Korea Journal of Buddhist Studies ISSN:1598-0642(Print) 불교학연구

The purpose of this article is to examine the difference in understanding of Buddha-nature (tathāgatagarbha) as described in the lTa ba'i khyad par, by Ye shes sde, and the Thab shes sgron ma, by dPal dbyangs. “All sentient beings have the Buddha-nature (sarvasattvās tathāgatagarbhā [iti]: Tib. sems can thams cad ni de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po can no).” This teaching was declared in the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra. However, this same passage, found in the old Tibetan translation of the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra and the Tibetan Dunhuang manuscript of the lTa ba'i khyad par, was translated and interpreted as sems can thams cad ni de bzhin gshegs pa'i snying po yin. During the early imperial period in Tibet, this translation could have been understood to mean that “all sentient beings are the nature of the Tathāgata.” However, the old translation of the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra and the lTa ba'i khyad par do not use the particle can. Instead, these texts merely rendered and interpreted it by using the copula, yin. Concerning this passage, Ye shes sde, referring to the Dung phreng gi mdo, which defines the causal state of the Buddha-nature as ālayavijñāna, its resultant state as dharmakāya, and its nature as āśrayaparivṛtti of ālayavijñāna. In contrast to this, dPal dbyangs claimed that the intrinsic nature of Buddha-nature is identical to dharmakāya. As for understanding the Buddha-nature, these two traditions, namely Ye shes sde and dPal dbyangs, might have been called the “analytical tradition (thos bsam kyi lugs)” and the “meditative tradition (sgom lugs)”, respectively.