The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra and the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra are the likeliest candidates for the earliest surviving instance of the term tathāgatagarbha used in the sense that it has come down to us. Michael Radich dates the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra to as early as the second century CE and claims that it is the earliest of the group,[1] while Michael Zimmermann dates the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra to the third century;[2] he once argued that this sūtra was the earliest of the group but has since backed away from that assertion in light of Radich’s findings. The debate is ongoing, as Zimmermann has also suggested that the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra could represent a collection of early metaphors that had circulated separately, and to which the term tathāgatagarbha was later added.
The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, like the Hīnayāna sūtra of the same name, is ostensibly a narrative about the final days of the Buddha, but this one extends into a discourse of Mahāyāna doctrine. The Buddha is depicted not as dying but as entering a nirvāṇa that is an enduring presence rather than an extinction. This seems to be the main thrust of the sūtra: to proclaim that the Buddha is ever-present and to equate parinirvāṇa with the eternal and all-pervading dharmakāya, which eventually came to be equated in the sūtra with tathāgatagarbha.[3] The sūtra in fact inverts what are known as the four viparyāsas, or wrong views: that any phenomenon can be described as being free from suffering, permanent, pure, or endowed with a self. The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra instead states that the Buddha, his enlightenment, and the buddhadhātu should all be properly described as blissful, permanent, pure, and endowed with a self. That permanent buddhahood, which is only masked by temporary stains, is tathāgatagarbha. (In typical parochial Mahāyāna fashion, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra reserves complete enlightenment for only those who have completed the Mahāyāna path; the nirvāṇa of the arhat is merely free of the stains, lacking the awareness of the buddhadhātu and bliss.)
The Mahāparnirvāṇa’s liberal use of the term self (ātman) to describe tathāgatagarbha was controversial, flying in the face of one of the central doctrines of Buddhism, that of no-self, or anātman. As Christopher Jones points out, two additional tathāgatagarbha sūtras do the same, the Aṅgulimālīyasūtra and the *Mahābherīsūtra, leading him to classify the three together as the earliest strata of tathāgatagarbha scripture, and to speculate that opposition to these sūtras from within Buddhist communities was the reason what he classifies as later tathāgatagarbha sūtras dropped the use of the term ātman.[4]
In his study of the scripture Radich argues that the term tathāgatagarbha, which he glosses as “womb of a buddha,” was used to explain how a perfectly pure being such as a buddha could arise out of a polluted and degraded human being; how, in other words, the conditioned could give rise to the unconditioned. This line of argument remains one of the more popular defenses against the claim that buddha-nature theory is non-Buddhist; if sentient beings and buddhas do not share the same nature, defenders assert, the attainment of enlightenment cannot be explained. (The misogyny in the metaphor is not hard to miss, however; one need only substitute "woman" for "womb.") Either saṃsāra must be wiped away to reveal what is already present, or a spark of enlightenment that is part of a saṃsāric being’s essence is brought to fruition. Otherwise nirvāṇa is the result of some action and therefore determined by causes and conditions, a view that is abhorrent to any Buddhist; nirvāṇa is precisely the absence of any conditioning.
As Brunnhölzl describes it, the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra offers an ambiguous definition of tathāgatagarbha: it is an intrinsic pure nature that all sentient beings possess and of which they will become aware once obscurations are removed, and it is a seed or potential that will ripen into buddhahood once all conditions are present.[5] Buddha-nature, it would seem, was from the very early days a doctrine that contained both an ontological and a soteriological assertion. In the first case it is a statement about the nature of reality: sentient beings are by nature perfect, but that perfection is obscured by stains that nevertheless do not impact its essence; that perfection is moreover equated with the nature of reality itself, and therefore buddha-nature becomes the basis for both saṁsāra and nirvāṇa. In the second case it is an ethical proposal relating to salvation: the potential for perfection is present in all sentient beings, but they must each strive to actualize it. This bifurcated definition would continue through all presentations, to the delight or consternation of many commentators.
The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra appears to have been compiled in at least three stages. As described by Liu Ming-Wood and also by Takasaki, the earliest section comprises the first five chapters, which read as a complete text and end with the final days of the Buddha.[6]The first five chapters were also translated independently (see below). Chapters 6 through 9 clarify points made in the first, a commentary of sorts in the guise of a continuation, and the final section, chapters 10 through 13, add further explanation. As Christopher Jones explained, Japanese scholar Shimoda Masahiro suggested that the earliest core of the text was concerned with the Buddha’s permanent existence; rather than vanishing into nirvāṇa, here the buddha is permanent and omnipresent. The accretion of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine represents a transition of the Buddha’s body into that of sentient beings, the Buddha’s presence becoming the true self of ordinary beings. This suggests an interesting link between the early Buddhist concern with the relics—and lasting presence—of the Buddha with the doctrine of buddha-nature.[7] In any case, the sūtra teaches, this innate buddha-body of sentient beings, which came to be called tathāgatagarbha, represents their true self.
A primary divergence between the first and later sections of the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra is in their positions on buddha-nature and the icchantikas, the class of beings who are beset with the gravest of flaws such that they can never become enlightened; by definition they are devoid of buddha-nature. The first section of the sūtra is adamant that the icchantikas do not have buddha-nature and can never become enlightened; they are a scorched seed that can never sprout. The second section is ambiguous on the subject, and the third states unequivocally that icchantikas do have buddha-nature and therefore do have the potential to become enlightened.[8] By bestowing buddha-nature on the icchantika the additions brought the sūtra into full conformity with the Single Vehicle (Ekayāna) teachings of the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra—the Lotus Sutra—which influenced it and other early tathāgatagarbha sūtras,[9] and concurrently into contradiction with fundamental Yogācāra doctrine of the three natures.
Testifying to its popularity—and the availability of Sanskrit manuscripts—forty-one Sanskrit fragments of the Mahāparinirvāṇa have been found in Central Asia, a primary region through which Buddhism was brought from India to China.[10] Dunhuang in particular, it is believed, was a hub of buddha-nature transmission in China. There are three recensions of the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra, although only two are technically translations. The first, the Dabannihuan jing 大般泥洹經 (T376), was translated into Chinese in the southern capital of Jiankang 建康 around 416–418 by Buddhabhadra[11] and Faxian 法顯.[12] This consists of only the first five chapters (said to be the original core) of the sūtra. The second is the Dabanniepan jing 大般涅槃經 (T374), done around 421–432 by Dharmakṣema[13] in the northern kingdom of Beiliang 北涼.[14] This was revised in the 430s as Dabanniepan jing 大般涅槃經 (T375), also known as the “Southern Version,” produced in Liu Song 劉宋 by Huiyan 慧嚴, Huiguan 慧觀, Xie Lingyun 謝靈運 (385–433), and others. This is not technically a translation, as they did not consult a Sanskrit original.[15] According to Diana Paul the prolific translator Guṇabhadra[16] also later corrected Dharmakṣema’s translation.[17]
The Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra was translated into Tibetan in two different versions, one of which was from Chinese. This is the ’Phags pa yongs su mya ngan las ’das pa chen po’i mdo (D119), translated by a Chinese man whose name was Tibetanized as Wangpabzhun (wang phab zhun) together with Gewai Lodro[18] and Gyatso De,[19] none of whose dates are known. They possibly worked from T374, as Radich states that the two correspond.[20] A second translation, ’Phags pa yongs su mya ngan las ’das pa chen po theg pa chen po’i mdo (D120) was done in the early ninth century by Jinamitra, Jñānagarbha, and Devacandra. This translation corresponds to T376. A third text with the title ’Phags pa yongs su mya ngan las ’das pa chen po'i mdo (D121) was done later, at the start of the second diffusion period, by Kamalagupta and Rinchen Zangpo.[21]
Several English translations of the Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra are available. The earliest appears to have been done by Japanese scholar Yamamoto Kosho, published first in 1973 and again in 1999 and 2015, with additional assistance from Tony Page. Stephen Hodge's translation is available online. Mark Blum's partial translation is The Nirvana Sutra Volume I.
- Radich, The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, 99.
- Zimmermann, “The Process of Awakening,” 514. Radich (The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, 85) argues for no earlier than 250 and as late as the mid-fourth century.
- On the history of the concept of the dharmakāya, see Harrison, “Is the Dharma-kaya the Real ‘Phantom Body’ of the Buddha?” Harrison argues that in most early Mahāyāna scripture dharmakāya ought to be read as an adjective, meaning “the body of the buddha as the dharma,” and not as some ontological universal principle.
- Jones, “A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle,” 121.
- Brunnhölzl, When the Clouds Part, 18. The same can be said about the ''Tathāgatagarbhasūtra''’s similes.
- Liu, “The Problem of the Icchantika;” Takasaki, “Tathāgatagarbha theory in the Mahāparnirvāṇa.”
- Jones, “A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle,” 124.
- It is important to note that a slightly later translation by Dharmakṣema altered the icchantika passages in the first five chapters in order to bring them into line with the rest of the text. Faxian, who was a committed Yogācārin, did not.
- Jones, “A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle.”
- Radich, The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, 21.
- Buddhabhadra lived from 359 to 429. His name is transliterated as Fo tuo ba tuo luo 佛陀跋陀羅.
- Faxian’s dates are estimated as between 320 and 420. Radich, The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, 20–21; Liu, “The Doctrine of the Buddha-Nature,” 64.
- Dharmakṣema lived from 385 to 433. His name was transliterated as Tan wu chen 曇無讖.
- Radich, The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, 20–21.
- Radich, The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, 21; Liu, “The Doctrine of the Buddha-Nature,” 64.
- Guṇabhadra lived from 394 to 468. His name was transliterated (in contemporary Chinese pronunciation) as Qiu na ba tuo luo 求那跋陀羅.
- Paul, The Buddhist Feminine Ideal, 18. Paul names Dharmakṣema’s translation as the first but does not give dates of translation.
- Dge ba’i blos gros.
- Rgya mtsho’i sde.
- Radich, Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, 20–21.
- Rin chen bzang po, 958–1055 is not related to buddha-nature.
