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The Atman-Brahman in Ancient Buddhism

Published by Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Pvt. Ltd. MLBD

So Mahayana is right and Theravada is wrong.
There is indeed a true self spoken by the buddha.


>According to Sallie B. King, the sutra does not represent a major innovation, & is rather unsystematic, which made it "a fruitful one for later students & commentators, who were obliged to create their own order & bring it to the text". According to King, its most important innovation is the linking of the term buddhadhātu with tathagatagarbha. The "nature of the Buddha" is presented as a timeless, eternal "Self", which is akin to the tathagatagarbha, the innate possibility in every sentient being to attain Buddha-hood & manifest this timeless Buddha-nature. "[I]t is obvious that the Mahaparinirvana Sutra does not consider it impossible for a Buddhist to affirm an atman provided it is clear what the correct understanding of this concept is, & indeed the sutra clearly sees certain advantages in doing so."

>>The Mahāyāna Mahāparinirvāṅa Sūtra, especially influential in East Asian Buddhist thought, goes so far as to speak of it as our true self (ātman). Its precise metaphysical & ontological status is, however, open to interpretation in the terms of different Mahāyāna philosophical schools; for the Madhyamikas it must be empty of its own existence like everything else; for the Yogacarins, following the Laṅkāv


>The existence of the tathagatagarbha must be taken on faith:
>>Essentially the Buddha asks his audience to accept the existence of buddha-nature [tathagatagarbha] on faith [...] the importance of faith in the teachings of the Nirvana Sutra as a whole must not be overlooked.

Origins & development

>According to Shimoda Masahiro, the authors of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra were leaders & advocates of stupa-worship. The term buddhadhātu originally referred to śarīra or physical relics of the Buddha. The authors of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra used the teachings of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra to reshape the worship of the śarīra into worship of the inner Buddha as a principle of salvation: the Buddha-nature. "Buddhadhātu" came to be used in place of tathagatagarbha, referring to a concrete entity existing inside the person. Sasaki, in a review of Shimoda, conveys a key premise of Shimoda's work, namely, that the origins of Mahayana Buddhism & the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra are entwined.

>The Indian version of the Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra underwent a number of stages in its composition. Masahiro Shimoda discerns two versions:

>>a short proto-Nirvāṇa Sūtra, which was, he argues, probably not distinctively Mahāyāna, but quasi-Mahāsāṃghika in origin & would date to 100 CE, if not even earlier; an expanded version of this core text was then developed & would have comprised chapters 1, 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7 of the Faxian & Tibetan versions, though it is believed that in their present state there is a degree of editorial addition in them from the later phases of development.