Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c10.s2: Internal Evidences: (I) Conception of Trikāya
Aspects of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Relation to Hīnayāna c10.s2
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Internal Evidences: (I) Conception of Trikāya
c10.s2.1
There are also internal evidences which throw light on the antiquity of the *Aṣṭa.* and its priority to the *Śata.* and the *Pañcaviṃśati.* They are mainly the conceptions of Sambhogakāya and the ten *bhūmis*.
c10.s2.2
It has been shown before³ that the Yogācārins were responsible for the Trikāya conception and that Nāgārjuna in his *Mahāprajñāpāramitāśāstra* spoke only of two kāyas, viz., rūpa and dharma kāyas, and not sambhogakāya. The Sambhogakāya is expressly mentioned in the recast version⁴ of the *Pañcaviṃśati.* but the nature of its description shows that its Sambhogakāya (=embodiment of Bodhipakṣika and other pure dharmas) corresponded to the Dharmakāya of the early Mahāyānists, and Svasambhogakāya of the later Yogācārins. Now the question arises, when did this conception of Sambhogakāya come into vogue? The first definite conception of it appears in the Laṅkāvatāra where the name given to it is not Sambhogakāya but Niṣyanda- or Dharmatāniṣyanda-Buddha¹. The Laṅkāvatāra is not a very early treatise and is undoubtedly later than the Śatasāhasrikā, to which it refers by name². In the Śata., the term Niṣyandakāya or Sambhogakāya does not appear but there is the graphic description of Śākyamuni's Sambhogakāya, which is called there Prakṛtyātmabhāva or Āsecanakakāya³. This description of the Āsecanakakāya serves as a prelude (nidāna) to the discourse on the Prajñāpāramitā. The Pañcaviṃśati. follows the Śata. almost word by word in this description, and therefore needs no separate comment. The Gaṇḍavyūha surpassed the Prajñāpāramitās in its description of the Buddhakāya, and it seems that imagination could not be let loose further than what the compiler of the Gaṇḍavyūha has done. The description of the Āsecanakakāya appears in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka as well but it is more guarded and less imaginative. It is striking that this description of the refulgent body of Buddha, throwing its rays of light all over the universe and making every being happy, is absent in the Aṣṭa. The Aṣṭa. starts directly with the topic of the Prajñāpāramitā, which has been taken up by the Śata. in its second and fourth chapters⁴. The silence of the Aṣṭa. about the refulgent kāya of Buddha is clearly indicative of its being earlier than the Śata., Pañcaviṃśati., Gaṇḍavyūha, etc., and was the production of a time when the Sambhogakāya or Āsecanakakāya had not yet been conceived of.
c10.s2.3
³ See ante, Ch. III (b), pp. 96, 97, 114.
c10.s2.4
⁴ The extant Sanskrit Mss. of the *Pañcaviṃśati.* do not represent the original *Pañcaviṃśati.*, from which the Chinese and Tibetan (bkah-ḥgyur) translations were made. For detailed reasons see my *Intro.* to the *Pañcaviṃśati.*
c10.s2.5
¹ See ante, Ch. III (b), p. 120.
c10.s2.6
² Laṅkā., p. 8.
c10.s2.7
³ See ante, Ch. III (b), pp. 118-9.
c10.s2.8
⁴ E.g. Śata., p. 504=Aṣṭa., p. 7 " p. 324= " p. 4.
Linked texts (3)
- Śatasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā — Sanskrit
- Laṅkāvatārasūtra — Sanskrit
- Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā — Sanskrit