Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c7.s2.t12.26

c7.s2.t12.26

The recast version of the Pañcaviṃśati³ refers to the Sambhogakāya, and does not, like the Kārikā, distinguish between Dharmakāya (=Svasambhoga) and Parasambhogakāya, the reason being that in the original version of the Pañcaviṃśati, there must have been, as in the other Prajñāpāramitās, the conceptions of only two kāyas, and not of three or four. The Kārikā, in fact, supports the Siddhi in regard to the conception of kāyas, using only somewhat different names. The conception of the Svasambhogakāya shows a tendency of the Yogācāra school to posit something like the Īśvara of the Upaniṣads behind the phenomenal universe. The Dharmakāya corresponds to the impersonal Absolute of the Vedānta, the Brahman, and the Sambhogakāya to the Īśvara when Brahman assumes name and form. Every Buddha, it should however be noted, has his own Sambhogakāya but all Buddhas have one Dharmakāya. The Laṅkāvatāra also gives hints to this effect. It says that abhāva (absence of anything) is not Tathāgata, and again, as Tathāgata is described as ‘Anutpāda-anirodha’, it has some meaning. It then denotes the Manomaya-dharmakāya.⁴ It cannot be seen by the non-Buddhists, Śrāvakas, Pratyekabuddhas and even Bodhisattvas in one of the first seven bhūmis. Just as different names of one thing or one person like hasta, kara, pāṇi, or Indra, Śakra, Purandara indicate different aspects of the same thing so also the different names of Śākyamuni Buddha in the Sahā lokadhātu, e.g., Svāyambhuva, Nāyaka, Vṛṣabha, Viṣṇu, Īśvara, Pradhāna, Kapila, Soma, Bhāskara, Rāma, Vyāsa, or Śūnyatā, Tathatā Bhūtakoṭi, Nirvāṇa, Sarvajña, etc., indicate the different aspects of Śākyamuni Buddha.¹ People being subject to the conceptions of two extremes 'is' or 'is not' (dvayāntapatitayā) do not know that Buddha is like a reflection of the moon on water neither appearing nor disappearing. In this passage there is a clear hint that this Manomaya-dharmakāya, existing in the Sahā lokadhātu, is the same as the Svasambhogakāya of the Siddhi and the Āsecanaka-ātmabhāva or Prakṛtyātmabhāva of the Prajñāpāramitās, and it corresponds to the Upaniṣadic conception of Īśvara.