buried beneath a pauper’s house, like a tree-seed in its sheath,
like a Buddha-image wrapped in a filthy cloth, like a world
monarch amid the impurities of the womb, and like a golden
image contained within its clay mold. Of these nine similes,
the first three are said to indicate the dharmaka ̄ya in its senses
of “absolute” and “element” (dha ̄tu), the simile of the golden
image to indicate “suchness” (tathata ̄), and the remaining
five to indicate the “spiritual gene” (gotra), an important
equivalent concept in which one’s inherent Buddhahood is
conceived of as a genetic cause of the dharmaka ̄ya.
The Maha ̄parinirva ̄n:a Su ̄tra reveals the Buddha essence
of all beings as permanent, happy, omnipresent, pure, and
free, for this is how beings appear in a Buddha’s vision. The
Avatam:saka Su ̄tra extends its visionary theme of the mutual
interpenetration of all things to illustrate how the Buddha
wisdom exists in the mind of every being as each one’s jewel-
like essential perfection. The An ̇gulima ̄l ̄ıya Su ̄tra states that
“the Buddha essence is the reality, the absolute body, the per-
manent body, the inconceivable body of the transcendent
Lord.... It is the self.” The Lan ̇ka ̄vata ̄ra Su ̄tra mentions
the Buddha essence and equates it with the “fundamental
consciousness” (a ̄laya-vijña ̄na), the basic seat of ignorance
underlying the six usual consciousnesses and the afflicted
mentality (klis:t:amanas) in the idealist psychology of that
scripture. Finally, the S ́r ̄ıma ̄ladev ̄ı Su ̄tra mentions the Bud-
dha essence as indispensable both to the process of enlighten-
ment and to the afflicted world.
The apparent contradiction between these revelations
and the earlier teachings that all beings are impermanent,
miserable, selfless, and impure is addressed in the scriptures
themselves by referring to the two realities and the two per-
spectives, using the hermeneutical concepts of “interpretable
meaning” (neya ̄rtha) and “definitive meaning” (n ̄ıta ̄rtha).
The Buddha uses his “skill in liberative technique”
(upa ̄yakau ́salya) to teach according to the abilities of his dis-
ciples. The notion of an “intention” (abhipra ̄ya or
abhisam:dhi) underlying a teaching is introduced to explain
the Buddha’s various strategies. Buston extracts a number of
such “intentions” from the texts. The tatha ̄gata-garbha doc-
trine is taught in order to (1) eliminate despair and generate
effort, giving the practitioner hope of attaining liberation; (2)
eliminate pride and produce respect for others; (3) eliminate
absolutistic reifications and nihilistic repudiations and pro-
duce wisdom.
In the Lan ̇ka ̄vata ̄ra Su ̄tra, Mahamati asks the Buddha
how his Buddha-essence teaching differs from the “supreme-
self” teaching of the brahmans. The Buddha replies:
The perfect Buddhas have taught the Buddha essence
intending emptiness, reality-limit, nirva ̄n:a, non-
creation, signlessness, and wishlessness. For the imma-
ture to be free of their terror of selflessness, they teach
the realms of non-conceptuality and non-appearance by
the gateway [i.e., teaching] of the Buddha essence....
They teach the essence to attract those heterodox per-
sons who are too deeply attached to their “self” notionsto awaken to the profound enlightenment.
(Lan ̇ka ̄vata ̄ra Su ̄tra, ed. P. L. Vaidya, Darbhanga,
1959, p. 33)
And in the Maha ̄parinirva ̄n:a Su ̄tra the Buddha tells a
story about his meeting with five hundred ascetics who ad-
mired his beauty and inner composure and wanted to follow
his teaching, but were afraid because they thought he was a
nihilist; he reassured them that he was not a spiritual nihilist
by teaching them the Buddha-essence doctrine.
Among the great Indian treatises, Maitreyana ̄tha’s
Ratnagotravibha ̄ga is the locus classicus of the systematic ex-
position of the Buddha-essence doctrine. It is elucidated by
Asan ̇ ga and Vasubandhu in great detail, without departing
from the basic principles given in the scriptures above. On
the basis of this treatise, the Jonan ̇ order of Tibetan Bud-
dhism developed an elaborate theory of the Buddha essence,
connecting it to various Tantric ideas. In Tantrism as well,
the Esoteric concept of the “indestructible drop”
(aks:ayabindu) as the basis of transmigration and Buddha-
hood and the life essence of a living being is extremely similar
to the Buddha-essence doctrine. Philosophically, the Tibet-
ans tended to the explanation given in the Lan ̇ka ̄vata ̄ra Su ̄tra
that the tatha ̄gata-garbha theory referred to selflessness in a
manner soothing to those still unprepared for the more radi-
cal denial of self.
In East Asia, the notion of the tatha ̄gata-garbha enjoyed
great popularity. In a treatise attributed to the Indian
A ́svaghos:a, known in East Asia by the translated title Das-
heng qixin lun (Awakening of faith in the Maha ̄ya ̄na), the
idealistic idea of mind as world-creator is wedded to the
tatha ̄gata-garbha doctrine to elevate the tatha ̄gata-garbha to
the status of a divine mind responsible for the creation of the
world of transmigration as well as the attainment of libera-
tion and enlightenment. The Chinese master Jing ying Hui-
yuan (523–592 CE) developed an elaborate idealistic
(vijña ̄nava ̄da) Buddhology on this basis. His theories were
critiqued by the Centrist (Ma ̄dhyamika) master Jizang (549–
623), who sought to avoid the theistic implications of doc-
trines such as Huiyuan’s. Later systematizers such as Zhiyi
of the Tiantai school, Fazang of the Huayen school, and
many of the greatest Chan masters used the Buddha-essence
doctrine in various ways, sometimes with an Idealist
(Yoga ̄ca ̄ra) twist, at other times with a Centrist
(Ma ̄dhyamika) twist. In modern East Asian Buddhism, the
doctrine is again serving Buddhist popularizers and dialogists
as a strategy for reassuring cultures where “soul” theories are
traditional.
It is noteworthy that the English popularization “Bud-
dha nature” comes from the East Asian writers, for the Chi-
nese hsing can be read as “nature,” whereas the Sanskrit garb-
ha, dha ̄tu, or gotra cannot be stretched without considerable
effort from the meanings “essence,” “element,” or “gene,” re-
spectively, to that of “nature.”SEE ALSO A ̄laya-vijña ̄na; Buddhist Philosophy; Nirva ̄n:a;
Soul, article on Buddhist Concepts; Tathata ̄.9018 TATHA ̄GATA-GARBHA