Jones, Christopher

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Christopher V. Jones

Chris Jones completed doctoral research at the University of Oxford (St Peter’s College) in 2015, with a thesis that explored the language of selfhood (ātman) in relation to teachings about buddha-nature in Indian Buddhist literature. The thesis was awarded the Khyentse Foundation Award for outstanding doctoral research produced in Europe, and was the foundation for his first monograph – The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman. Jones spent three further years researching and teaching at Oxford as a Postdoctoral Fellow of the British Academy, and is now on a UK Arts and Humanities Research Project connected to the University of Cambridge, associated also with the University of Edinburgh. His continuing research concerns predominantly Mahāyāna Buddhist thought as preserved across Sanskrit, Chinese and Tibetan literature, as well as the boundaries and interactions between Buddhism and other religious traditions in India and elsewhere. (Personal Communication, September 2021])

Library Items

Article
A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle: Tathāgatagarbha, Tīrthikas, and the True Self
This article concerns the Indian tathāgatagarbha literature: Mahāyānist works, produced no later than the early fifth century, which assert that all sentient beings possess already the qualities of a Buddha. Early works of this tradition—perhaps even the earliest that are available to us—explain possession of the tathāgatagarbha to constitute the existence of the self (ātman). These sources, foremost the Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra, show evidence that their authors faced strong opposition from audiences committed to the more conventional Buddhist doctrine of anātman, but contend defensively that the ātman that they teach is nothing like any notion of selfhood found in non-Buddhist religious traditions.
      With reference to two of these 'ātmavādin’ tathāgatagarbha works, I present evidence that authors of this tradition used the idea of a Buddhist doctrine of the self to undermine non-Buddhist accounts of liberation: not only describing them as deficient, but as having been created (nirmita) by the Buddha himself. Such claims expand the boundaries of the Buddha’s sphere of influence, after the description of his activities found in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra: a clear influence upon these tathāgatagarbha sources. Other Mahāyānist literature of an ‘ekayānist’ orientation used this strategy also: i.e. that any teaching regarding liberation from saṃsāra finds its origin in the activities of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, but has its definitive expression in the Buddhist dharma. The tathāgatagarbha presented as a Buddhist doctrine of the self can hence be understood as a complement to a certain understanding of the Mahāyāna, here the archetype of all paths that claim to deliver an end to saṃsāra, and to an account of the Buddha as the architect of all ostensibly non-Buddhist accounts of liberation.
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.
Article
Beings, Non-Beings, and Buddhas: Contrasting Notions of Tathāgatagarbha in the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta and *Mahābherī Sūtra
This article concerns a little studied text of the Mahāyānist tathāgatagarbha literature, namely the *Mahābherī Sūtra, and its relation to other Indian texts which advance forms of tathāgatagarbha doctrine. Its focus will be the contrast between the content of this sūtra and the only other text of the tathāgatagarbha tradition which discusses a particular issue: the unchanging mass of existing sentient beings, without the possibility of any decrease or increase in their number. This is an issue addressed also by the Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta, which I shall argue presents a more sophisticated and likely later consideration, both of this matter and of tathāgatagarbha doctrine, than that exhibited by the *Mahābherī Sūtra. Though it is not clear that either text knew of the other, their different treatments of how one should understand the nature and number of existing sentient beings casts light on their respective places in two distinct strains—one very likely older than the other—of Indian tathāgatagarbha thought.
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.
Buddha Nature Across Asia
The tathāgatagarbha or buddha nature doctrine is centered on sentient beings’ potential for buddhahood—sometimes understood in the sense that all beings already contain a “buddha within.” This notion is found through various strands of early Mahāyāna sources that, notwithstanding their complex and interwoven development, came to share enough common features to summarize them under the doxographical category of Tathāgatagarbha. The chapters contained in this volume represent the latest research into buddha nature theory that covers a range of topics across major Buddhist traditions. These contributions were originally presented as papers during the symposium “Tathāgatagarbha across Asia: The Reception of an Influential Mahāyāna Doctrine in Central and East Asia,” held at the University of Vienna in 2019. This symposium brought together academic scholars focusing on religio-historical developments of buddha nature theory as well as traditional teachers and monastics who offered emic perspectives on the relevance of the concept within the context of their own tradition. The resulting volume, therefore, aims at contributing to the overall better understanding of tathāgatagarbha doxography, both historically and in living Buddhist communities. (Source: WSTB)
Mathes, Klaus-Dieter, and Casey Kemp, eds. Buddha Nature Across Asia. Wiener Studien zur Tibetologie und Buddhismuskunde 103. Vienna: Arbeitkreis für tibetische und buddhistische Studien, University of Vienna, 2022.
Video
Christopher Jones: Defining a "Buddha-Nature Discourse": The Case of the Mahāmeghasūtra (Sprin chen po'i mdo)
Jones, Christopher. "Defining a 'Buddha-Nature Discourse': The Case of the Mahāmeghasūtra (Sprin chen po'i mdo)." Old Topic, New Insights: Buddha-Nature at the Crossroads between Doctrine and Practice. The 16th IATS Conference, Prague, July 3–9, 2022. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department. Video, 17:22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi7pzXbM4-c.
Jones, Christopher. "Defining a 'Buddha-Nature Discourse': The Case of the Mahāmeghasūtra (Sprin chen po'i mdo)." Old Topic, New Insights: Buddha-Nature at the Crossroads between Doctrine and Practice. The 16th IATS Conference, Prague, July 3–9, 2022. Produced by the Tsadra Foundation Research Department. Video, 17:22. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yi7pzXbM4-c.
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.
Article
Reconsidering the "Essence" of Indian Buddha-Nature Literature
This paper is published in Acta Asiatica no.118, which concerns recent scholarship on tathāgatagarbha, or Buddha-nature thought, in Indian literature. In light of recent reassessments of the development of tathāgatagarbha thought in India, this paper considers instances in which tathāgatagarbha is unpacked to refer to some "essence" (dhātu) of a Buddha present in all sentient beings. My observation is that this articulation of Buddha-nature teaching is found throughout Indian tathāgatagarbha literature, from the Nirvāṇa Sūtra through to supposedly "basic" materials of the Ratnagotravibhāga, but is conspicuously absent where Buddhist authors are invested in (re)interpreting Buddha-nature in terms of the basic nature of the mind: an influential innovation that I believe is first evident in the Śrīmālā Sūtra. (Source Accessed April 3, 2020)
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.
Book
The Buddhist Self
A methodical examination of Indian teaching about the tathāgatagarbha (“Buddha-nature”) and foundational Buddhist teachings about 'not-self' (anātman). In 2021 The Buddhist Self was awarded the Toshihide Numata Book Award.
Jones, Christopher V. The Buddhist Self: On Tathāgatagarbha and Ātman. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2020.
PhD Diss
Jones, Christopher: The Use of, and Controversy Surrounding, the Term Atman in the Indian Buddhist Tathagatagarbha Literature
Abstract


The tathāgatagarbha doctrine of Mahāyāna Buddhism affirms the existence of some permanent, significant content of sentient beings that is of the same character as a Buddha. While this alone was an important innovation within Buddhist thought, some of its authors ventured further to deem this significant content an ātman: a ‘self’, in apparent contradiction to the central Buddhist teaching of the absence of self (anātman) in the constitution of all beings.

The aims of this thesis are two. Firstly, to examine usage of the term ātman in the Indian tathāgatagarbha sources which develop use of this expression. This entails a close reading of relevant sources (primarily Mahāyāna sūtra literature), and attention to how this term is used in the context of each. These sources present different perspectives on the tathāgatagarbha and its designation as a self; this study aims to examine significant differences between, and similarities across, these texts and their respective doctrines.

The second aim is to attempt an account of why authors of these texts ventured to designate the tathāgatagarbha with the term ātman, especially when some of our sources suggest that this innovation received some opposition, while others deem it in requirement of strong qualification, or to be simply inappropriate. It is not my objective to account for whether or not the tathāgatagarbha is or is not implicitly what we may deem ‘a self’ on the terms of Buddhist tradition; rather, I am concerned with the manner in which this expression itself was adopted, and – in light of clear difficulties raised by it – what may have motivated those authors responsible.

I argue not only that we can trace the development of this designation across the tathāgatagarbha literature, but also that those authors responsible for its earliest usage adopted an attitude towards non-Buddhist discourses on the self that requires special attention. This, I believe, had its roots in an account of the Buddha and his influence that advances our understanding of one tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhology, and its ambition to affirm its superiority over other Indian religious traditions. (Source Accessed October 29, 2019)
Jones, Christopher V. "The Use of, and Controversy Surrounding, the Term Ātman in the Indian Buddhist Tathāgatagarbha Literature." PhD diss., Oxford University, 2015.
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).

Affiliations & relations

  • University of Oxford · workplace affiliation
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