CHAPTER IX NOTES.
[92] The Avatamsaka Sûtra, Chinese translation by Buddhabhadra, fas. XXXIV. ([return])
[93] That is the Dharmakâya personified. ([return])
[94] In Hindu philosophy space is always conceived as an objective entity in which all things exist. ([return])
[95] This should be understood in the sense that “God maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” The Dharmakâya is universal in its love, as space is in its comprehensiveness. Because it is absolutely free from human desires and passions that are the product of egoism and therefore tend always to be discriminative and exclusive. ([return])
[96] The four views are: That the physical body is productive of impurities; that sensuality causes pain; that the individual soul is not permanent; and that all things are devoid of the Atman. ([return])
[97] That is to say: The Dharmakâya, that assumes all forms of existence according to what class of being it is manifesting itself, is sometimes conceived by the believers to be a short-lived god, sometimes an immortal spirit, sometimes a celestial being of one hundred kalpas, and sometimes an existence of only a moment. As there are so many different dispositions, characters, karmas, intellectual attainments, moral environments, etc., so there are as many Dharmakâyas as subjectively represented in the minds of sentient beings, though the Dharmakâya, objectively considered, is absolutely one. ([return])
[98] Asanga’s General Treatise on Mahâyânism. (Mahâyâna samparigraha). ([return])
[99] The Avatamsaka Sûtra, chap. 13, “On Merit.” ([return])
[100] This is by no means the case, for some of the Mahâyâna sûtras are undoubtedly productions of much later writers than the immediate followers of the Buddha, though of course it is very likely that some of the most important Mahâyâna canonical books were compiled within a few hundred years after the Nirvana of the Master. ([return])
[101] “Purvapranidhânabala” is frequently translated “the power of original (or primitive) prayer.” Literally, pûrva means “former” or “original” or “primitive”; and pranidhâna, “desire” or “vow” or “prayer”; and bala, “power.” So far as literary rendering is concerned, “power of original prayer” seems to be the sense of the original Sanskrit. But when we speak of primitive prayers of the Dharmakâya or Tathâgata, how shall we understand it? Has prayer any sense in this connection? The Dharmakâya can by its own free will manifest in any form of existence and finish its work in whatever way it deems best. There is no need for it to utter any prayer in the agony of struggle to accomplish. There is in the universe no force whatever which is working against it so powerfully as to make it cry for help; and there cannot be any struggle or agony in the activity of the Dharmakâya. The term prayer therefore is altogether misleading and inaccurate and implicates us in a grave error which tends to contradict the general Buddhist conception of Dharmakâya. We must dispense with the term entirely in order to be in perfect harmony with the fundamental doctrine of Buddhism. This point will receive further consideration later. ([return])
[102] “I am the father of all beings, and they are my children.” (The Avatamsaka, the Pundarîka, etc.) ([return])
[103] To get more fully acquainted with the significance of the Sukhâvatî doctrine, the reader is advised to look up the Sukhâvatî sûtras in the Sacred Books of the East, Vol. XLIX. ([return])