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| − | == A History of Buddha-Nature Theory ==
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| − | === Preface ===
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| − | The theory of <em>tathāgatagarbha</em>—most commonly, if not perfectly, translated into English as “buddha-nature”<ref><em>Buddha-nature</em> is actually an English translation of a Chinese term, <em>foxing</em> 佛性. This term appears to have been invented in China to translate <em>buddhadhātu</em>, possibly also <em>buddatā</em>, <em>tathatā</em>, <em>prakṛtivyadadāna</em>, and other terms. See King, <em>Buddha Nature</em>, 173–74, n5. The most common Sanskrit term, <em>tathāgatagarbha</em>, means something like “womb/essence/seed (<em>garbha</em>) of the one who has gone/come (<em>gata</em> / <em>āgata</em>) to thusness (<em>tathā</em>; i.e., enlightenment).” The Chinese translation of <em>tathāgatagarbha</em> is <em>rulaixing</em> 如來性. The Tibetan equivalents of <em>buddha-nature</em> include <em>rang bzhin gnas rigs</em> and <em>sangs rgyas kyi snying po</em>. <em>Tathāgatagarbha</em> is translated as <em>de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po</em>: “the essence of those who have gone/come to thusness.”</ref>—is generally thought by scholars to have first appeared around the third or fourth century CE and possibly as early as the second. Many Tibetan and Chinese scholiasts found justification for the ideas in various passages in the Pāli Canon, such as this from the <em>Aṅguttaranikāya Sutta</em>: “Luminous, monks, is this mind, but sometimes it is defiled by adventitious defilements. . . . sometimes it is free from adventitious defilements.”<ref>Morris, <em>The Aṅguttara-Nikāya</em>, i.10, 11–16, as quoted in Silk, <em>Buddhist Cosmic Unity</em>, 39. For more early scriptural passages on the mind’s natural luminosity, see Skorupski, “Consciousness and Luminosity.” </ref> The Vinaya contains a famous story in which the Buddha sends his gaze over all existence and perceives sentient beings as lotuses rooted in deep mud; the metaphor is taken as pertaining to the buddha-nature of all beings, destined as we are to attain perfectly pure enlightenment.<ref>'''NEED A REFERENCE'''</ref>
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| − | Traditional and modern scholars debate how much of a link can be found between early Pāli references to “luminosity” and buddha-nature.<ref>Jonathan Silk, for example, (<em>Buddhist Cosmic Unity</em>, 39) points out that the compilers of the <em>Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta</em> appear to have been aware of the <em>Aṅguttaranikāya</em> passage, as they integrated it into that Mahāyāna sūtra nearly verbatim.</ref> Mainstream Pāli Buddhism considered consciousness to be one of the five <em>skandhas</em>, the building blocks of conditioned existence. Early exegesis of luminosity passages in the scripture seems to suggest that they were not, in fact, teaching that the mind is naturally pure or that it preexists the skandhas, but only that it has the potential to be made pure.<ref>For scholarship on luminosity in early Buddhism, see Shih, “The Concept of ‘Innate Purity of Mind’ in the Agamas and Nikayas”; and Williams, <em>The Reflexive Nature of Awareness</em>.</ref> A related concept is <em>bhavaṅga</em> mind, meaning the substratum of consciousness that represents mind in its inactive state. This does not appear originally to have been intended as a permanent subconscious; at the moment the mind becomes active, bhavaṅga is cut off and the active mind (<em>vīthicitta</em>) takes over. Still, some scholars have pointed to the concept as a forerunner to the notion of luminosity.<ref>See, for example, Collins, “Momentariness and the Bhavaṅga Mind,” in <em>Selfless Persons</em>; Harris, “The Problem of Idealism” in <em>The Continuity between Madhyamaka and Yogācāra in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism</em>; and Harvey, “The Brightly Shining Bhavaṅga Mind,” in <em>The Selfless Mind: Personality, Consciousness and Nirvāṇa in Early Buddhism</em>.</ref>
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| − | Although over the centuries Chinese and Tibetan scholiasts have categorized the concept of buddha-nature as either Yogācāra or Madhyamaka, there is sufficient reason to believe that the tathāgatagarbha theory developed independently: it is a cataphatic doctrine (that is, it uses positive language to describe the nature of reality), which distinguishes it from the apophatic approach of Madhyamaka; and it asserts that all sentient beings have an equal capacity to awaken, which contradicts the basic Yogācāra doctrine of different potentials for enlightenment. Instead, the rise of the doctrine was likely a result of Buddhist theorists grappling with long-standing core Buddhist conundrums such as the nature of mind; how to use language to describe what is by definition beyond the reach of language; how nirvāṇa, which is unconditioned and perfect, can arise out of saṁsāra; and how to make sense of various yogic experiences.
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| − | === Early Appearances of the Term <em>Tathāgatagarbha</em> ===
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| − | Scholars currently debate the earliest (surviving) appearance of the term <em>tathāgatagarbha</em>. The term itself appears in a handful of early scriptures but without elaboration, suggesting that the term had been coined but its meaning had not yet been fleshed out. These are documented by Karl Brunnhölzl in <em>When the Clouds Part</em>:
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| − | ::Possibly the first appearance of the term <em>tathāgatagarbha</em> (though not in the sense in which it is used in the <em>tathāgatagarbha</em> sūtras) has been traced to the <em>Mahāsaṃghika Ekottarikāgama</em> (the Chinese recension of the <em>Aṅguttara Nikāya</em>): “If someone devotes himself to the <em>Ekottarikāgama</em> / Then he has the <em>tathāgatagarbha</em>. / Even if his body cannot exhaust defilements in this life / In his next life he will attain supreme wisdom.” The term is also used once in the <em>Gaṇḍavyūhasūtra</em> (which is dated prior to the <em>Tathāgatagarbhasūtra</em>) as an epithet of Sudhana, without further explanation. Furthermore, the <em>Prajñāpāramitāsūtra in One Hundred Fifty Lines</em> (<em>Adhyardhaśatikāprajñāpāramitāsūtra</em>) contains the sentence “all sentient beings possess the <em>tathāgatagarbha</em><ref>Brunnhölzl (<em>When the Clouds Part</em>, 3) translates <em>tathāgatagarbha</em> in this passage as “<em>tathāgata</em> heart,” as he does throughout the book. The Sanskrit is on page 985, n11).</ref> because their entire being is that of the great bodhisattva Samantabhadra.”<ref>Brunnhölzl, <em>When the Clouds Part</em>, 3.</ref>
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| − | In <em>When the Clouds Part</em> Brunnhölzl also surveys the literature to which the earliest Indian treatise on tathāgatagarbha, the <em>Ratnagotravibhāga</em>, makes reference. These include the <em>Dhāraṇīśvararājasūtra</em> and the <em>Ratnadārikāsūtra</em>, among others.<ref>Brunnhölzl, <em>When the Clouds Part</em>, 3–4.</ref> Although these scriptures do not use the term <em>tathāgatagarbha</em>, they provided the treatise’s author with much of the doctrinal basis for the explication of the theory.
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| − | One such concept on which tathāgatagarbha theory relies is <em>gotra</em>, a Sanskrit term that refers to family unit by bloodline and is used metaphorically in Buddhism to refer to “class,” “lineage,” or “disposition.” Buddhist teachings since the early days of the religion discussed the various predilections of followers, a way of separating the children of the “noble” class—those who are sincere in their renunciation and diligent in their austerities—from the rest of humanity. In the Mahāyāna three basic classes of Buddhist practitioners were said to exist: śrāvakas, who will become arhats by following the Hīnayāna path; pratyekabuddhas, who will become arhats without being taught; and bodhisattvas, or those destined to become buddhas on the Mahāyāna path. An additional gotra was posited in some sūtras: that of the <em>icchantika</em>, who does not possess tathāgatagarbha and therefore has no possibility of becoming enlightened.<ref>Various translation of <em>icchantika</em> into Chinese and Tibetan shed light on the ways in which the category has been understood (the Chinese transliteration is yichanti 一闡提). Tibetans translate it as “one who is cut off from a <em>gotra</em>” (<em>rigs chad pa</em>) or “one of great lust” (<em>’dod chen po</em>), the first signifying that the icchantikas are excluded from the beings who will reach enlightenment, the second that they are conceived of as being unable to surmount their lust (“hedonist” also has been offered as a translation). Three Chinese translations all likewise reference the aspect of excessive desire: <em>duoyu</em> 多欲 (“many desires”), <em>leyu</em> 樂欲 (“cherishing desires”), and <em>datan</em> 大貪 (“great greed”).</ref> Whether or not such a class of beings truly existed was one of the earliest controversies in buddha-nature theory.
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| − | === Tathāgatagarbha Scripture ===
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| − | A handful of texts that are sometimes collectively labeled “tathāgatagarbha sūtras” are generally agreed upon as the initial group of literature that developed the concept of buddha-nature as we know it today. These stand distinct from the Yogācāra scriptures such as the <em>Saṃdhinirmocanasūtra</em>, and from the <em>Prajñāpāramitā</em> literature that provided the foundation for the Madhyamaka; so much so that some historians have posited the existence of a third Indian Mahāyāna school alongside them: the Tathāgatagarbha school. Among the most important of these texts are the <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em>, the <em>Tathāgatagarbhasūtra</em>, the <em>Anūnatvāpūrṇatvanirdeśaparivarta</em>, the <em>Śrīmālādevīsiṃhanādanirdeśa</em>, the <em>Mahābherīsūtra</em>, and the <em>Aṅgulimālīyasūtra</em>. While later Mahāyāna scriptures such as the <em>Laṅkāvatāra</em> and the <em>Lotus Sūtra</em> also teach tathāgatagarbha, the above-named scriptures predate the popular <em>Ratnagotravibhāga</em>, a fourth-<ref>Zimmermann, <em>[[A Buddha Within]]</em>, 12.</ref> or early fifth-century<ref>Takasaki, <em>A Study</em>, 61. As discussed below, the <em>Ratnagotravibhāga</em> was translated into Chinese in the first decade of the sixth century.</ref> Indian treatise that systematized tathāgatagarbha theory, and so are considered the first wave of the doctrine. The dates of their creation are unknown, and there is as yet little consensus concerning the sequence of their appearances.
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| − | The <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em> and the <em>Tathāgatagarbhasūtra</em> are the likeliest candidates for the earliest surviving instance of the term <em>tathāgatagarbha</em> used in the sense that it has come down to us. Michael Radich dates the <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em> to as early as the second century CE and claims that it is the earliest of the group,<ref>Radich, <em>The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra</em>, 99. </ref> while Michael Zimmermann dates the <em>Tathāgatagarbhasūtra</em> to the third century;<ref>Zimmermann, “The Process of Awakening,” 514. Radich (<em>The Mahāparinirvāṇa-mahāsūtra</em>, 85) argues for no earlier than 250 and as late as the mid-fourth century. </ref> 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.
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| − | The <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em>, 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 <em>parinirvāṇa</em> with the eternal and all-pervading <em>dharmakāya</em>, which eventually came to be equated in the sūtra with tathāgatagarbha.<ref> 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 <em>dharmakāya</em> ought to be read as an adjective, meaning “the body of the buddha as the dharma,” and not as some ontological universal principle.</ref> The sūtra in fact inverts what are known as the four <em>viparyāsas</em>, or wrong views: that any phenomenon can be described as being free from suffering, permanent, pure, or endowed with a self. The <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em> instead states that the Buddha, his enlightenment, and the <em>buddhadhātu</em> 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 <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em> 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.)
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| − | The <em>Mahāparnirvāṇa</em>’s liberal use of the term <em>self</em> (<em>ātman</em>) to describe tathāgatagarbha was controversial, flying in the face of one of the central doctrines of Buddhism, that of no-self, or <em>anātman</em>. As Christopher Jones points out, two additional tathāgatagarbha sūtras do the same, the <em>Aṅgulimālīyasūtra</em> and the *<em>Mahābherīsūtra</em> (both of which will be introduced below), leading him to speculate that opposition to these sūtras from within Buddhist communities was the reason later tathāgatagarbha sūtras dropped the use of the term <em>ātman</em>.<ref>Jones, “A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle,” 121. </ref>
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| − | In his study of the scripture Radich argues that the term <em>tathāgatagarbha</em>, 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. 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.
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| − | As Brunnhölzl describes it, the <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em> offers an ambiguous definition of <em>tathāgatagarbha</em>: 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.<ref>Brunnhölzl, <em>When the Clouds Part</em>, 18. The same can be said about the <em>Tathāgatagarbhasūtra</em>’s similes; see below.</ref> 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.
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| − | The <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em> 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.<ref>Liu, “The Problem of the Icchantika,” in Takasaki, <em>Collected Essays</em>, 299. The first five chapters were also translated independently, in China in 418 by Faxien 法顯 and in Tibet by Jinamitra, Jñānagarbha, and Devacandra in the late eighth century (Hodge, <em>Textual History</em>) or early ninth century (Jones, “A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle,” 122–23).</ref> 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.<ref>Jones, “A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle,” 124.</ref> In any case, the sūtra teaches, this innate buddha-body of sentient beings, which came to be called tathāgatagarbha, represents their true self.
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| − | A primary divergence between the first and later sections of the <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em> 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.<ref>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. We will return to this below.</ref> By bestowing buddha-nature on the icchantika the additions brought the sūtra into full conformity with the Single Vehicle (Ekayāna) teachings of the <em>Saddharmapuṇḍarīkasūtra</em>—the <em>Lotus Sutra</em>—which influenced it and other early tathāgatagarbha sūtras,<ref>Jones, “A Self-Aggrandizing Vehicle.”</ref> and concurrently into contradiction with fundamental Yogācāra doctrine of the three natures.
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| − | Whether or not it was the first tathāgatagarbha sūtra, most scholars agree that the <em>Tathāgatagarbhasūtra</em> was among the earliest of the group. It has been translated into English by Grosnick<ref>Grosnick, Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra.</ref> and again by Zimmermann<ref>Zimmermann, A Buddha Within.</ref>, who also prepared critical editions of the Chinese and Tibetan which he published together with a lengthy study. Zimmermann explains in patient detail that there are two versions of the text, the first of which lacks much of the content of the second, later recension (see below in the section on translations into Chinese). Like the <em>Mahāparinirvāṇasūtra</em>, the <em>Tathāgatagarbhasūtra</em> offers both ontological and soteriological definition of tathāgatagarbha, although “definition” is probably not the right word: the short text simply lists nine similes to describe the concept. These include a golden statue covered in mud and a seed that is destined to grow into a tree, suggesting both an already perfected nature and the potential to become something that one is presently not.
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| − | Zimmermann and others have noted that tathāgatagarbha theory may have initially been developed more for an ethical and soteriological purpose; the <em>Tāthagatagarbhasūtra</em> did not have to explain the idea with complicated philosophical arguments because it was intended to encourage and inspire, not convince. It is an appeal to emotion rather than the intellect. Madhyamaka and Yogācāra schools of doctrine were then in ascendance in Mahāyāna communities, and it is reasonable to hypothesize that practitioners were put off by the seeming nihilism of Madhyamaka; emptiness is too easily interpreted to mean that the ultimate is, terrifyingly, simply a void. Yogācāra, meanwhile, advocated a theory of “class” or “disposition” (<em>gotra</em>) in which only certain beings were said to be able to attain enlightenment. Such a doctrine might leave some of the faithful—not to mention potential converts—feeling left out. The early tathāgatagarbha literature countered both. It offered a positive description of the ultimate—buddha-nature, the true and real nature of both a person and reality—and it guaranteed complete and perfect enlightenment to all beings who were willing to strive for it (on the Mahāyāna path, of course). Yogācāra, it should be noted, also uses positive language to describe the ultimate—mind, at least in later Yogācāra scriptures, is said to be truly existent—and this has led some scholars to erroneously label tathāgatagarbha a Yogācāra doctrine.<ref>For example, the translations and studies of D. T. Suzuki.</ref>
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