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Thedharmakāya (Sanskrit:धर्म काय, "truth body" or "reality body",Chinese:法身;pinyin:fǎshēn,Tibetan:ཆོས་སྐུ་,Wylie:chos sku) isone of the three bodies (trikāya) of aBuddha inMahāyānaBuddhism. Thedharmakāya constitutes the unmanifested, "inconceivable" (acintya) aspect of a Buddha out of which Buddhas arise and to which they return after their dissolution. When a Buddha manifests out of thedharmakāya in a physical body of flesh and blood, which is perceptible to ordinary sentient beings, this is called anirmāṇakāya, "transformation body".
TheDhammakāya tradition of Thailand and theTathāgatagarbha sūtras of the ancient Indian tradition view thedharmakāya as theātman (true self) of the Buddha present within all beings.[1]
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In thePāli Canon,Gautama Buddha tells Vasettha that theTathāgata (the Buddha) isdhammakaya, the "truth-body" or the "embodiment of truth", as well asdharmabhuta, "truth-become", that is, "one who has become truth."[This quote needs a citation]
He whose faith in the Tathagata is settled, rooted, established, solid, unshakeable by any ascetic or Brahmin, any deva or mara or Brahma or anyone in the world, can truly say: 'I am a true son of Blessed Lord (Bhagavan), born of his mouth, born of Dhamma, created by Dhamma, an heir of Dhamma.' Why is that? Because, Vasettha, this designates the Tathagata: 'The Body of Dhamma,' that is, 'The Body of Brahma,' or 'Become Dhamma,' that is, 'Become Brahma'.[2]
Thetrikaya doctrine (Sanskrit, literally "three bodies" or "three personalities") is a Buddhist teaching both on the nature of reality, and the appearances of a Buddha.
Thedharmakaya doctrine was possibly first expounded in theAṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, composed in the 1st century BCE.
Around 300 CE, theyogacara school systematized the prevalent ideas on the nature of the Buddha in thetrikaya "three-body" doctrine. According to this doctrine,buddhahood has three aspects:[3]
Tulku Thondup states thatdharmakaya must possess three great qualities:[4]
According to Guang Xing, two main aspects of the Buddha can be seen inMahāsāṃghika teachings: the true Buddha who is omniscient and omnipotent, and the manifested forms through which he liberates sentient beings through skillful means.[5] For the Mahāsaṃghikas, the historical Gautama Buddha was one of these transformation bodies (Skt.nirmāṇakāya), while the essential real Buddha is equated with thedharmakāya.[6]
Sarvāstivādins viewed the Buddha's physical body (Skt.rūpakāya) as being impure and improper for taking refuge in, and they instead regarded taking refuge in the Buddha as taking refuge in the dharmakāya of the Buddha. As stated in theMahāvibhāṣā:[7]
Some people say that to take refuge in the Buddha is to take refuge in the body of the Tathāgata, which comprises head, neck, stomach, back, hands and feet. It is explained that the body, born of father and mother, is composed of defileddharmas, and therefore is not a source of refuge. The refuge is the Buddha's fully accomplished qualities (aśaikṣadharmāḥ) which comprisebodhi and thedharmakāya.
In thePali Canon ofTheravada Buddhism, theDhammakāya (dharmakāya) is explained as a figurative term, meaning the "body" or the sum of the Buddha's teachings.[8][9] The Canon does not invest the termdhammakāya with a metaphysical or unrealistic connotation.[10] Jantrasrisalai disagrees though, arguing that the term originally was more connected with the process of enlightenment than the way it later came to be interpreted. In all references to dhammakāya in early Buddhist usage, it is apparent that dhammakāya is linked always with the process of enlightenment in one way or another. Its relation with the Buddhist noble ones of all types is evident in the early Buddhist texts. That is to say, dhammakāya is not exclusive to the Buddha. It appears also that the term’s usage in the sense of teaching is a later schema rather than being the early Buddhist common notions as generally understood.[a]
In theatthakathās (commentaries on theBuddhist texts), the interpretation of the word depends on the author. Though bothBuddhaghoṣa andDhammapāla describedhammakāya as the nine supramundane states (navalokuttaradhamma), their interpretations differ in other aspects. Buddhaghoṣa always follows the canonical interpretation, referring to theteaching of thelokuttaradhammas, but Dhammapāla interpretsdhammakāya as thespiritual attainments of the Buddha.[11][12] Dhammapāla's interpretation is still essentially Theravāda though, since the Buddha is still considered a human being, albeit an enlightened one. The Buddha's body is still subject tokamma and limited in the same way as other people's bodies are.[11]
In a post-canonical Sri Lankan text called Saddharmaratnākaraya, a distinction is drawn between four differentkāyas: therūpakāya,dharmakāya,nimittakāya andsuñyakāya. Therūpakāya refers to the fourjhānas here; thedharmakāya refers to the attainment of the first eight of the ninelokuttaradhammas; thenimittakāya refers to the finallokuttaradhamma:Nibbāna with a physical remainder (sopadisesanibbāna); and thesuñyakāya refers toNibbāna without physical remainder (anupādisesanibbāna). However, even this teaching of fourkāyas does not really stray outside of orthodox Theravāda tradition.[13]
In a more unorthodox approach,Maryla Falk has made the argument that in the earliest form of Buddhism, ayogic path existed which involved the acquisition of amanomayakāya ordhammakāya and anamatakāya, in which themanomayakāya ordhammakāya refers to the attainment of thejhānas, and theamatakāya to the attainment of insight and the culmination of the path. In this case, thekāyas refer to a general path and fruit, not only to the person of the Buddha.[14][15] Although Reynolds does not express agreement with Falk's entire theory, he does consider the idea of an earlier yogic strand worthy of investigation. Furthermore, he points out that there are remarkable resemblances with interpretations that can be found inYogāvacara texts, often calledTantric Theravada.[16]
The usage of the worddhammakāya is common in Tantric Theravāda texts. It is also a common term in later texts concerning the consecration of Buddha images.[17][18] In these later texts, which are often descriptions ofkammaṭṭhāna (meditation methods), different parts of the body of the Buddha are associated with certain spiritual attainments, and the practitioner determines to pursue these attainments himself. The idea that certain characteristics or attainments of the Buddha can be pursued is usually considered a Mahāyāna idea, but unlike Mahāyāna, Yogāvacara texts do not describe the Buddha inontological terms, and commonly use only Theravāda terminology.[19][20]
TheDhammakaya tradition and some monastic members of Thai Theravada Buddhism, who specialise on meditation, have doctrinal elements which distinguish it from some Theravāda Buddhist scholars who have tried to claim themselves as the orthodox Buddhists. Basing itself on the Pali suttas and meditative experience, the tradition teaches that thedhammakaya is the eternal Buddha within all beings. Thedhammakaya isnibbāna, andnibbāna is equated with the true self (as opposed to the non-self).[21] In some respects its teachings resemble thebuddha-nature doctrines of Mahayana Buddhism. Paul Williams has commented that this view of Buddhism is similar to ideas found in theshentong teachings of theJonang school of Tibet made famous byDolpopa Sherab Gyaltsen.[22]
The Thai meditation masters who teach of a true self of which they claim to have gained meditative experience are not rejected byThai Buddhists in general, but tend, on the contrary, to be particularly revered and worshipped in Thailand as arahats or evenbodhisattvas, far more so than more orthodox Theravada monks and scholars.[23]
According to Paul Williams, there are three ways of seeing the concept of thedharmakaya in theprajnaparamita sutras:
First, the dharmakaya is the collection of teachings, particularly the Prajñaparamita itself. Second, it is the collection of puredharmas possessed by the Buddha, specifically pure mental dharmas cognizing emptiness. And third, it comes to refer toemptiness itself, the true nature of things. The dharmakaya in all these senses is contrasted with the Buddha’s physical body, that which lived and died and is preserved instupas.[24]
In theLotus Sutra (Chapter 16: The Life Span of Thus Come One, sixth fascicle) the Buddha explains that he has always and will always exist to lead beings to their salvation.
In thetathagatagarbha sutric tradition, thedharmakaya is taught by the Buddha to constitute the transcendental, blissful, eternal, and pure Self of the Buddha. "These terms are found in sutras such as theLankavatara,Gandavyuha,Angulimaliya,Srimala, and theMahaparinirvana, where they are used to describe the Buddha, the Truth Body (dharmakaya) and the Buddha-nature."[25] They are the "transcendent results [of spiritual attainment]".[25]
In Tibetan, the termchos sku (ཆོས་སྐུ།, phonetically written aschö-ku)[citation needed] glossesdharmakāya; it is composed ofchos "religion,dharma" andsku "body, form, image, bodily form, figure".[citation needed] Thondup & Talbott render it as the "ultimate body".[26]Gyurme Dorje andThupten Jinpa define "Buddha-body of Reality", which is a rendering of the Tibetanchos-sku and the Sanskritdharmakāya, as:
[T]he ultimate nature or essence of the enlightened mind [byang-chub sems], which is uncreated (skye-med), free from the limits of conceptual elaboration (spros-pa'i mtha'-bral), empty of inherent existence (rang-bzhin-gyis stong-pa), naturally radiant, beyond duality and spacious like the sky. The intermediate state of the time of death (chi-kha'i bar-do) is considered to be an optimum time for the realisation of the Buddha-body of Reality.[27]
The Dalai Lama defines the dharmakaya as "the realm of the Dharmakaya—the space of emptiness—where all phenomena, pure and impure, are dissolved. This is the explanation taught by the Sutras and Tantras." However he also states that it is distinct from the Hindu concept ofBrahman because Buddhism adheres to the doctrine of emptiness (sunyata).[28][better source needed]
According toJamgon Kongtrul, the founder of theRimé movement, in his 19th century commentary to theLojong slogan, "To see confusion as the four kayas, thesunyata protection is unsurpassable",[29] "When you rest in a state where appearances simply appear but there is no clinging to them, thedharmakaya aspect is that all appearances are empty in nature, thesambhogakāya is that they appear with clarity, thenirmanakaya is that this emptiness and clarity occur together, and the naturalkāya aspect is that these are inseparable."[30]
In the early traditions of Buddhism, depictions of Gautama Buddha were neither iconic noraniconic but depictions of empty space and absence:petrosomatoglyphs (images of a part of the body carved in rock), for example.[31]
Thondup and Talbott identify dharmakaya with the naked ("sky-clad"; Sanskrit:Digāmbara), unornamented, sky-blueSamantabhadra:
In Nyingma icons, dharmakāya is symbolized by a naked, sky-coloured (light blue) male and female Buddha in union [Kāmamudrā], called Samantabhadra [andSamantabhadrī].[26][b]
Fremantle states:
Space is simultaneously the first and the last of the great elements. It is the origin and precondition of the other four, and it is also their culmination... The Sanskrit word for space is the same as for the sky:akasha, which means "shining and clear." What is it that we call the sky? It marks the boundary of our vision, the limit our sight can reach. If we could see more clearly, the sky would extend infinitely into outer space. The sky is an imaginary boundary set by the limitations of our senses, and also by the limitations of our mind, since we find it almost impossible to imagine a totally limitless [U]niverse. Space is the dimension in which everything exists. It is all-encompassing, all-pervading, and boundless. It is synonymous with emptiness: that emptiness which is simultaneously fullness.[32]
The colour blue is an iconographic polysemic rendering of themahābhūta element of the "pure light" of space (Sanskrit:आकाशākāśa).[33]
The conceptually bridging and building poetic device of analogy, as an exemplar wheredharmakaya is evocatively likened to sky and space, is a persistent and pervasive visual metaphor throughout the earlyDzogchen and Nyingma literature and functions as a linkage and conduit between the 'conceptual' and 'conceivable' and the 'ineffable' and 'inconceivable' (Sanskrit:acintya). It is particularly referred to by thetermaGongpa Zangtel,[c] a terma cycle revealed byRigdzin Gödem (1337–1408) and part of the Nyingma "Northern Treasures" (Wylie:byang gter).[34]
Sawyer conveys the importance ofmelong ('mirror') iconography todharmakaya:
The looking glass/mirror (T. me-long, Skt. adarsa), which represents the dharmakaya or Truth Body, having the aspects of purity (a mirror is clear of pollution) and wisdom (a mirror reflects all phenomena without distinction).[35]
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