Tathāgatagarbhasūtra

तथागतगर्भसूत्र

Tathāgatagarbhasūtra

འཕགས་པ་དེ་བཞིན་གཤེགས་པའི་སྙིང་པོ་ཞེས་བྱ་བ་ཐེག་པ་ཆེན་པོའི་མདོ།

'phags pa de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po zhes bya ba theg pa chen po'i mdo

大方廣如來藏經

Dà fāng děng rú lái cáng jīng

D258   ·  T666,667

SOURCE TEXT

The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra (TGS) is a relatively short text that represents the starting point of a number of works in Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism centering around the idea that all living beings have the buddha-nature. The genesis of the term tathāgatagarbha (in Tibetan de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po, in Chinese rulai zang 如來藏, the key term of this strand of Buddhism and the title of the sūtra), can be observed in the textual history of the TGS. (Zimmermann, A Buddha Within: The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, p. 7)

Relevance to Buddha-nature

An important sūtra source for the Ratnagotravibhāga, particularly for its discussion of the nine examples that illustrate how all sentient beings possess buddha-nature.

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Scholarly notes

The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra (Scripture on the Embryo of the Tathāgatas) is a relatively short text, extant in four versions – two Chinese and two Tibetan:

1. the Dafangdeng rulaizang jing (大方等如來藏 經; T. 666), ascribed to Buddhabhadra (佛陀跋 陀羅; 359–429 ce);

2. the Dafangguang rulaizang jing (大方廣如來 藏經; T. 667), ascribed to Amoghavajra (不空; 705–774 ce);

3. the De bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po’i mdo (D 258/Q 924); and

4. a second Tibetan translation, ’Phags pa de bzhin gshegs pa’i snying po zhes bya ba theg pa chen po’i mdo, known so far only from the Bathang Kanjur kept in the Newark Museum (Zimmermann, 2002).

      Two other Chinese translations that may have existed are no longer extant (Zimmermann, 2002, 69–75). Portions of the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra are cited in the above-mentioned Ratnagotravibhāg, the only known Sanskrit text to preserve such citations, and several key formulations in the Ratnagotravibhāga clearly derive from the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. In particular, the nine similes at the core of the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra comprise the skeleton of portions of both the Ratnagotravibhāga and its commentary, the Ratnagotravibhāgavyākhyā (see below).
      The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra has been translated into English, with extensive annotations, by M. Zimmermann (2002) and earlier (from Chinese) by W. Grosnick (1995). Important studies include those by Takasaki Jikidō (1974, 40–68), Matsumoto Shirō (1994, 411–543), and Nakamura Zuiryū (1963).
      The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra has long been regarded as the first scripture to propound the tathāgatagarbha doctrine. However, it is striking that the actual term “tathāgatagarbha” is not central to the text but rather appears only in introductory sections, which M. Zimmermann argues were later additions (2002, 29–32, 39–40). Instead (or in addition), the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra refers to the hidden potential for buddhahood by means of a wide variety of terms, most prominent among which are *tathāgatatva, *buddhatva, *tathāgatakāya (and other terms denoting special Buddha bodies, in contrast to the ordinary bodies borne by unawakened sentient beings), and terms denoting types of jñāna (Zimmermann, 2002, 50–62).
      The Tathāgatagarbhasūtra opens in Rājagṛha (present-day Rajgir) and describes a miraculous display by the Buddha of a myriad tathāgatas seated in the calyx of each of a copious array of gigantic lotuses floating in the sky, which then blacken and rot away. The body of the scripture follows, giving nine similes for the hidden potential of sentient beings to attain liberation. According to the similes, this hidden potential resembles the following:

1. brightly shining tathāgatas sitting inside withered, rotting lotus flowers;

2. honey inside a hive fiercely guarded by bees;

3. the kernel of a cereal grain, encased in the husk;

4. a gold nugget in a pile of excrement;

5. a hidden treasure buried beneath the house of a poor person;

6. the sprout inside a seed;

7. a statuary image of a tathāgata wrapped in rotten rags and dropped by the wayside in a dangerous wasteland;

8. the embryo of a cakravartin (universal monarch) carried in the womb of an unsuspecting and destitute mother; and

9. golden figures within the grubby clay molds that are used to cast them, before the mold is broken.

      The sūtra closes by describing the merit that accrues to one who propagates the text and deprecates the comparative value of the veneration of the buddhas. As an illustration of the power of the text, there follows a story of a past buddha, Sadāpramutkaraśmi, who always emitted a great and wondrous light from his body; he preached the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra at the request of the bodhisattva *Anantaraśmi, and countless bodhisattvas attained supreme and perfect awakening as a result. The Buddha’s disciple Ānanda then asks from how many buddhas one must hear the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, in order to become perfected (niryāta) and is told that it varies from a hundred buddhas to a myriad. Brief sections then praise one who holds the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra in his or her hands, and onlookers delight and rejoice.

(Source: Radich, Michael. "Tathāgatagarbha Scriptures." In Vol. 1, Brill's Encyclopedia of Buddhism: Literature and Languages, edited by Jonathan A. Silk, Oskar von Hinüber, and Vincent Eltschinger, 261-62. Leiden: Brill, 2015.)

Text Metadata

Other Titles	~ ārya-tathāgatagarbha-nāma-mahāyāna-sūtra ~ Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra
Text exists in	~ Tibetan ~ Chinese
Canonical Genre	~ Kangyur · Sūtra · mdo sde · Sūtranta
Literary Genre	~ Sūtras - mdo

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