A Syntactic Analysis of the Term Tathāgatagarbha in Sanskrit Fragments and Multiple Meanings of Garbha in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra

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|ArticleTitle=A Syntactic Analysis of the Term Tathāgatagarbha in Sanskrit Fragments and Multiple Meanings of Garbha in the Mahāparinirvāṇamahāsūtra
|AuthorPage=People/Kano, K.
|PubDate=2020
|ArticleSummary=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. <br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;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''.<br>&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;&nbsp;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)
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