Controversy Over Dharmakaya in Indo-Tibetan Buddhism: An Historical-Critical Analysis of Abhisamayalamkara Chapter 8 and Its Commentaries in Relation to the Large Prajnaparamita Sutra and the Yogacara Tradition
The Abhisamayalamkara, a foundational Mahayana text ascribed to Maitreyanatha, became one of the most popular treatises in late Indian and Tibetan Buddhism. It purports to summarize all the yogic practices and realizations (abhisamaya) of Buddhism. Its eighth and final chapter describes the realization of Dharmakaya, a Buddha's enlightenment, in terms of multiple buddhakayas (literally "Buddha bodies," a Buddha's modes of being and function).
By the late 8th century CE in India, however, a disagreement developed over the meaning of the Abhisamayalamkara's eighth chapter on buddhahood (in particular whether three of four buddhakayas were intended) and that disagreement has continued even up to the present day, carried on by different Indo-Tibetan interpretive traditions. The controversy has operated on two hermeneutic levels. Scholars disagreed over the proper philological interpretation. But more importantly, they used the text as a point of departure to disagree on the proper way to conceive and express the enlightenment of a Buddha.
The first eight chapters of this dissertation use source criticism, redaction criticism, comparative, and philological methods to determine the literary sources and composite structure of Abhisamayalamkara chapter 8. This analysis demonstrates that the author intended three (and not four) buddhakayas, and also accounts for unique peculiarities in the expression of the text (e.g. the fact that it defines svabhavikakaya in terms of buddhadharmas and sambhogikakaya in terms of marks and signs for the first time in Indian literature). Comparative analysis of the Abhisamayalamkara and Yogacara texts sheds new light on the morphologies and semantics of the kaya terms.
Chapters nine through twelve of the dissertation trace the continuum of debate over buddhakayas in India and Tibet, and show how an unresolved paradox in the theoretical foundation of Mahayana Buddhism (apratisthita nirvana) underlay the controversy at each historical stage. The opposing positions of Arya Vimuktisena and Haribhadra are elucidated, the diverse views of later Indian scholars (Buddhajnanapada, Dharmamitra, Prajnakaramati, Buddhasrijnana, Kumarasribhadra, Ratnakarasanti, and Abhayakaragupta), and the opposing buddhologies of two eminent Tibetan scholars (Tsong kha pa, and Go ram pa).
