A Brief Explanation of the Mahayana Tathagatagarbha Sutra

Chapter One  A Brief Explanation of the Sūtra Title

This Mahāvaipulya Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra is the most fundamental among Mahāyāna sūtras. It is a Mahāyāna sūtra that the World-Honored One preached to the great assembly at the Great Lecture Hall on Gṛdhrakūṭa (Vulture Peak) about ten years after He attained Buddhahood. Shortly after the World-Honored One attained Buddhahood, He first preached the most supreme Avataṃsaka Sūtra to the great bodhisattva disciples whom He had been transforming in the worlds of the ten directions; afterwards, He began to preach to the assembly of Small Vehicle bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs the most fundamental dharma meaning of the path of liberation—the four great collections of Āgama sūtras. The World-Honored One spent about ten years or so completing the exposition of the four great collections of Āgamas, and then immediately turned to the exposition of Mahāyāna sūtras. This Mahāvaipulya Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra was the first sūtra that the World-Honored One preached when, after finishing the Small Vehicle dharma, He turned to the Mahāyāna dharma. This shows that this sūtra is the foundation of the Mahāyāna dharma and serves the function of initiating faith: it inspires the assembly's faith in the Mahāyāna Buddha-dharma, leads the assembly to accept with faith the tathāgatagarbha dharma, and leads sentient beings to accept in faith that within their own bodies there is a subtle and profound tathāgatagarbha. When sentient beings have deep and unwavering faith in the dharma that they themselves possess the tathāgatagarbha, the cultivation of the bodhisattva at the stage of faith is complete; thereafter they enter the stage of abiding to cultivate, begin to practice the six pāramitās of the bodhisattva, and prepare for seeing the mind and seeing the nature.

The first three characters of the title of the Mahāvaipulya Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra, Da Fang Deng (Mahāvaipulya), are all used to describe and depict the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, fully displaying the incomparable supremacy of the tathāgatagarbha dharma. The first character is Da (great). What is meant by "great"? The meaning of "great" is that the tathāgatagarbha is the supremely honored one of the three realms, commanding all dharmas of the three-realm world and encompassing everything without exception: all dharmas are born of and governed by the tathāgatagarbha, and there is no dharma that transcends the tathāgatagarbha. The tathāgatagarbha can, in accordance with conditions, manifest and bring forth all dharmas; all dharmas are subsumed under the tathāgatagarbha, and all dharmas are gathered back into the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, the tathāgatagarbha is the greatest and foremost dharma among worldly dharmas.

The second character Fang means that the tathāgatagarbha is proper and upright, straightforward, genuine, and free and at ease; He is the most correct dharma among worldly and world-transcending dharmas, the correct cause and the direct cause capable of giving rise to the birth of all dharmas. He is not a dharma of lateral derivation; He is the real dharma that neither arises nor ceases and neither changes nor varies. But all the other dharmas born from Him are incorrect dharmas of lateral derivation; they all arise and cease, change and vary, and are impermanent—they are not real dharmas.

Deng means equal and egalitarian. All dharmas of the three-realm world are born of the tathāgatagarbha; in terms of the tathāgatagarbha as the fundamental substance, all dharmas are equal. That all sentient beings are equal to the Buddhas is said in reliance upon this fundamental substance and self-nature of the tathāgatagarbha. Although all the marks of the three-realm world manifested by the tathāgatagarbha are unequal, the substance of these marks is equal, for in substance they are all generated from the seeds of the seven great elements of the tathāgatagarbha and all possess the nature of the tathāgatagarbha. Therefore, the tathāgatagarbha can manifest the equality of all dharmas, and between one tathāgatagarbha and another, their functional natures are also equal and without duality.

The three characters Da Fang Deng in the sūtra title mark out the characteristic attributes of the tathāgatagarbha: He is the greatest dharma of the worldly and the world-transcending, the most correct dharma, the dharma that forever neither arises nor ceases, and the dharma possessing the greatest equality. The functions, natures, and operations of the tathāgatagarbha of every sentient being are also equal and identical, without any distinction. Therefore, from this point of view, mind, Buddha, and sentient beings—the three—have no difference. Why is there no difference? Because all three are the mark of the tathāgatagarbha and all three are the nature of the tathāgatagarbha, there is no difference. Such is the brief explanation of the sūtra title.

The translator was Guṇabhadra (whose name means "Meritorious Worthy" when translated by meaning), a native of ancient Central India, born into a Brahmin family. After reading the Saṃyuktābhidharmahṛdaya and gaining insights from it, he converted to the Buddha-dharma. He left home to study the Small Vehicle and later became deeply versed in the Mahāyāna; the people of that time respectfully addressed him as a Mahāyānist (Māhāyānika). In the twelfth year of the Yuanjia era of the Liu Song dynasty (435), he sailed across the sea by way of the Lion Country (present-day Sri Lanka) and other places and arrived in Guangzhou, where he stayed at Yunfeng Temple on Yunfeng Mountain. The Governor of Guangzhou, Che Lang, reported this to Emperor Wen of the Song, and the emperor sent men to escort him to Nanjing and settled him at Zhiyuan Temple. Yan Yanzhi, an erudite and renowned scholar of the time, deeply admired and revered him, and Liu Yikang, Prince of Pengcheng, and Liu Yixuan, Prince of Qiao, of the Song imperial house also honored him as their teacher. In such a favorable environment, he very soon began his work of translating Buddhist sūtras. That we today have the karmic affinity to study and cultivate this sūtra is something for which we should feel heartfelt gratitude toward this great virtuous one of the Buddha's gate.