Tathāgatagarbha
| Key Term | tathāgatagarbha |
|---|---|
| In Tibetan Script | དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ |
| Wylie Tibetan Transliteration | de gshegs pa’i snying po |
| Devanagari Sanskrit Script | तथागतगर्भा |
| Tibetan Phonetic Rendering | Tatagatagarbha |
| Chinese Script | 如来藏 |
| Chinese Pinyin | rúláizàng |
| English Standard | Buddha-nature |
| Karl Brunnhölzl's English Term | Heart of the Thus Gone One |
| Alternate Spellings | buddha-nature; buddha nature |
| Term Type | Noun |
| Source Language | Sanskrit |
| Basic Meaning | Buddha-nature, literally the "heart/essence of those who have gone (to suchness)." |
| Has the Sense of | The seed or essence of enlightenment. "Tathāgata" loosely translates as "one who has gone to a state of enlightenment," while "garbha" has the sense of "womb," "essence," and "embyo." Tathāgatagarbha thus suggests a seed or essence of buddhahood possessed by all sentient beings that is either developed or revealed when one attains enlightenment. |
| Related Terms | sugatagarbha |
| Definitions | |
| Karl Brunnhölzl |
Read more about Different Ways of Explaining the Meaning of Tathāgatagarbha by Karl Brunnhölzl.
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| Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism | See page 897: In Sanskrit, variously translated as “womb of the tathāgatas,” “matrix of the tathāgatas,” “embryo of the tathāgatas,” “essence of the tathāgatas”; the term probably means “containing a tathāgatha.” It is more imprecisely interpreted as the “buddha-nature,” viz., the potential to achieve buddhahood that, according to some Mahāyāna schools, is inherent in all sentient beings. |
| Rangjung Yeshe's English Term | tathagata-essence, enlightened essence, buddha-nature |
| Muller's Digital Dictionary of Buddhism (DDB) |
如來藏 Basic Meaning: womb of the Tathāgata Senses: (Skt. tathāgata-garbha). The matrix of the thus come one(s). An embryo that should become a Buddha, or the 'womb' where the Buddha-to-be is carried. An expression that refers to sentient beings as the full embodiment of the Buddhaʼs capability for existence. At the same time, in concrete terms, it is in the condition of being temporarily defiled by non-inherent factors, thus it cannot be called an actualized 'Buddha.' Therefore the term refers to the capability for becoming a tathāgata that is present in the minds of unenlightened sentient beings. The notion of tathāgatagarbha is usually described as first having been introduced in the Śrīmālā-sūtra 勝鬘經. It is true that the topic is broached in that text, but only at a late point, and it is not explained in any great detail. However, the tathāgatagarbha is taken up as a central theme in such texts as the Ratnagotravibhāga 寶性論, the Laṅkâvatāra-sūtra 楞伽經, the Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith 大乘起信論, etc. The tradition of thought and practice that developed around these texts, as well as in the writings and commentaries of Paramârtha 眞諦, co-existed and interacted with the streams of Yogâcāra that developed together in East Asia between the fifth and seventh centuries, and would end up becoming the predominant soteriological influence in East Asian schools such as Huayan, Tiantai, and Chan. There are three meanings of the term tathāgatagarbha: (a) the meaning that the absolute body of the Tathāgata (dharma-kāya) is existent within all living creatures; (b) the meaning that the tathāgata as reality-nature (true thusness) is a whole without distinctions; (c) the meaning that the tathāgata exists within every living creature in a seed, or embryonic form. The Awakening of Mahāyāna Faith says: " tathāgata has the mind of sentient beings as matrix, the mind of sentient beings has the tathāgata as matrix, the mind of sentient beings has the multifarious virtues of the tathāgata as matrix. In addition to these three kinds of interpretation the tathāgatagarbha is called the 'mind of clear and pure reflection,' or the 'Dharma-body in a state of confusion.' " (起信論, T 1666.32.575c27). See 五種藏. (Charles Muller; source(s): JEBD: Japanese-English Buddhist Dictionary (Daitō shuppansha) 225a/250) Source Accessed April 30, 2018, http://www.buddhism-dict.net/cgi-bin/xpr-ddb.pl?59.xml+id(%27b5982-4f86-85cf%27) |
| Tshig mdzod Chen mo | [1370] sems can thams cad kyi rgyud la ye nas gnas pa'i gzhi rgyud bde bar gshegs pa'i snying po ngo bo stong pa rang bzhin gsal ba thugs rje kun khyab kyi bdag nyid can... |
| Wikipedia | wikipedia:Buddha-nature |
| RigpaWiki | rigpa:Buddha_nature |
| Other Definitions |
Womb of the tathagatas
“Containing the tathagatas” “Womb”, “embryo”, “essence”, or “heart” (garbha) of the Thus Gone (tathāgata) |
| Synonyms | Buddha-dhatu “The inherent potential of all sentient beings to achieve buddhahood.” - Princeton Dictionary, p. 151 Ch: 如来藏 J: busshō |
| Grammatical / Etymological Analysis | “As for the meaning of the Sanskrit compound tathāgatagarbha, its first part (tathā) can be taken as either the adverb “thus” or the noun “thusness/suchness” (as a term for ultimate reality; many texts, among them the Uttaratantra, gloss tathāgatagarbha as “suchness”). The second part can be read either as gata (“gone”), or āgata (“come, arrived”; the Tibetan gshegs pa can mean both). However, in the term tathāgata, both meanings more or less come down to the same. Thus, the main difference lies in whether one understands a tathāgata as (a) a “thus-gone/thus-come one” or (b) “one gone/ come to thusness,” with the former emphasizing the aspect of the path and the latter the result. The final part of the compound—garbha—literally and originally means “embryo,” “germ,” “womb,” “the interior or middle of anything,” “any interior chamber or sanctuary of a temple,” “calyx” (as of a lotus), “having in the interior,” “containing,” or “being filled with.” At some point, the term also assumed the meanings of “core,” “heart,” “pith,” and “essence” (which is also the meaning of its usual Tibetan translation snying po).” - Karl Brunnhölzl, When the Clouds Part |