Note 111 — Chapter X · THE DOCTRINE OF TRIKÂYA.

Here we have the conception of a spiritual Dharmakâya germinating out of the corporeal death of Çâkyamuni.[111] Here we have the bridge that spans the wide gap between the human Çâkyamuni Buddha and the spiritual existence of the Dharmakâya. The Buddha did not die after he partook of the food offered by Chunda. His age was not eighty. His life did not pass to an airy nothingness when his cinerary urns were divided among kings and Brahmans. His virtues and merits which were accumulated throughout innumerable kalpas, could not come to naught so abruptly. What constituted the essence of his life—and that of ours too—could not perish with the vicissitudes of the corporeal existence. The Buddha as a particular individual being was certainly subject to transformation—so is every mortal, but his truth must abide forever. His Dharmakâya is above birth and death and even above Nirvâna; but his Body of Transformation comes out of the womb of Tathâgata as destined by karma and vanishes into it when the karma exhausts its force. The Buddha who is still seated at the summit of the Gridhrakuta, delivering to all beings the message of joy and bliss, and who among other precious teachings bequeathed to us such sûtras as the Avatamsaka, the Pundarîka, etc., is no more nor less than an expression of the eternal spirit. Thus came the doctrine of Dharmakâya to be formulated by the Mahâyânists, and from this the transition to that of Trikâya was but a natural sequence. Because one without the other could not give an adequate solution of the problems above cited.