Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c23.s2.4

c23.s2.4

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