Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c23.s2.1

c23.s2.1

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.