Talk:Tathāgatagarbha sūtras

message: Why is "Doctrine" capitalized here?  Mathematical theorems wuch as Maxwell's theorem and physical laws such as Gauss's law conventionally are not capitalized in Wikipedia article titles.  Michael Hardy 22:26, 8 Mar 2004 (UTC)
thread_title: Capitalisation?

message: I removed: 
:Note: This article needs to be redone by a professional scholar, as it contains vagueness and inaccuracy. To begin with, tathagatagarbha is not directly equivalent to Buddha-nature.
This is a POV remark that is inappropriate for the start of the article. The contributor who added this should either make the changes himself/herself, discuss the changes in the talk page, or use one of the standard template disclaimers. --Decumanus 23:26, 2004 Nov 17 (UTC)
_____________________________________
Further refinement is needed for this article
The mention of Yogacara in "The Tathagatagarbha doctrine arose mainly within Mahayanists who were associated to some degree or another with Yogacara studies" should be removed. Though Tathagata-garbha doctrines were convergent at a later stage with Yogacara, resulting in "syncretic" texts like the Lankavatara-sutra and the Ghana-vyuha-sutra, the origins of Tathagata-garbha have no connection with Yogacara. In fact, the origins of the Tathagata-garbha doctrine may not even be Mahayana.  Moreover, a distinction should be made between the two meanings of Tathagata-garbha which depend on whetehr one interprets it as a tat-puru.sa or a baahu-vrihi compound -- in other words, a being may be "tathagata-garbha" (an embryonic Buddha)or have "tathagata-garbha" (contain the embryo of a Buddha).  The orgin of the Tathagata-garbha doctrine should possibly be sought in concepts that arose around the presence of the Buddha in a stupa (see various articles by Gregory Schopen which discuss this).  Garbha was a technical term for the contents of a stupa.  The same context can be seen with the term "Buddha-dhatu" (Buddha-nature) where "dhatu" is a similar concept referring to the enshrined relics.
--Stephen Hodge 20:02, 18 Nov 2004 (UTC)
replies: text: The Tathagatagarbha interpretation of shunyata is most certainly a continuation and perfection of the Yogacara criticism of Nagarjuna and MMK. Regardless of where its beginnings lie exactly, there is a very clear relation between Yogacara and Tathagatagarbha views (see "What remains in shunyata" by Gadjin Nagao). Also, the claim that Tathagatagarbha is not Mahayana is completely unfounded, as there is a clear and distinct emphasis on Bodhisattva practice and a strong criticism of "Hinayana" Arhat and Pratyekabuddha practices.
-----------------------------------------------
Is "ultimate, pure, ungraspable, irreducible, invulnerable, true and deathless Essence of the Buddha's liberating Reality" comparable to the Hindu Atman?
* Thanks for your interesting question. There are indeed some similarities or comparabilities between certain elements of Hindu "descriptions" of the Atman and the Buddhist teaching on the Tathagatagarbha or hidden Buddhic Essence (particularly as it is presented in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra). For example, both are said to be unperishing, ungraspable and immortal. But the two doctrines are not identical, as there are also distinctions and divergences: the "Katha Upanishad", for instance, asserts:
"A person the size of the thumb in the Atman always resides within the hearts of men".
The Buddha in the Mahaparinirvana Sutra specifically denies this view. The Buddha's Atman cannot be reified, located and measured in such a way. The Buddha's doctrine of the Tathagatagarbha is, it seems to me, more abstract than that of the Atman presented in some Upanishads. Whereas the Upanishadic Self is on occasion described as containing all actions and desires, the Buddhic Atman or Essence is beyond all such things. Is this of help to you? All good wishes.    Tony   TonyMPNS 08:05, 21 May 2005 (UTC)
thread_title: Removal

message: The Srimala Sutra, a classic of Buddha-nature literature, makes that very clear:
"The Tathagata embryo is not a self, a personal identity, a being, or a life". Why then does the article claim that Tathagatagarbha is in fact atman? It should in fact state that it is merely the opinion expressed in the Nirvana Sutras. Not all Buddha-nature sutras agree on the exact meaning of the TG. To present the teaching of one sutra as the accepted consensus is misleading, I think, especially to someone who is ignorant of the larger Mahayana context of this doctrine.  —Preceding unsigned comment added by 69.156.170.99 (talk) 20:40, 6 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title: Tathagatagarbha is NOT atman

message: This article was automatically assessed because at least one WikiProject had rated the article as start, and the rating on other projects was brought up to start class. BetacommandBot 16:23, 9 November 2007 (UTC)
thread_title:  WikiProject class rating

message: "...said to have originated in the primeval waters, as the Golden Germ, the World Womb-Egg (Hiranyagarbha) containing all the other gods in the world..." (drawn from an article of Visvakarman)
It would be sapient to chart the cultural context of garbha as Hiranyagarbha has flowed into Tathagatagarbha.
*Lindtner, Christian (1999). 'From Brahmanism to Buddhism'. Asian Philosophy, Volume 9, Issue 1 March 1999. Source:  (accessed: March 7, 2009)
The womb of sentience/sapience
Ah
B9 hummingbird hovering (talk • contribs) 07:28, 7 March 2009 (UTC)
thread_title:  Golden Germ, the World Womb-Egg ([[Hiranyagarbha]]) 

message: I have moved this section, which is quite short, from the end of the article, where it did not seem to make any conclusion to it, to near the beginning. This seems to enhance coherence, since these texts are subsequently mentioned again in the article. Moonsell (talk) 23:23, 16 April 2010 (UTC)
thread_title: moved section: "Texts"

message: "Tathagatagarbha doctrine" is not the same subject as "Tathagatagarbha Sutras." The new title does not use IAST diacritics correctly either. The addition of controversial material or debatable material in the intro rather than a more appropriate section below, is also problematic. Tengu800 12:25, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: What is the controversial material?  There are two references to actual academic works by Professor Paul Williams, who is used throughout the Buddhism pages. That is about as NON-controversial as it gets. If you want me to provide full quotes here I will.  Also keep in mind there are two different articles....the "Buddha-nature" article and this one. LhunGrub (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: Fixed some of your objections. LhunGrub (talk) 15:20, 13 August 2011 (UTC)

text: Don't forget that the meat of the entry follows the lead. That explains exactly what these texts are. Just scroll down.LhunGrub (talk) 01:36, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

text: As I mention on the Buddha-nature discussion page, I revised that entry to avoid extreme redundancy with this entry.LhunGrub (talk) 02:47, 14 August 2011 (UTC)

text: I fixed one of your objections. Check Buddha-nature. By the way, I totally disagree with your assessment of this page.  This page always was primarily about the Tathagatagarbha Sutras.  For God's sake, every other sentence mentions a specific sutra title.  It should have been renamed to the current title long ago. LhunGrub (talk) 20:12, 14 August 2011 (UTC)
replies: text: The problem is not so much the rename, but the inconsistency and incompleteness of the changes. For example, if I type in "buddha-nature", I get the Buddha-nature page. If I type in tathagatagarbha, I get the "Tathagatagarbha Sutras" page. I don't completely disagree with having a name change here, but more that the change was done (1) not following naming standards, and (2) without making the necessary changes to go along with this, as well as (3) the addition of marginalization and judgement of the subject in the introduction where such material does not belong. Tengu800 02:32, 15 August 2011 (UTC)

text: (1) Ok I fixed all the redirects.  Now try typing in "tathagatagarbha". (2) I have no idea what you mean by marginalization and judgement. Wikipedia is supposed to adhere to academic historical facts by professors and NPOV. To say that France was invaded by the Germans during World War II is NOT a marginalization or judgement of France. It is an academic historical fact upheld by scholars.LhunGrub (talk) 04:46, 15 August 2011 (UTC)
thread_title:  Why was this article renamed? 

message: Hello fellow Wikipedians,
I have just added archive links to  on Tathāgatagarbha sūtras. Please take a moment to review my edit. You may add  after the link to keep me from modifying it, if I keep adding bad data, but formatting bugs should be reported instead. Alternatively, you can add  to keep me off the page altogether, but should be used as a last resort. I made the following changes:
*Attempted to fix sourcing for http://www.shabkar.org/download/pdf/On_the_Eschatology_of_the_Mahaparinirvana_Sutra_and_Related_Matters.pdf
When you have finished reviewing my changes, please set the checked parameter below to true or failed to let others know (documentation at ).
Cheers.—cyberbot IITalk to my owner:Online 09:47, 31 March 2016 (UTC)
thread_title:  External links modified