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Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c23.s2: 2. The Sambhogakāya, Body of Bliss

Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c23.s2

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2. The Sambhogakāya, Body of Bliss

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The conception of a body of bliss, the state in which a Buddha enjoys his merits as a Bodhisattva, is not known to the Pali Canon, although it is apparently in error attributed to the Sautrāntikas,² and it can hardly be doubted that those who worshipped the relics and symbols of the Buddha conceived of him rather as a living deity than a dead saint, powerless to aid, whose cult was merely one of commemoration, not of prayer and adoration. In the view, further, that a Tathāgata can live, if he please, a cosmic age, there is present in germ the conception of such a body as is accepted by the Mahāyāna. Each Buddha in his heaven is conceived as possessing a body of ineffable brilliance, and the Bodhisattvas who are his officers are also clad in glory, though the term body of bliss is not assigned to their forms; Avalokita in special has a peculiarly splendid body of glory; in the pores of his skin there are worlds with hosts of meditating or praising saints, a conception reminiscent of the famous apparition of Kṛṣṇa to Arjuna in a shape in which is lodged the whole universe.³ It is manifested in the assembly of Bodhisattvas for their delight; it is visible and manifested, though it is made of, or by, mind; its manifestation is above the three worlds of desire, matter, and non-matter, and is inexplicable (acintya), and it constantly emits the sublime sound of the good law, while it bears the thirty-two characteristic marks of the Buddha.

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² Wassilieff, Bouddhisme, p. 286 (cited to this effect in JRAS. 1906, p. 958, n. 3) says the contrary.

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³ Kārandavyūha in Burnouf, Intr., p. 224; Bhagavadgītā, xi.

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The relation of this body of bliss to the body of the law is explained by Candrakīrti⁴ who holds that equipment of knowledge (jñāna-sambhāra), leads to the attainment of the body consisting of the law, whose characteristic is no birth, while equipment of merit (puṇya-sambhāra) results in a body of bliss, marvellous, inexplicable, and multiform, a reference perhaps to its power to appear under many forms or imaginary bodies. As merit is essentially the lot of Bodhisattvas, it is natural that they should have similar bodies. But a real difficulty arises as to the body of bliss of a Buddha who has attained enlightenment, and the body of the law, for Candrakīrti appears to hold that none the less his body of bliss endures. This also agrees with the general picture of relations in the literature; Amitābha has attained enlightenment; yet there exists in Sukhāvatī his immaterial, yet visible, image, and so with Çakyamuni himself according to the *Saddharmapuṇḍarīka*. It is possible to explain the apparent discrepancy on strictly Mahāyāna principles; granted that his body of bliss becomes nothing for a Buddha, still his store of merit is available for others, and so presents to Bodhisattvas and to men respectively a body of bliss or magic body for their edification. Or perhaps we need not press the belief that on enlightenment the Buddha ceases interest in mundane things; he is freed from Nirvāṇa and from transmigration,¹ that is, he can be active and conscious, while yet his activity does not defile him, since he is above becoming. Though he has by wisdom attained Nirvāṇa, yet through compassion he may continue in his body of bliss for ever in the world of becoming. A further refinement of the doctrine conceives apparently of the bodies of bliss of the Buddhas uniting to form one marvellous appearance in the abode of the gods, Akaniṣṭhas, which takes the place of the innumerable paradises of the older view.²

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⁴ MA. iii. 12.

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¹ Ç., p. 322.

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² Waddell, Lamaism, p. 85.

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Ontologically the Vijñānavāda has a simple place for the conception of body of bliss. In accord with the Tāntrika conception of the body of bliss as an emanation from the body of the law,³ it holds that from intelligence (*vijñāna*), pure, immaculate, and quiescent or void, that is, the body of the law, springs mind, which, when infected or defiled (*kliṣṭa*), originates the whole complex of thought which constitutes the world. The body of bliss is parallel with the undefiled mind, or from another point of view the intellect, in so far as it is individualized as Buddha or Bodhisattva.

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³ Comm. on Nāmasaṃgīti, 79.

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