Note 115 — Chapter X · THE DOCTRINE OF TRIKÂYA.

Judging from all these characterisations, the most plausible conclusion that suggests itself to modern sceptical minds is that the Sambhogakâya must be a mere creation of an intelligent, finite mind, which is intently bent on reaching the highest reality, but, not being able, on account of its limitations, to grasp the object in its absoluteness, the finite mind fabricates all its ideals after its own fashion into a spiritual-material being, which is logically a contradiction, but religiously an object deserving veneration and worship. And this being is no more than the Body of Bliss.[115] It lies half way between the pure being of Dharmakâya and the earthly form of Nirmânakâya, the Body of Transformation. It does not belong to either, but partakes something of both. It is in a sense spiritual like the Dharmakâya, and yet it cannot go beyond material limitations, for it has a form, definite and determinate. When the human soul is thirsty after a pure being or an absolute which cannot be comprehended in a palpable form, it creates a hybrid, an imitation, or a reflection, and tries to be satisfied with it, just as a little girl has her innate and not yet fully developed maternity satisfied by tenderly embracing and nursing the doll, an inanimate imitation of a real living baby. And the Mahâyânists seem to have made most of this childish humanness. They produced as many sûtras as their spiritual yearnings demanded, quite regardless of historical facts, and made the Body of Bliss of the Tathâgata the author of all these works. For if the Dharmakâya of the Tathâgata never entered into Parinirvâna, why then could he not deliver sermons and cite gâthâs as often as beings of intelligence (Bodhisattvas) felt their needs? The Suvarna Prabhâ (fas. 2, chap. 3) again echoes this sentiment as follows: