Tath?gata-garbha
Tathāgata-garbha. The ‘Embryonic Tathāgata’, a concept which emerges in Mahāyāna Buddhism and in terms of which all living beings are regarded as potential Buddhas by virtue of their participation in a universal ‘buddha-nature’. In the course of time this embryonic seed or potency which exists in each creature will flower into full enlightenment, and since the potency is shared by all, the enlightenment will be a universal one. The sources which expound this teaching, such as the Ratnagotravibhāga and the Tathāgatagarbhasūtra, regard it as a third and final cycle in the development of Buddhist thought, being the culmination of both the Buddha's early teaching and its philosophical elaboration by the Mahāyāna. Its critics, on the other hand, saw it as dangerously close to the monistic doctrines of Hinduism as expounded by the Advaita Vedānta school of Śaṅkara.
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Tath?gata-garbha
