The Uncreated, the Unshaped, the Unmodified is the Dharma-Kāya. The Offspring, the Modification of the Unmodified, the manifestation of all perfect attributes in one body, is the Sambhoga-Kāya: ‘The embodiment of all that is wise, merciful and loving in the Dharma-Kāya—as clouds on the surface of the heavens or a rainbow on the surface of the clouds—is said to be Sambhoga-Kāya’.[1] The condensation and differentiation of the One Body as many is the Nirmāṇa-Kāya, or the Divine Incarnations among sentient beings, that is to say, among beings immersed in the Illusion called Sangsāra, in phenomena, in worldly existence. All enlightened beings who are reborn in this or in any other world with full consciousness, as workers for the betterment of their fellow creatures, are said to be Nirmāṇa-Kāya incarnates.
With the Dharma-Kāya Tantric Buddhism associates the Primordial Buddha Samanta-Bhadra (Tib. Kün-tu-bzang-po—pron. Kün-tu-zang-po), Who is without Beginning or End, the
- ↑ Cf. A. Avalon, Tantrik Texts, vii (London and Calcutta, 1919), pp. 36 n., 41 n.
has explained the Tri-Kāya Doctrine in The Awakening of Faith, translation by T. Suzuki (Chicago, 1900, pp. 99–103), as follows:
‘Because All Tathāgatas are the Dharmakāya itself, are the highest truth (paramārthasatya) itself, and have nothing to do with conditionality (samvrittisatya) and compulsory actions; whereas the seeing, hearing, &c. [i.e. the particularizing senses], of the sentient being diversify [on its own account] the activity of the Tathāgatas.
‘Now this activity [in another word, the Dharmakāya] has a twofold aspect. The first one depends on the phenomena-particularizing-consciousness, by means of which the activity is conceived by the minds of common people (prithagjana), Crāvakas, and Pratyekabuddhas. This aspect is called the Body of Transformation (Nirmāṇakāya).
‘But as the beings of this class do not know that the Body of Transformation is merely the shadow [or reflection] of their own evolving-consciousness (pravritti-vijñāna), they imagine that it comes from some external sources, and so they give it a corporeal limitation. But the Body of Transformation [or what amounts to the same thing, the Dharmakāya] has nothing to do with limitation and measurement.
‘The second aspect [of the Dharmakāya] depends on the activity-consciousness (karma-vijñāna) by means of which the activity is conceived by the minds of Bodhisattvas while passing from their first aspiration (cittotpāda) stage up to the height of Bodhisattvahood. This is called the Body of Bliss (Sambhogakāya).…
‘The Dharmakāya can manifest itself in various corporeal forms just because it is the real essence of them’ (cf. p. 2282).
