Jñānadharmakāya

jñānadharmakāya [alt. jñānakāya] (T. ye shes chos sku ཡེ་ཤེས་ཆོས་སྐུ་), or "wisdom truth body," is one of the four kayas according to some traditions.

The Princeton Dictionary states:

[The jñānadharmakāya is] one of the two divisions (along with the svabhāvakāya) of the dharmakāya of a buddha. With the development of Mahayana thought, the dharmakāya became a kind of transcendent principle in which all buddhas partake, and it is in this sense that the term is translated as “truth body.” In the later Mahāyāna scholastic tradition, the dharmakāya was said to have two aspects. The first is the svabhāvakāya (alt. svābhāvikakāya), or “nature body,” which is the ultimate nature of a buddha’s mind; the second is the jñānakāya or “knowledge body,” a buddha’s omniscient gnosis. The final chapter of the Abhisamayālaṃkāra sets forth an elliptic presentation of the svabhāvakāya that led to a number of different later interpretations.

According to Ārya Vimuktisena’s interpretation, the svabhāvakāya is not a separate buddha body, but rather the ultimate nature underpinning the other three bodies (the dharmakāya, sambhogakāya, and nirmāṇakāya). Haribhadra, influenced by Yogācāra scholastic positions, privileges the dharmakāya and says it has two parts: a knowledge body (jñānadharmakāya) and a svabhāvakāya, its ultimate nature. This controversy was widely debated in Tibet in the commentarial tradition.^[1]

The Berzin Dictionary states:

[The jñānadharmakāya is] the deep awareness aspect of a Buddha's mind, which is equally aware of the two truths simultaneously, without any break. Also called: Body of Deep Awareness Encompassing Everything, Deep Awareness Dharmakaya. Some translators render this term as "Wisdom Dharmakaya."^[2]

Khenpo Pema Vajra defines this term according to the Abhisamayalankara as follows:

The wisdom dharmakaya is defined as the ultimate wisdom arising from the total transformation at the level of buddhahood which provides the basis for the twenty-one sets of immaculate qualities.^[3]