The History of Buddhist Thought c26.55

c26.55

From this threefold Mahāyāna conception has resulted the doctrine of the three bodies of a Buddha (trikāya). Many dogmatic views about the nature of a Buddha had already been established, and in some of them we can perceive principles which anticipated the later theory. But it was the application of an ontological theory to all forms of existence that led to their being organized in the Trikāya theory. All the elements of the doctrine are found, as Suzuki points out, in the Lankāvatāra, but it will conduce to clearness if the explicit theory of Asanga is first stated.²