https://conference.tsadra.org Buddhist Conferences Wed, 26 Oct 2022 11:10:16 +0000 en-US hourly 1 https://wordpress.org/?v=6.9.11 https://conference.tsadra.org/session/rong-zom-pa-on-the-tathagatagarbha-and-pratityasamutpada-theories/ Fri, 13 Sep 2019 06:16:42 +0000 http://conference-wp.tsadra.org/?post_type=session&p=17589 The critique of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine by the two Japanese scholars Shirō Matsumoto and Noriaki Hakamaya has compelled scholars engaged in the study of Buddhism to reflect on the Buddhist status of the doctrine. While the agenda and the underlying motives of these two scholars may be different, their dismissal of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine as non-Buddhist may have been inspired by some position found in Tibetan Buddhism. To my knowledge, however, Tibetan Buddhist scholars have never gone to the extent of apodictically rejecting the theory as non-Buddhist while some Tibetan Buddhist (e.g. Dol-po-pa’s or Jo-nang-pa’s) interpretation thereof has certainly been. One of the most significant criticisms of the tathāgatagarbha doctrine is that it contradicts or disregards the doctrine of dependent arising (pratītyasamutpāda), which has often been eulogized as the quintessence of the teachings of the Buddha. In this paper, I wish to (re)examine how the eleventh-century rNying-ma scholar Rong-zom Chos-kyi-bzang-po interprets the tathāgatagarbha theory particularly in relation to the pratītyasamutpāda theory and whether or not he viewed the tathāgatagarbha and pratītyasamutpāda theories to be mutually contradictory.

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