‘Divine Body of Incarnation’ (Tib. Sprul-pahi-sku—pron. Tül- pai-ku).
The Dharma-Kāya is symbolized—for all human word-concepts are inadequate to describe the Qualityless—as an infinite ocean, calm and without a wave, whence arise mist-clouds and rainbow, which symbolize the Sambhoga-Kāya; and the clouds, enhaloed in the glory of the rainbow, condensing and falling as rain, symbolize the Nirmāṇa-Kāya.[1]
The Dharma-Kāya is the primordial, formless Bohdi, which is true experience freed from all error or inherent or accidental obscuration. In it lies the essence of the Universe, including both Sangsāra and Nirvāṇa, which, as states or conditions of the two poles of consciousness, are, in the last analysis, in the realm of the pure intellect, identical.[2]
In other words, the Dharma-Kāya (lit. ‘Law Body’) being Essential Wisdom (Bodhi) unmodified, the Sambhoga-Kāya (lit. ‘Compensation Body’, or ‘Adorned Body’) embodies, as in the Five Dhyānī Buddhas, Reflected or Modified Wisdom, and the Nirmāṇa-Kāya (lit. ‘Changeable Body’, or ‘Transformed Body’) embodies, as in the Human Buddhas, Practical or Incarnate Wisdom.[3]
- ↑ Sj. Atal Bihari Ghosh (see our Preface, p. x) has added here the following comment: ‘The word Dharma is derived from the verb-root Dhri, meaning ‘to Support’ or ‘to Uphold’. Dharma is that which upholds or supports the Universe, as also the individual. Dharma is in mankind Right Conduct, the result of True Knowledge. Truth according to Brāhmanism is the Brāhman, is Liberation—Moksha, Nirvāṇa. Sambhoga is the Life of Enjoyment. Nirmāṇa is the Process of Building. In the Brāhmanic scheme, Dharma is the first thing needed. Then comes Artha (i.e. Wealth, or Possessions), which corresponds with Nirmāṇa. After this comes Sambhoga; and the last is Moksha, or Liberation.’
- ↑ ‘Whatever is visible and invisible, whether Sangsāra or Nirvāṇa, is at base one [that is, Shūnyalā], with two Paths [Avidyā, Ignorance, and Vidyā, Knowledge] and two ends [Sangsāra and Nirvāṇa].’ … ‘The Foundation of all is uncreated and independent, uncompounded and beyond mind and speech. Of It neither the word Nirvāṇa nor Sangsāra may be said.’—The Good Wishes of the Ādi-Buddha, 1–2 (cf. the late Lāma Kazi Dawa-Samdup’s translation, Tantrik Texts, vol. vii, London, 1919). The Shūnyatā, the Void, synonymous with the Dharma-Kāya, is thus beyond all mental concepts, beyond the finite mind with all its imaginings and use of such ultimate terms of the dualistic world as Nirvāṇa and Sangsāra.
- ↑ Cf. Waddell, op. cit., pp. 127, 347.
Ashvaghosha, the great philosopher of Mahāyāna Buddhism (see pp. 225–6),
