The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (2448 page)

Tath
gata-garbha
.

The ‘Embryonic Tath
gata’, a concept which emerges in
Mah
y
na
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
Ratnagotravibh
ga
and the
Tath
gatagarbhas
tra
, 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 Mah
y
na. Its critics, on the other hand, saw it as dangerously close to the monistic doctrines of Hinduism as expounded by the
Advaita Ved
nta
school of
a
kara
.

 
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