The so-called Critical Buddhism was originated by two Buddhist scholars at Komazawa University：Hakamaya Noriaki and Matsumoto Shiro. It stirred up great controversy by its claims that the teachings of Tathagatagarbha, Buddha-nature，original enlightenment，and the philosophy of Kyoto School are not Buddhist，and aroused great interest and responses from Buddhists and Buddhologist in Japan，North America and Taiwan. The criticism of Hakamaya and Matsumoto aimed at a number of different targets which touched on four levels：Buddhological，sectarian，social criticism，and philosophical. The main issues include：Tathagatagarbha thought，Dhatu-vada, Karma, original enlightenment，"Wa" thought，"Topical Buddhism," social discrimination，etc. These issues are too broad to be dealt with in a short article; therefore，this article focuses only on the issues in Buddhist doctrine and social discrimination. Hakamaya and Matsumoto maintain that Tathagatagarbha thought goes against the most basic Buddhist teachings of causality (pratityasamutpada) and non-self (anatman)，and thus is a form of dhatu-vada. The first half portion of this article，based on the 'Srimaladevi Sutra, Mahaparinirvana Sutra, Ratnagotravibhaga 'Sastra and Buddha-nature Treatise，refutes their claims. At the level of social criticism，Critical Buddhism blamed the idea of Wa (harmony)，which derives from Tathagatagarbha thought，for social discrimination and injustice. The second half of this article refutes this claim by giving examples in which Tathagatagarbha (Buddha-nature) thought is in fact the bases of social equality，freedom and justice.
