Vairocana
Vairocana, also known as Mahāvairocana, is a major Buddha from Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism. He is often compared to the Sun, because both bestow their light impartially upon all beings. However, unlike the Sun, whose light can be blocked, and which disappears at night, Vairocana's light is omnipresent, impossible to block, and shines eternally. Hence, he is called the "Great Sun". In East Asian Buddhism, Vairocana is called 大日如來 or 毘盧遮那佛.
In Mahayana and Vajrayana Buddhism, Vairocana is the of all Buddhas, which is formless, omnipresent, self-existent, eternal, indestructible, unable to be defiled, and is the source of all manifestations. The historical Gautama Buddha is one of the emanation bodies of Vairocana Buddha.
Three Types of Bodies
According to the Three-Bodies teaching, every Buddha has three types of bodies, which are:- Dharma Body - the true nature of all phenomena, the Ultimate Reality, visible only to those with the highest Awakenment, namely the Buddhas.
- Enjoyment Body - often of super-cosmic size and with supreme beauty, visible only to those whose Awakenment level is not lower than the first Bodhisattva stage.
- Emanation Body - physical forms projected into mundane worlds, visible to all common living beings.
Five Buddhas
Among the Five Buddhas of the Five Directions, Vairocana is the central figure, symbolizing both the source and destination of all the other four.Vairocana is not to be confused with Vairocana Mahabali, son of the asura Virochana, a character in the Yoga Vasistha. Vairocana Buddha is also not to be confused with another Buddha that appears in some Mahayana sources called "Rocana".
Manifestations
Overview
In Mahayana sutras
Vairocana is introduced in the Brahmajāla Sūtra, which states:In the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, Vairocana is described as having attained enlightenment immeasurable eons ago and residing in a world purified by him while he was a bodhisattva. He also presides over an assembly of countless other bodhisattvas. The Buddhāvataṃsaka also sees Vairocana as a supreme cosmic Buddha who contains all world systems within his all-encompassing cosmic body. The Avatamsaka sutra also states that the wisdom of the Buddha is present everywhere in the universe; indeed, it is present within every living being. Thus, the sutra states :
Son of Buddha, the wisdom of Tathagata is present everywhere. Why? Son of Buddha, in the class of living beings there is no place where the wisdom of Tathagata is not present. Why is it that? The wisdom of Tathagata is not established due to grasping the discrimination/consciousness, because the omniscient wisdom, the self-existent wisdom and the non-obstructed wisdom perfectly appear in total disconnection with discrimination.According to Paul Williams, the Buddha "is said or implied at various places in this vast and heterogeneous sutra to be the universe itself, to be the same as 'absence of intrinsic existence' or emptiness, and to be the Buddha's all-pervading omniscient awareness." The very body of Vairocana is also seen as a reflection of the whole universe:
The body of Buddha is inconceivable. In his body are all sorts of lands of sentient beings. Even in a single pore are countless, immeasurable vast oceans.According to the Buddhāvataṃsaka Sūtra, the whole universe is a vast pure buddha-field which has been purified by Vairocana. This is the view of the Pure Land found in the Chinese Huayan tradition. According to this view, our world is just one small part of this universal Pure Land, which is named: "Ocean of worlds, whose surface and inside are decorated with an arrangement of flowers". It is also called the "Lotus Treasury World", since it is an array of billions of buddha-lands located in a massive lotus flower shape.
In the cosmology of the Avatamsaka sutra, our Universe is just one of the immeasurable number of universes in a Multiverse called "Ocean of worlds, whose surface and inside are decorated with an arrangement of flowers". The Avatamsaka states that this entire cosmos has been purified by the Buddha Vairocana through his bodhisattva practices for countless aeons, after having met countless Buddhas. The sutra also states that our world is in Vairocana's buddhafield. Vairocana is closely associated with Shakyamuni Buddha; in some cases, he is even identified with him in the Avatamsaka Sutra. Huayan generally sees Shakyamuni as an emanation body from the ultimate Buddha Vairocana.
File:华严寺大雄宝殿殿内明代毗卢遮那佛造像侧面.jpg|thumb|Ming dynasty statue of Vairocana in Huayan Temple in Shanxi, China, one out of a set depicting the Five Tathāgatas.
In the Śūraṅgama mantra taught in the Śūraṅgama sutra, an especially influential dharani in the Chinese Chan tradition, Vairocana is mentioned to be the host of the Buddha Division in the centre, one of the five major divisions which dispels the vast demon armies of the five directions.
Vairocana is the central Buddha of numerous esoteric sutras, and he appears in sutras like the Vairocanābhisaṃbodhi Sūtra, the Vajrasekhara Sutra and the Tattvasaṃgraha Tantra.
Helen Hardacre, writing on the Mahavairocana Tantra, comments that Mahavairocana's virtues are deemed to be immanently universal within all beings: "The principle doctrine of the Dainichikyo is that all the virtues of Dainichi are inherent in us and in all sentient beings."
Relationship with Śākyamuni
In the Buddhāvataṃsakasūtra, Śākyamuni Buddha is a magical emanation of the cosmic Buddha Vairocana. Vairocana is certainly seen as a more cosmic and transcendent existence of Śākyamuni, who came to be seen as Vairochana's earthly manifestation. Similarly, the Brahmajala Sutra also states that Śākyamuni was originally named Vairocana, regarding the former as a physical incarnation of the latter.Vairocana is also mentioned as an epithet of Śākyamuni Buddha in the Samantabhadra Meditation Sutra. Thus, in Tiantai and Tendai, Vairocana is seen as synonymous with the Original Buddha of the Lotus Sutra
Śākyamuni is called Vairocana, who pervades all places. This Buddha’s abode is called Eternally Quiescent Light: a place which is the Pāramitā of Permanence ; a place which is established on the Pāramitā of Self ; a place the Pāramitā of Purity extinguishes the characteristics of existence; a place the Pāramitā of Bliss the non-abiding of the characteristics of body and mind. It is a place the existence or non-existence of the characteristics of all dharmas is not perceived. It is like the quiescence of liberation and the culmination of the Prajñā Pāramitā because the phenomena there are permanently abiding dharmas; in like manner, you should contemplate the Buddhas of the ten directions.
In East Asian Buddhism
Vairocana is the Original Buddha in the Chinese Buddhist schools of Tiantai, Huayan and Chinese Esoteric Buddhism, as well as in the Japanese traditions of Kegon, Shingon and Tendai. In Huayan Buddhism, the entire universe is understood as the very body of Vairocana, a supreme cosmic reality. Vairocana is infinite; his influence and light are limitless, pervading the entire universe. Furthermore, Vairocana is really the ultimate principle, the Dharmakaya, Suchness and "the substance underlying phenomenal reality". However, while Vairocana, as the ultimate principle, is eternal, it also transforms and changes according to the needs and conditions of sentient beings. Furthermore, Vairocana is empty, interdependent, and interfused with all phenomena in the universe. Thus, Vairocana is both immanent and transcendent.According to Fazang, while the nirmanakaya Shakyamuni taught the other Mahayana sutras, Vairocana teaches the Avatamsaka Sutra through his ten bodies which are: the All-Beings Body, the Lands Body, the Karma Body, the Śrāvakas Body, the Pratyekabuddha Body, the Bodhisattvas Body, the Tathāgatas Body, the Wisdom Body, the Dharma Body, and the Space Body. Fazang sees these ten bodies as encompassing all phenomena in the "three realms," i.e., the entire universe.
In Chinese and Japanese Buddhism, Vairocana was gradually superseded as an object of reverence by the popularity of Amitābha, due in large part to the increasing popularity of Pure Land Buddhism, but veneration of Vairocana still remains popular among adherents and remains a central object of devotion in Tendai, Shingon, and the Huayan schools.
During the initial stages of his mission in Japan, the Catholic missionary Francis Xavier was welcomed by the Shingon monks since he used Dainichi, the Japanese name for Vairocana, to designate the Christian God. As Xavier learned more about the religious nuances of the word, he substituted the term Deusu, which he derived from the Latin and Portuguese Deus.
Relationship with Amitabha
The Shingon monk Dōhan regarded the two great Buddhas, Amitābha and Vairocana, as one and the same Dharmakāya Buddha and as the true nature at the core of all beings and phenomena. There are several realizations that can accrue to the Shingon practitioner of which Dōhan speaks in this connection, as James Sanford points out:The identification of Vairocana with Amitābha can also be seen in the Huayan school. During the Qing dynasty, Huayan figures like Peng Shaosheng also equated Amitābha Buddha with Vairocana. According to Peng, Vairocana and Amitabha are actually the same Buddha, Amitabha's pure land of Sukhavati is the same as Vairocana Buddha's Lotus Treasury World. Peng saw the Huayan principle of the interpenetration of principle and phenomena as indicating that these Buddhas and their pure lands were mutually interfused and non-dual with all worlds in the universe.