[Buddha-l] Re: G-d, the D-vil and other imaginary friends

[Stephen Hodge]

William Magee wrote:

> This is a good point. So perhaps the term "nature" is not a good
> translation for "garbha," usually meaning "womb."  Some translators
> are moving to "Buddha Matrix," giving a nice sci-fi flavor to the
> topic.

There seems to be some confusion about the terminology involved here.  I 
have previously written about this at length so will not repeat everything 
again.

There are two key terms that should be noted:  Buddha-dhaatu and 
Tathaagata-garbha.  Though they became merged in meaning, they each seem to 
have arisen as the preferred term of two seperate groups.  Both terms seem 
to have arisen in connection with stupas and their contents.  It is 
Buddha-dhaatu that, via its Chinese equivalent (fo-xing), that gets 
translated as "Buddha-nature", though the "dhaatu" bit covers a quite wider 
range of connotations than "nature" suggests.

Tathaagata-garbha is rendered into Chinese and Tibetan differently -- the 
former using an equivalent for "Buddha-womb" and the latter "Buddha-essence" 
(= embryo).  This reflects the historical shift in meaning that can be 
discerned between the Tathaagata-garbha-suutra and slightly later texts such 
as the MPNS.  To be precise, the TGS  uses the term as a bahuvrihi compound 
while the late texts understand it a tat-puru.sa.  I.e.  Tathaagata-garbha 
is either something which you have or something which you are.  This shows 
why an uninformed  mechanical approach to translation leads to 
distortions -- "Buddha Matrix" can only be used for the TGS type of usage 
and to extend it to other texts without bothering to look at them in detail 
is very misleading.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge