Dharmakāya

Dharmakāya (devanāgarī: धर्म काय) is a Sanskrit word meaning "truth body" or "reality body". In Mahayana Buddhism it is one of the three bodies (Trikayas) of the Buddha. Dharmakaya constitutes the unmanifested, "inconceivable" aspect of a Buddha, out of which Buddhas arise and to which they return after their dissolution.

In Theosophy

In Theosophical literature the term Dharmakāya has being used mainly in two ways: a) as a "glorified spiritual body", in terms the Mahayana Buddhist teaching of the trikāya, and b) as a universally diffused essence, similar to the concept found in some schools of Vajrayana Buddhism.

There is, however, an instance where term was also used as an adjective (in the phrase "Dharmakâya intellect") to point out to the quality of the mind in which ālaya, the universal soul, can be reflected:

Ālaya, or Nying-po, being the root and basis of all, invisible and incomprehensible to human eye and intellect, it can reflect only its reflection—not Itself. Thus that reflection will be mirrored like the moon in tranquil and clear water only in the passionless Dharmakâya intellect, and will be distorted by the flitting image of everything perceived in a mind that is itself liable to be disturbed.

Glorified spiritual body

In The Theosophical Glossary Mme. Blavatsky wrote:

Dharmakâya (Sk). Lit., “the glorified spiritual body” called the “Vesture of Bliss”. The third, or highest of the Trikâya (Three Bodies), the attribute developed by every “Buddha”, i.e., every initiate who has crossed or reached the end of what is called the “fourth Path” (in esotericism the sixth “portal” prior to his entry on the seventh). The highest of the Trikâya, it is the fourth of the Buddhakchêtra, or Buddhic planes of consciousness, represented figuratively in Buddhist asceticism as a robe or vesture of luminous Spirituality.

In popular Northern Buddhism these vestures or robes are:

(1) Nirmanakâya (2) Sambhogakâya (3) and Dharmakâya the last being the highest and most sublimated of all, as it places the ascetic on the threshold of Nirvâna.

However, she says this is the exoteric view. A more esoteric view is offered in the Glossary of The Voice of the Silence:

The Dharmakâya body is that of a complete Buddha, i.e., no body at all, but an ideal breath: Consciousness merged in the Universal Consciousness, or Soul devoid of every attribute. Once a Dharmakâya, an Adept or Buddha leaves behind every possible relation with, or thought for this earth.

Those who attain the Dharmakâya are Jîvanmuktas or Nirvâṇîs "without remains"; they are "the pure Arupa, the formless Breaths". The "perfect Initiate" who during Samādhi separates his Higher Self entirely from his body, attains momentarily the Dharmakâya, experiencing a state of Nirvāṇa “without remains”.

Dhyani-Buddhas

Mme. Blavatsky also refers to a different class of Dharmakāyas. They are known as Dhyāni-Buddhas in the Theosophical literature:

. . . a “Son of Light” from a still higher sphere, Who being Arupa, has no personal astral body of His own fit for this world. Such “Sons of Light,” or Dhyâni-Buddhas, are the Dharmakâyas of preceding Manvantaras, who have closed their cycles of incarnations in the ordinary sense and who, being thus Karmaless, have long ago dropped their individual Rūpas, and have become identified with the first Principle.

Universally diffused essence

In one of the Mahatma Letters to A. P. Sinnett Dharmakāya is defined as "the mystic, universally diffused essence", and is identified with Yin Sin ("the one form of existence") and also "Adi-Buddhi". This view is similar to the idea of the "one element" in Theosophy.

A similar correlation has been shown to exist in the Jonangpa school of Tibetan Buddhism by David Reigle. He quotes the text Ratna-gotra-vihhaga about "the element" or dhatu (which is permanent, stable, quiescent, and eternal), and adds:

As noted earlier, this one thing, dhatu or element, may be called tathagata-garbha or Buddha-nature when obscured, and dharma-kaya or body of the law when unobscured.