāgatagarbha Theories of the Prajñāpāramitā according to Dharmamitra and Abhayākaragupta." In Prajñāpāramitā and Related Systems, edited by Lewis Lancaster, 283–312. Berkeley: University of California, 1977.
Article
The Idea of Dhātu-vāda in Yogācāra and Tathāgata-garbha Texts
Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. "The Idea of Dhātu-vāda in Yogācāra and Tathāgata-garbha Texts." In Pruning the Bodhi Tree: The Storm over Critical Buddhism, edited by Jamie Hubbard and Paul L. Swanson, 193–204. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
Yamabe, Nobuyoshi. "The Idea of Dhātu-vāda in Yogācāra and Tathāgata-garbha Texts." In Pruning the Bodhi Tree: The Storm over Critical Buddhism, edited by Jamie Hubbard and Paul L. Swanson, 193–204. Honolulu: University of Hawai’i Press, 1997.
Book
The Lion's Roar of the Ultimate Non-Dual Buddha Nature
The teaching of the Buddha hinges around the one point that sentient beings, meaning beings having a mind, have within them the potential to become a buddha. If they did not possess that potential, it would not be possible for them to become buddhas and the rest of the Buddhist teaching would be an interesting but useless philosophy. Therefore, the topic of buddha nature is especially important.

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.
Duff, Tony, trans. The Lion's Roar of the Ultimate Non-Dual Buddha Nature: A Text by Ju Mipham Namgyal and Explanation by Tony Duff. Kathmandu: Padma Karpo Translation Committee, 2015.
Book
The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra
The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra was translated into English by Kosho Yamamoto in 1973 from Dharmakṣema's Chinese version (Taisho Tripitaka Vol. 12, No. 374). The edition represented here is Tony Page's edited and revised version of Yamamoto's translation.
Yamamoto, Kōshō, trans. The Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra. Translated into English from Dharmakṣema's Chinese version (Taisho Tripiṭaka vol. 12, no. 374). Edited and revised by Tony Page. n.p.: n.p., 2007. First published 1973 by Karinbunko (Ube, Japan). http://lirs.ru/do/Mahaparinirvana_Sutra,Yamamoto,Page,2007.pdf
Review
The Mahāparinirvāṇa-Mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine-Review by Lee
Lee, Sumi. Review of The Mahāparinirvāṇa-Mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine, by Michael Radich. International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture 26, no. 1 (2016): 199–203.
Lee, Sumi. Review of The Mahāparinirvāṇa-Mahāsūtra and the Emergence of Tathāgatagarbha Doctrine, by Michael Radich. International Journal of Buddhist Thought and Culture 26, no. 1 (2016): 199–203.
Article
The Mahāsāṃghika and the Tathāgatagarbha (Buddhist Doctrinal History, Study 1)
For the origins of the Mahāyāna we must agree with Hirakawa[1] that while some Mahāyāna doctrines are derived from the Mahāsāṃghika school, some others are derived from the Sarvāstivādin school. I would add that unless some other source can be pointed to, we may conclude that Mahāyāna Buddhism in its various forms, at least leaving out the special development of Tantrism, can be traced to either the Mahāsāṃghika or the Sarvāstivādin schools.
      It is well recognized by Buddhologists that the Mahāsāṃghika sect arose by a schism from the previously undivided Buddhist saṃgha in the second century after the Buddha's Nirvāṇa (A.N.), leaving the other part of the saṃgha to be called Sthavira. As to precisely when the schism occurred, there was a difference of opinion as to whether it happened as a result of the Second Buddhist Council (about 110 A.N.) over a laxity of Vinaya rules by some monks, or happened later in the century (137 A.N.) over the five theses about Arhats and which occasioned a 'Third Buddhist Council' sponsored by the Kings Nanda and Mahāpadma. There were some other possibilities, as summarized by Nattier and Prebish,[2] who conclude that the schism occurred 116 A.N. over Vinaya rules, while the argument over Arhat attainment provoked a further split within the already existing Mahāsāṃghika sect. It is immaterial for our purposes whether the 'five theses of Mahādeva' downgrading the Arhat occasioned the schism between the Mahāsāṃghikas and the Sthaviras, or whether this downgrading was an internal argument within the Mahāsāṃghika. What is important here is that the downgrading of the Arhat continued into a Mahāyāna scripture called the Śrīmālā-sūtra, and that the five theses are a characteristic of the Mahāsāṃghika, to wit: 1. Arhats are tempted by others, 2. they still have ignorance, 3. they still have doubt, 4. they are liberated by others; and 5. the path is accompanied by utterance. The fifth of these seems explainable by other Mahāsāṃghika tenets, in Bareau's listing:[3] No. 58 'morality is not mental'; No. 59 'morality does not follow upon thought'; No. 60 'virtue caused by a vow increases'; No. 61 'candor (vijñapti) is virtue'; No. 62 'reticence (avijñapti) is immoral.'
      Part I of this paper attempts to relate the Śrīmālā-sūtra and the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine to the Mahāsaṃnghika school. Part II discusses the terms dharmatā and svabhāva so as to expose an ancient quarrel. (Wayman, introduction, 35–36)

Notes

1. Akira Hirakawa, "The Rise of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Relationship to the Worship of Stupas," Memoirs of the Research Department of the Toyo Bunko, No. 22, Tokyo, 1963, p. 57.
2. Janice J. Nattier and Charles S. Prebish, "Mahāsaṃghika Origins: The Beginnings of Buddhist Sectarianism," History of Religions, 16:3, Feb., 1977, pp. 237, ff.

3. André Bareau, Les sectes bouddhiques du Petit Véhicule (École Française d'Extrême-Orient, 1955), Chapitre I 'Les Mahâsânghika', pp. 55–74.
Wayman, A. "The Mahāsāṃghika and the Tathāgatagarbha (Buddhist Doctrinal History, Study 1)." Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 1, no. 1 (1978): 35–50. https://journals.ub.uni-heidelberg.de/index.php/jiabs/article/view/8454/2361.
PhD Diss
The Nonduality of Nonconceptual Wisdom and Conceptual Cognition: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha Teaching in the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa-parivarta
Abstract

Although the doctrine of tathāgatagarbha can be traced to the teaching of an innately pure luminous mind (prakṛtiś cittasya prabhāsvarā) in early Buddhist teachings, the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa-parivarta (AAN) is often considered one of the earliest Buddhist scriptures that explicitly expound the teachings of the tathāgatagarbha.
      The central message of the AAN focuses upon the non-increase and non-decrease nature of the dharmadhātu. This brings out the idea of the dharmadhātu as a totality which transcends all dualistic notions. Translated into Chinese by Bodhiruci in 525 CE, the AAN is now extant only in Chinese translation (Taishō no. 668). Unfortunately, no serious studies have ever been conducted on this sūtra in Western scholarship. The precise relationship between the tathāgatagarbha and the two Mahāyāna traditions, Madhyamaka and Yogācāra, is also worth investigating in detail. The thesis will argue that the tathāgatagarbha is not a separate school in Indian Buddhism. It will then study the historical issues relating to the AAN, followed by a philosophical investigation of its teachings. The thesis will also undertake an "external" consideration of the doctrinal relationship between the AAN and a number of sūtras and śāstras. It will also incorporate a study of Bodhiruci (菩提流支), of the Northern Wei (北魏) dynasty, who translated the AAN into Chinese, as well as the first complete English translation of the AAN from its extant Chinese version.
      This study may provide an alternative view on the tathāgatagarbha theory. The thesis will argue that the tathāgatagarbha is referring to be an aspect of all experiences. This means that all beings are by nature having a dimension of the mind not fully realized, and it is yogic meditative practices that enable the practitioners to develop an awareness of the enlightenment which is always implicit in our consciousness.
Shiu, Henry. "The Nonduality of Nonconceptual Wisdom and Conceptual Cognition: A Study of the Tathāgatagarbha Teaching in the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśa-parivarta." PhD diss., University of Toronto, 2005.
Article
The Original Ratnagotravibhāga and Its Yogāçāra Interpretation as Possible Indian Precedents of Gzhan stong ("Empti-ness of Other")
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter. "The Original Ratnagotravibhāga and Its Yogāçāra Interpretation as Possible Indian Precedents of Gzhan stong ('Empti[ness] of Other')." Hōrin 18 (2015): 119–40.
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter. "The Original Ratnagotravibhāga and Its Yogāçāra Interpretation as Possible Indian Precedents of Gzhan stong ('Empti[ness] of Other')." Hōrin 18 (2015): 119–40.
Book
The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra
Till quite recently nothing more was known of the text edited in this volume than that, under the title of Uttaratantra, was included among the five chief works of Asaṅga by Tibetan tradition, which reported it to represent the Mādhyamika aspect of his teaching. In 1931 however a complete translation of it from Tibetan into English was published by E. Obermiller in Vol. IX, parts ii, iii and iv, of Acta Orientalia, under the title "The Sublime Science of the Great Vehicle to Salvation, being a Manual of Buddhist Monism, the work of Ārya Maitreya with a Commentary by Āryāsaṅga". A few years later Prof. Bailey discovered among the Central Asian finds a Śaka transliteration of a number of Sanskrit verses, among which I identified the first verse of chapter i and the opening verses of chapter iii.[1] The MS. gave the name of the work as Ratnagotravibhāga, thereby enabling me to adduce Chinese tradition about its authorship[2]. This tradition and the contents of the few verses thus restored caused me to doubt whether the treatise was really by Asaṅga at all and whether Obermiller had not in certain respects misrepresented its doctrinal tendencies by following modern Tibetan exegesis, which naturally endeavours to support the ascription to Asaṅga by reading his known views into the text. But while this paper was in the press, the Rev. Rāhula Sāṁkṛtyāyana published the first list of Sanskrit MSS. found by him in Tibet. These discoveries, whose importance for Buddhist learning can hardly be exaggerated, included according to him three MSS. of the Uttaratantra[1], and, as the work I had done on it had convinced me of its great value in filling a gap in our knowledge of Mahāyana developments, I asked the Bihar and Orissa Research Society for permission to edit it, a request which was most generously granted. Owing to the defectiveness of the original photographs and the

necessity of obtaining new ones on a later expedition, there was some delay in undertaking the work, and the war has further postponed preparation and publication of the text.

Read more here . . .

Notes

1. Bull. LSOS, VIII, pp. 77-89. My reconstruction was only partially successful, the transliteration being imperfect and leaving much to guesswork.
2. The full name is shown by the MSS. as well as by the Tibetan and Chinese translations to be Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānottaratantraśāstra; the second part is merely descriptive of the scope of the work, and the first, being the proper title, is used throughout hereafter in place of the hitherto accepted Uttaratantra.

1. JBORS, XXI, pp. 31 and 33.
Johnston, E. H., ed. The Ratnagotravibhāga Mahāyānanottaratantraśāstra. Seen through the press and furnished with indexes by T. Chowdhury. Patna, India: Bihar Research Society, 1950. https://archive.org/details/mahayanauttaratantraratnagotravibhagajohnstone.h._202003_440_I/mode/2up.
Book
The Religions of Tibet (1980, Routledge)
No description given. The following is an excerpt from Turrell Wylie's review published in The American Historical Review, Volume 88, Issue 5, December 1983, Page 1309:

This book by Giuseppe Tucci, the internationally renowned Tibetologist, is a scholarly study of the religions of Tibet: Buddhism, the nameless "folk religion," and the system called Bon. The history of the spread of Buddhism in Tibet is divided in the indigenous tradition into the "early" and "later" stages. The first chapter of the book surveys the significant events of the early spread, which ended with the persecution of Buddhism in the ninth century, and the second reviews those of the later spread, beginning with the revival of Buddhism and the founding of great monasteries in the eleventh century. Chapter 3 deals with the general characteristics of "Lamaism" and the emergence of the major schools of Tibetan Buddhism, particularly the rNying ma pa, Sa skya pa, bKa' brgyud pa, and dGe lugs pa. Chapter 4 examines the doctrines held, both in common and in particular, by these schools, as well as the substantialism of the Jo nang pa and the quietism of the Zhi byed pa. The fifth chapter deals with the organization of the monastic community, the administration of the monastery and its property, and the religious calendar with its various festivals. Chapter 6 is devoted to the "folk religion," replete with its beliefs in benevolent and malevolent numina. Various apotropaic rituals intended to protect the individual, the family, the house, and other property are discussed in detail. This chapter shows clearly the contradiction between the intellectual preoccupation with Buddhist epistemology and ontology on the monastic level and the emotional concern with the existence of demonic powers and the vulnerability of the "soul" (bla) on the lay level. The final chapter deals with the Bon religion that predated Buddhism in Tibet. This chapter explores the religious milieu of the ancient monarchy and then examines the way in which Bon evolved over the centuries in competition with, and later in imitation of, Buddhism. An eight-page chronological table listing significant dates and events in Tibetan history is given at the end of the book.

Read more here . . .
Tucci, Giuseppe. The Religions of Tibet. Translated from the German and Italian by Geoffrey Samuel. London: Routledge & Kegan Paul, 1980.
Article
The Sentient Reflexivity of Buddha Nature
Yü, Dan Smyer. "The Sentient Reflexivity of Buddha Nature: Metaphorizing Tathagatagarbha." The World Religious Cultures 6 (2012): 13–22.
Yü, Dan Smyer. "The Sentient Reflexivity of Buddha Nature: Metaphorizing Tathagatagarbha." The World Religious Cultures 6 (2012): 13–22.
Audio
The Shentong Interpretation of Tathagatagarbha Doctrine
“The Shentong interpretation of Tathagatagarbha doctrine does not imply there is no need for the path. However, according to Khenpo Tsultrim Gyamtso Rinpoche, it does try to counter an ambitious, goal orientated approach to it. If Buddha were something newly produced by following the path, it would be a conditioned phenomena, the product of self-effort; it would not arise simply through complete relaxation of conceptual contrivance.” (From: The Buddha Within) (Source Accessed August 13, 2020)

Lama Shenpen Hookham speaks with students at RYI about the Shentong interpretation of Tathāgatagarbha on April 15, 2019.
Hookham, Shenpen. "The Shentong Interpretation of Tathagatagarbha Doctrine." Recorded April 15, 2019 at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Nepal. Audio, 1:15:34. https://soundcloud.com/rangjung-yeshe-institute/lama-shenpen-hookham-the-shentong-interpretation-of-tathagatagarbha-doctrine.
Article
The Significance of 'Tathagatagarbha': A Positive Expression of 'Sunyata'
Shih, Heng-Ching. "The Significance of 'Tathagatagarbha': A Positive Expression of 'Sunyata'." BuddhaSasana: A Buddhist Page by Binh Anson. https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha191.htm.
Shih, Heng-Ching. "The Significance of 'Tathagatagarbha': A Positive Expression of 'Sunyata'." BuddhaSasana: A Buddhist Page by Binh Anson. https://www.budsas.org/ebud/ebdha191.htm.
Article
The Structure of the Soteriology of Tathāgatagarbha Thought as Seen from the Perspective of Different Modes of Discourse: A Response to Critical Buddhism
Shimoda, Masahiro. "The Structure of the Soteriology of Tathāgatagarbha Thought as Seen from the Perspective of Different Modes of Discourse: A Response to Critical Buddhism." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Akira Saitō. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 79–97.
Shimoda, Masahiro. "The Structure of the Soteriology of Tathāgatagarbha Thought as Seen from the Perspective of Different Modes of Discourse: A Response to Critical Buddhism." In "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Edited by Akira Saitō. Special issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020): 79–97.
Article
The Sutra on the Wisdom Stored in the Ocean of Buddha-Nature
Shih-Chung, Chen Frederick. "The Sutra on the Wisdom Stored in the Ocean of Buddha-Nature." In Vol. 3, Buddhist Stone Sutras in China: Sichuan Province; (Wofoyuan Section C), edited by Claudia Wenzel and Sun Hua, 101–106. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016.
Shih-Chung, Chen Frederick. "The Sutra on the Wisdom Stored in the Ocean of Buddha-Nature." In Vol. 3, Buddhist Stone Sutras in China: Sichuan Province; (Wofoyuan Section C), edited by Claudia Wenzel and Sun Hua, 101–106. Wiesbaden: Harrassowitz Verlag, 2016.
Article
The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra
The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra is a short but extremely influential Mahāyāna Buddhist text that was probably composed sometime around the middle of the third century C.E. It is the sūtra that introduced into the Mahāyāna tradition the notion of the tathāgatagarbha, the idea that all beings have latent within themselves all the virtues of a buddha (tathāgata), but that those virtues are hidden by a covering (garbha) of passion and anguish (the so-called kleśas of greed, anger, lust, confusion, and so on). The central message of the sūtra is that when those kleśas are removed, the buddhahood that is potential in all beings will be revealed.

     The idea of the tathāgatagarbha was later to form the nucleus of the concept of buddha nature (buddhadhātu) in the Sino-Japanese Buddhist tradition. And concepts of both the tathāgatagarbha and the buddha nature underwent extensive doctrinal development in important Mahāyāna sūtras and influential commentaries. But whereas later treatises generally give a highly philosophical interpretation to the tathāgatagarbha, it is doubtful that any such sophisticated understanding was intended by the author(s) of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra. In the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, the concept of the tathāgatagarbha is promulgated primarily to inspire beings with the confidence to seek buddhahood, and to persuade them that despite their poverty, suffering, and bondage to passion, they still have the capacity to attain the ultimate goal of Mahāyāna Buddhism, the perfect enlightenment of the Tathāgata.
     The term tathāgatagarbha has often been translated by Western scholars as "matrix of the tathāgata," but "matrix" does not exhaust the wide range of meanings of the Sanskrit term garbha. The author of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra seems to have been well aware of this, since he employs many of these different meanings of garbha in the various similes with which he illustrates the meaning of the tathāgatagarbha. In its most common usage, garbha means "womb," and the eighth simile of the sūtra likens the tathāgatagarbha to an impoverished, vile, and ugly woman who bears a noble, world-conquering king in her womb. But garbha can also mean "fetus," so the garbha in the eighth simile may also refer to the son who is within her womb. Garbha can also refer to the calyx of a flower, the cuplike leafy structure that enfolds the blossom, and the image in the sūtra's opening scene of conjured buddha forms seated within lotus flowers seems to be predicated on this meaning. Garbha can also mean "inner room," or "hidden chamber," or "sanctuary" (as in the garbhagṛha of a Hindu temple, which houses the image of the deity, or the rounded dome [garbha] of a Buddhist stūpa, which houses the precious relics of the Buddha). It is probably this meaning of garbha that the author of the sūtra intends in the fifth simile of the sūtra, when he speaks of the tathāgatagarbha as being like a hidden chamber or a secret store of treasure hidden beneath the house of a poor man. (The Chinese may have had this simile in mind when they chose the term tsang, "secret store," to translate garbha). Garbha can also refer to the outer husk that covers a fruit or seed or, by extension, to the seed itself. The third and sixth similes of the sūtra, which compare the tathāgatagarbha to the useless husk surrounding an edible kernel of wheat and to the mango pit that can grow into the most regal of trees, make direct use of this sense. Finally, garbha can refer to the inside, middle, or interior of anything, and it is this widest meaning that the author of the sūtra is employing when he likens the tathāgatagarbha to gold hidden inside a pit of waste, to honey hidden inside a swarm of angry bees, or to a golden statue hidden inside a wrapping of dirty rags or within a blackened mold.
     The majority of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra's similes portray something extremely precious, valuable, or noble (such as buddhas, honey, kernels of wheat, gold, treasure, golden statues, or future princes), contained within something abhorrent and vile (such as rotting petals, angry bees, useless husks, excrement, poor hovels, dirty rags, soot-covered molds, and impoverished, ugly women). So the central meaning of the tathāgatagarbha concept is clear: within each and every person there exists something extremely valuable—the possibility of becoming a tathāgata—but that valuable potential for buddhahood is hidden by something vile—the sufferings and passions and vicissitudes of life. But to carry the interpretation further and to look for a deeper meaning to the tathāgatagarbha concept of this early text would probably be wrong, for when one looks more closely at the various similes used to illustrate the tathāgatagarbha, certain inconsistencies begin to emerge. For example, although most of the similes portray the precious reality within as something already complete in itself, two of the similes clearly indicate that the precious reality will only reach its perfected state in the future. The conjured buddhas within the lotus flowers are already fully enlightened, the honey and the wheat kernel are already edible, the gold in the waste pit is already

pure and in no need of refinement, and the golden statues are already fully cast, whereas, by contrast, it will take many years for the embryo in the poor woman's womb to become a world conqueror, and more years still for the mango pit to become a full-grown tree. (Grosnick, "The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra," 92–93)
Grosnick, William. "The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra." In Buddhism in Practice, edited by Donald S. Lopez, Jr., 92–106. Princeton, NJ: Princeton University Press, 1995.
Article
The Tathāgatagarbha Theory Reconsidered: Reflections on Some Recent Issues in Japanese Buddhist Studies
Takasaki, Jikidō. "The Tathāgatagarbha Theory Reconsidered: Reflections on Some Recent Issues in Japanese Buddhist Studies." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27, no. 1–2 (2000): 73–83. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2696.
Takasaki, Jikidō. "The Tathāgatagarbha Theory Reconsidered: Reflections on Some Recent Issues in Japanese Buddhist Studies." Japanese Journal of Religious Studies 27, no. 1–2 (2000): 73–83. https://nirc.nanzan-u.ac.jp/nfile/2696.
Article
The Tathāgatagarbha Theory in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra
Takasaki, Jikidō. "The Tathāgatagarbha Theory in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra." Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū (Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies) 19, no. 2 (1971): 1–10. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ibk1952/19/2/19_2_1024/_pdf/-char/en.
Takasaki, Jikidō. "The Tathāgatagarbha Theory in the Mahāparinirvāṇa-sūtra." Indogaku Bukkyōgaku Kenkyū (Journal of Indian and Buddhist Studies) 19, no. 2 (1971): 1–10. https://www.jstage.jst.go.jp/article/ibk1952/19/2/19_2_1024/_pdf/-char/en.
Article
The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra: Its Basic Structure and Relation to the Lotus Sūtra
Zimmermann, Michael. "The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra: Its Basic Structure and Relation to the Lotus Sūtra." In Vol. 2, Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic Year 1998, edited by Yuichi Kajiyama, 143–68. International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 1999.
Zimmermann, Michael. "The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra: Its Basic Structure and Relation to the Lotus Sūtra." In Vol. 2, Annual Report of the International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology at Soka University for the Academic Year 1998, edited by Yuichi Kajiyama, 143–68. International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 1999.
Audio
The Three Nature (Trisvabhāva) Theory in the Yogācāra Texts of the Five Maitreya Works
This presentation will address the influences of the Tathāgatagarbha (“buddha nature”) model of reality in the three Yogācāra texts of the Maitreya Works (i.e., the Mahāyānasūtrālaṃkāra, Madhyāntavibhāga, and Dharmadharmatāvibhāga). It will be argued that the integration of a particular understanding of buddha nature contributes to remedy the flaws Yogācāra has in the eyes of Mādhyamikas, namely that a considerable group of sentient beings is completely cut off from liberation, and that a dependently arising mind exists on the level of ultimate truth.
      Prof. Dr. Klaus-Dieter Mathes is a professor of Tibetan and Buddhist Studies at the University of Vienna. His research interests include the Indian origin of the Tibetan Mahāmudrā traditions, buddha nature and the Tibetan gzhan stong tradition. He spoke with students at RYI on April 3, 2018. (Source Accessed August 13, 2020)
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter. "The Three Nature (Trisvabhāva) Theory in the Yogācāra Texts of the Five Maitreya Works." Recorded April 3, 2018 at Rangjung Yeshe Institute, Nepal. Audio, 1:23:42. https://soundcloud.com/rangjung-yeshe-institute/prof-dr-klaus-dieter-mathes-the-three-nature-trisvabhava-theory-in-the-yogacara-texts.
Article
The Womb of the Tathāgata or Buddhist Monism
Ahmad, Zahiruddin. "The Womb of the Tathāgata or Buddhist Monism." Journal of The Oriental Society of Australia 15/16 (1983–84): 27–44.
Ahmad, Zahiruddin. "The Womb of the Tathāgata or Buddhist Monism." Journal of The Oriental Society of Australia 15/16 (1983–84): 27–44.
PhD Diss
The Zen Master Dōgen’s Understanding of the Buddha-Nature in Light of the Historical Development of the Buddha-Nature Concept in India, China, and Japan
. . . The present study will have a twofold purpose: 1) to examine the history of the Buddha-nature concept in an attempt to discover a central core of meaning inherent in the concept, and 2) to evaluate Dōgen's view of the Buddha-nature in the light of that central core of meaning. Parts I and II of this work, which examine the doctrinal history of the Buddha-nature concept in India and China, are devoted to the former task, and Part III, which examines Dōgen's thought concerning the Buddha-nature, is devoted to the latter. It is hoped that through the examination of Dōgen's conception of the Buddha-nature in the light of the previous articulation of the concept, it will be possible to form conclusions concerning the significance of Dōgen's thought in Buddhist doctrinal history. (Grosnick, introduction, 7–8)
Grosnick, William. "The Zen Master Dōgen’s Understanding of the Buddha-Nature in Light of the Historical Development of the Buddha-Nature Concept in India, China, and Japan." PhD diss., University of Wisconsin-Madison, 1979.
PhD Diss
Toward a New Paradigm of East Asian Yogācāra Buddhism: Taehyŏn (ca. 8th Century CE), a Korean Yogācāra Monk, and His Predecessors
Abstract

This dissertation seeks to locate the place of Taehyŏn 大賢(ca. 8th century CE), a Silla Korean Yogācāra monk, within the broader East Asian Buddhist tradition. My task is not confined solely to a narrow study of Taehyŏn’s thought and career, but is principally concerned with understanding the wider contours of the East Asian Yogācāra tradition itself and how these contours are reflected in Taehyŏn’s extant oeuvre. There are problems in determining Taehyŏn's doctrinal position within the traditional paradigms of East Asian Yogācāra tradition, that is, the bifurcations of Tathāgatagarbha and Yogācāra; Old and New Yogācāra; the One Vehicle and Three Vehicles; and the Dharma Nature and Dharma Characteristics schools. Taehyŏn's extant works contain doctrines drawn from across these various divides, and his doctrinal positions therefore do not precisely fit any of these traditional paradigms. In order to address this issue, this dissertation examines how these bifurcations originated and evolved over time, across the geographical expanse of the East Asian Yogācāra tradition. The chapters of the dissertation discuss in largely chronological order the theoretical problems involved in these bifurcations within Yogācāra and proposes possible resolutions to these problems, by focusing on the works of such major Buddhist exegetes as Paramārtha (499-569), Ji 基 (632-682), Wŏnhyo 元曉 (617-686), Fazang 法藏(643-712), and, finally, Taehyŏn.
Lee, Sumi. "Toward a New Paradigm of East Asian Yogācāra Buddhism: Taehyŏn (ca. 8th Century CE), a Korean Yogācāra Monk, and His Predecessors." PhD diss., University of California, Los Angeles, 2014. https://escholarship.org/uc/item/74h5d0nv#main.
Article
Towards an Understanding of Tathāgatagarbha Interpretation in Tibet with Special Reference to the Ratnagotravibhāga
Burchardi, Anne. "Towards an Understanding of Tathāgatagarbha Interpretation in Tibet with Special Reference to the Ratnagotravibhāga." In Religion and Secular Culture in Tibet, edited by Henk Blezer with the assistance of Abel Zadoks, 59–77. Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000. Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library 2/2. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Burchardi, Anne. "Towards an Understanding of Tathāgatagarbha Interpretation in Tibet with Special Reference to the Ratnagotravibhāga." In Religion and Secular Culture in Tibet, edited by Henk Blezer with the assistance of Abel Zadoks, 59–77. Proceedings of the Ninth Seminar of the International Association of Tibetan Studies, Leiden 2000. Brill’s Tibetan Studies Library 2/2. Leiden: Brill, 2002.
Book
Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith
Dasheng qixin lun, or Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith has been one of the most important texts of East Asian Buddhism since it first appeared in sixth-century China. It outlines the initial steps a Mahāyāna Buddhist needs to take to reach enlightenment, beginning with the conviction that the Mahāyāna path is correct and worth pursuing. The Treatise addresses many of the doctrines central to various Buddhist teachings in China between the fifth and seventh centuries, attempting to reconcile seemingly contradictory ideas in Buddhist texts introduced from India. It provided a model for later schools to harmonize teachings and sustain the idea that, despite different approaches, there was only one doctrine, or Dharma. It profoundly shaped the doctrines and practices of the major schools of Chinese Buddhism: Chan, Tiantai, Huayan, and to a lesser extent Pure Land. It quickly became a shared resource for East Asian philosophers and students of Buddhist thought. Drawing on the historical and intellectual contexts of Treatise's composition and paying sustained attention to its interpretation in early commentaries, this new annotated translation of the classic, makes its ideas available to English readers like never before. The introduction orients readers to the main topics taken up in the Treatise and gives a comprehensive historical and intellectual grounding to the text. This volume marks a major advance in studies of the Treatise, bringing to light new interpretations and themes of the text. (Source: Oxford University Press)
Jorgensen, John, Dan Lusthaus, John Makeham, and Mark Strange, eds. and trans. Treatise on Awakening Mahāyāna Faith. New York: Oxford University Press, 2019.
Book
Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism
This study of Tsung-mi is part of the Studies in East Asian Buddhism series. Author Peter Gregory makes extensive use of Japanese secondary sources, which complements his work on the complex Chinese materials that form the basis of the study. (Source: University of Hawai'i Press)
Gregory, Peter N. Tsung-mi and the Sinification of Buddhism. Kuroda Studies in East Asian Buddhism 16. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2002. First Published 1991 by Princeton University Press.
Article
Two Short Glosses on Yogācāra Texts by Vairocanarakṣita
Kano, Kazuo. "Two Short Glosses on Yogācāra Texts by Vairocanarakṣita: Viṃśikāṭīkāvivṛti and *Dharmadharmatāvibhāgavivṛti." In Part 1 of Sanskrit Texts from Giuseppe Tucci's Collection, edited by Francesco Sferra, 343–80. Manuscripta Buddhica 1. Rome: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (IsIAO), 2008.
Kano, Kazuo. "Two Short Glosses on Yogācāra Texts by Vairocanarakṣita: Viṃśikāṭīkāvivṛti and *Dharmadharmatāvibhāgavivṛti." In Part 1 of Sanskrit Texts from Giuseppe Tucci's Collection, edited by Francesco Sferra, 343–80. Manuscripta Buddhica 1. Rome: Istituto Italiano per l’Africa e l’Oriente (IsIAO), 2008.
Book
What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?
This is a special issue of Acta Asiatica devoted to the topic of tathāgatagarbha. It contains articles by Akira Saitō, Kazuo Kano, Michael Zimmermann, Christopher V. Jones, and Masahiro Shimoda.
Saitō, Akira, ed. "What is Tathāgatagarbha: Buddha-Nature or Buddha Within?" Special Issue, Acta Asiatica 118 (2020).
Article
Wszechprzenikliwa podstawa oświecenia, czyli o formowaniu się koncepcji tathagatagarbhy
Zapart, Jarosław. "Wszechprzenikliwa podstawa oświecenia, czyli o formowaniu się koncepcji tathagatagarbhy" (The All-Pervading Foundation of Enlightenment: Early Developments of Tathāgatagarbha Teachings). Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture 1, no. 1 (2012): 127–48. https://depot.ceon.pl/bitstream/handle/123456789/2724/JZ_-_O_formowaniu_tg.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
Zapart, Jarosław. "Wszechprzenikliwa podstawa oświecenia, czyli o formowaniu się koncepcji tathagatagarbhy" (The All-Pervading Foundation of Enlightenment: Early Developments of Tathāgatagarbha Teachings). Polish Journal of the Arts and Culture 1, no. 1 (2012): 127–48. https://depot.ceon.pl/bitstream/handle/123456789/2724/JZ_-_O_formowaniu_tg.pdf?sequence=1&isAllowed=y
PhD Diss
Yogâcāra Buddhism Transmitted or Transformed? Paramārtha (499–569) and His Chinese Interpreters
Abstract

This dissertation argues that the Yogâcāra Buddhism transmitted by the Indian translator Paramârtha (Ch. Zhendi 真諦) underwent a significant transformation due to the influence of his later Chinese interpreters, a phenomenon to which previous scholars failed to paid enough attention.
      I begin with showing two contrary interpretations of Paramârtha's notion of jiexing 解性. The traditional interpretation glosses jiexing in terms of "original awakening" (benjue 本覺) in the Awakening of Faith and hence betrays its strong tie to that text. In contrast, a contrary interpretation of jiexing is preserved in a Dunhuang fragment Taishō No. 2805 (henceforth abbreviated as T2805).
      The crucial part of this dissertation consists in demonstrating that T2805 and the Awakening of Faith represent two competing lineages of the interpreters of Paramârtha. The first clue is that modern scholars have voiced objection to the traditional attribution of the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha. In addition, I discovered that striking similarities exist between T2805 and Paramârtha's corpus with respect to terminology, style of phrasing, and doctrine. I further draw attention to the historical testimonies about two different doctrinal views held by Paramârtha's interpreters. Therefore, I argue that there were two lineages in the name of Paramârtha's disciples around 590 CE: the indirect lineage interpreted Paramârtha through the lens of the Awakening of Faith; and the direct lineage—represented by T2805—preserved Paramârtha's original teachings but died out prematurely. Later Chinese Buddhist tradition mistakenly regards the indirect lineage as Paramârtha's true heir and attributes the Awakening of Faith to Paramârtha.
      This implies that Paramârtha may have agreed with Xuanzang 2T5c (600–664) much more than scholars used to assume. For example, Xuanzang's characterization of the notion of "aboriginal uncontaminated seeds" looks very similar to how Paramârtha depicts jiexing. It also implies that we should distinguish the strong sense of the notion of "tathāgatagarbha" in the Awakening of Faith from its weak sense. The fact that even Vasubandhu endorses the weak sense of "tathāgatagarbha" strongly challenges the received wisdom that Yogâcāra and Tathāgatagarbha were two distinct and antagonistic trends of thought in India.
Keng, Ching. "Yogâcāra Buddhism Transmitted or Transformed? Paramārtha (499–569) and His Chinese Interpreters." PhD diss., Harvard University, 2009.
Text
Mahāmeghasūtra
One of the tathāgatagarbha sūtras, this text is based around a narrative in which the Buddha is questioned by the bodhisattva Mahāmeghagarbha. According to Radich (see scholarly notes below) the exposition of tathāgatagarbha doctrine in the Mahāmeghasūtra echoes that of the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra. It preaches the theme of secret teachings, the idea that tathāgatagarbha/buddha nature is to be “seen,” and the fact that sentient beings have tathāgatagarbha within them like a separate entity.
Article
Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādanirdeśa
Matsuda, Kazunobu. "Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādanirdeśa." In Vol. 1 of Buddhist Manuscripts, edited by Jens Braarvig, Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Kazunobu Matsuda, and Lore Sander, 65–76. Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection 1. Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2000. https://www.hermesbooks.no/bmsc-i
Matsuda, Kazunobu. "Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādanirdeśa." In Vol. 1 of Buddhist Manuscripts, edited by Jens Braarvig, Jens-Uwe Hartmann, Kazunobu Matsuda, and Lore Sander, 65–76. Manuscripts in the Schøyen Collection 1. Oslo: Hermes Publishing, 2000. https://www.hermesbooks.no/bmsc-i
Term Variations
Key Term tathāgatagarbha
Topic Variation tathāgatagarbha
Tibetan དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་
Wylie Tibetan Transliteration de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po
Devanagari Sanskrit तथागतगर्भ  ( tatagatagarbha)
Romanized Sanskrit tathāgatagarbha  ( tatagatagarbha)
Chinese 如来藏
Chinese Pinyin rúláizàng
Buddha-nature Site Standard English buddha-nature
Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term Heart of the Thus Gone One
Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term Tathāgata essence, matrix of a One-Gone-Thus
Alternate Spellings buddha-nature, buddha nature
Term Information
Usage Example Zimmerman, A Buddha Within, 2002, p 40:

Sanskrit: eṣā kulaputra dharmāṇāṁ dharmatā / utpādād vā tathāgatānām anutpādād vā sadaivaite sattvās tathāgatagarbhā iti / (Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā 73.11-12)

Tibetan: རིགས་ཀྱི་བུ་དག་འདི་ནི་ཆོས་རྣམས་ཀྱི་ཆོས་ཉིད་དེ། དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པ་རྣམས་བྱུང་ཡང་རུང་མ་བྱུང་ཡང་རུང་། སེམས་ཅན་འདི་དག་ནི་རྟག་ཏུ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ཡིན་

English: Son of good family, the True Nature (dharmatā) of the dharmas is this: whether or not tathāgatas appear in the world, all these sentient beings contain at all times a tathāgata.
Source Language Sanskrit
Basic Meaning Buddha-nature, literally the "womb/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)."
Has the Sense of The seed or essence of enlightenment. Tathāgata loosely translates as "one who has gone to a state of enlightenment," while garbha has the sense of "womb," "essence," and "embryo." Tathāgatagarbha thus suggests a potential or an innate buddhahood possessed by all sentient beings that is either developed or revealed when one attains enlightenment.
Did you know? "Buddha nature" is an English translation not of Tathāgatagarbha but of buddhadhātu, as well as of buddatā, tathatā, prakṛtivyadadāna, and other possible Sanskrit originals.
Related Terms sugatagarbha, Buddhadhātu, tathatā
Term Type Noun
Definitions
Karl Brunnhölzl Read more about Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of Tathāgatagarbha by Karl Brunnhölzl.
Explanations of Tathāgatagarbha in Indian Texts
Tathāgatagarbha as the Emptiness That Is a Nonimplicative Negation
Tathāgatagarbha as Mind’s Luminous Nature
Tathāgatagarbha as the Ālaya-Consciousness
Tathāgatagarbha as a Sentient Being
Tathāgatagarbha as the Dharmakāya, Suchness, the Disposition, and Nonconceptuality
Tibetan Assertions on Tathāgatagarbha
Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism See page 897: In Sanskrit, variously translated as “womb of the tathāgatas,” “matrix of the tathāgatas,” “embryo of the tathāgatas,” “essence of the tathāgatas”; the term probably means “containing a tathāgatha.” It is more imprecisely interpreted as the “buddha-nature,” viz., the potential to achieve buddhahood that, according to some Mahāyāna schools, is inherent in all sentient beings.
Rangjung Yeshe Dictionary tathagata-essence, enlightened essence, buddha-nature
Muller's Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (DDB) 如來藏

Basic Meaning: womb of the Tathāgata

Senses:

(Skt. tathāgata-garbha). The matrix of the thus come one(s). An embryo that should become a Buddha, or the 'womb' where the Buddha-to-be is carried. An expression that refers to sentient beings as the full embodiment of the Buddhaʼs capability for existence. At the same time, in concrete terms, it is in the condition of being temporarily defiled by non-inherent factors, thus it cannot be called an actualized 'Buddha.' Therefore the term refers to the capability for becoming a tathāgata that is present in the minds of unenlightened sentient beings. The notion of tathāgatagarbha is usually described as first having been introduced in the Śrīmālā-sūtra 勝鬘經. It is true that the topic is broached in that text, but only at a late point, and it is not explained in any great detail. However, the tathāgatagarbha is taken up as a central theme in such texts as the Ratnagotravibhāga 寶性論, the Laṅkâvatāra-sūtra 楞伽經, the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith 大乘起信論, etc. The tradition of thought and practice that developed around these texts, as well as in the writings and commentaries of Paramârtha 眞諦, co-existed and interacted with the streams of Yogâcāra that developed together in East Asia between the fifth and seventh centuries, and would end up becoming the predominant soteriological influence in East Asian schools such as Huayan, Tiantai, and Chan.

There are three meanings of the term tathāgatagarbha: (a) the meaning that the absolute body of the Tathāgata (dharma-kāya) is existent within all living creatures; (b) the meaning that the tathāgata as reality-nature (true thusness) is a whole without distinctions; (c) the meaning that the tathāgata exists within every living creature in a seed, or embryonic form. The Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith says: " tathāgata has the mind of sentient beings as matrix, the mind of sentient beings has the tathāgata as matrix, the mind of sentient beings has the multifarious virtues of the tathāgata as matrix. In addition to these three kinds of interpretation the tathāgatagarbha is called the 'mind of clear and pure reflection,' or the 'Dharma-body in a state of confusion.' " (起信論, T 1666.32.575c27). See 五種藏.

(Charles Muller; source(s): JEBD: Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha) 225a/250)

Source Accessed April 30, 2018, http://www.buddhism-dict.net/cgi-bin/xpr-ddb.pl?59.xml+id(%27b5982-4f86-85cf%27)
Tshig mdzod Chen mo [1370] sems can thams cad kyi rgyud la ye nas gnas pa'i gzhi rgyud bde bar gshegs pa'i snying po ngo bo stong pa rang bzhin gsal ba thugs rje kun khyab kyi bdag nyid can...
Wikipedia wikipedia:Buddha-nature
RigpaWiki rigpa:Buddha_nature
Other Definitions Womb of the tathagatas
Richard Barron:
Sutra context: tathagatagarbha or "buddha nature"
Dzogchen context: potential or heart essence that consitutes attaining (state of) suchness

“Containing the tathagatas”

“Womb”, “embryo”, “essence”, or “heart” (garbha) of the Thus Gone (tathāgata)
Synonyms Buddha-dhatu “The inherent potential of all sentient beings to achieve buddhahood.” - Princeton Dictionary, p. 151 Ch: 如来藏 J: busshō
Grammatical / Etymological Analysis “As for the meaning of the Sanskrit compound tathāgatagarbha, its first part (tathā) can be taken as either the adverb “thus” or the noun “thusness/suchness” (as a term for ultimate reality; many texts, among them the Uttaratantra, gloss tathāgatagarbha as “suchness”). The second part can be read either as gata (“gone”), or āgata (“come, arrived”; the Tibetan gshegs pa can mean both). However, in the term tathāgata, both meanings more or less come down to the same. Thus, the main difference lies in whether one understands a tathāgata as (a) a “thus-gone/thus-come one” or (b) “one gone/ come to thusness,” with the former emphasizing the aspect of the path and the latter the result. The final part of the compound—garbha—literally and originally means “embryo,” “germ,” “womb,” “the interior or middle of anything,” “any interior chamber or sanctuary of a temple,” “calyx” (as of a lotus), “having in the interior,” “containing,” or “being filled with.” At some point, the term also assumed the meanings of “core,” “heart,” “pith,” and “essence” (which is also the meaning of its usual Tibetan translation snying po).” - Karl Brunnhölzl, When the Clouds Part

ZIMMERMAN on Tathāgatagarbha

An interpretation of the meaning of the term tathāgatagarbha must, as a matter of course, start from the context in the TGS in which it originates. 52 The context is that of the withered lotuses with beautiful tathligatas sitting in the center of their calyxes (padmagarbha). In the same way that full-fledged tathāgatas sit in the flowers, so also, according to the siitra, are buddhas contained in living beings. 53 If living beings are said to contain a tathāgata, they should function as receptacles, and the compound tathāgatagarbha must accordingly be understood either as a bahuvrīhi in the sense of "containing a tathāgata" or as a tatpuruṣa meaning "store of a tathāgata." However, in order to reach an adequate interpretation of the compound, I need to preface some remarks on the term garbha, and then give an overview of the range of possible interpretations of the whole compound, in part offered by the texts which succeeded the TGS. 54

Concerning the term garbha, the Etymologisches Wörterbuch des Altindoarischen 55 provides us only with the two meanings "Mutterleib; Leibesfrucht, Embryo, Neugeborenes." It seems, however, that, starting from this biological background, garbha took on other, less specific senses, such as "the inside, middle, interior of anything, calyx (as of a lotus), ... any interior chamber, adytum or sanctuary of a temple &c." (MW), or, as Hara has shown for epic literature, "germ, seed, infant, child" and, by analogy with the vocable putra as the last member of a compound, even simply "member (of a family lineage)."56

Also familiar is the function of -garbha at the end of a bahuvrīhi compound,

indicating that the prior member(s) of the compound is/are contained in the subject the compound refers to.57 Especially in the last case it is difficult to judge how far a biological, embryonic shade of meaning was still felt, that is, to what degree -garbha had become a purely grammatical unit used at the time our siitra came into existence to express a relation of inclusion void of any strong lexical connotations. However, the original embryo-related meaning of garbha did not completely fade out in later centuries; indeed garbha even became associated with the semantic field of "offspring." This suggests that the grammatical application of -garbha never became totally free of the underlying idea of an embryo still in need of development in a nurturing, womb-like container, if the context in question was susceptible of such a nuance. (Source: Michael Zimmerman, A Buddha Within, 2002, pages 40–41).
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