This essay is an expanded revision of a paper given at the XIIth Conference of the International Association of Buddhist Studies at Lausanne, Switzerland, Ausrust 1999.
The Tathagatagarbha theory is an influential yet controversial part of the Buddhist tradition. This essay examines some of the issues related to tms tradition that have been discussed recently by Buddhist scholars: the dhdtu-vada thesis and the critique of “original enlightenment, ” the rela tionship between the terms tathagatagarbha and padmagarbha, the inter pretation of dependent origination in the Ratnagotravibhaga, the role of relics worship in the Mahdparinirvana-sutra, and the Tathagatamrbha theory in Tibetan Buddhism.
