Nirmāṇa-Kāya

Author(s): Ananda K. Coomaraswamy

Source: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society of Great Britain and Ireland, No. 1 (Jan.,
1938), pp. 81-84
Published by: Cambridge University Press
Stable URL: http://www.jstor.org/stable/25201633
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MISCELLANEOUS COMMUNICATIONS
nirmana-kaya
In the well-known doctrine of the Three Bodies of the
Buddha, the physical and earthly manifestation is called a
nirmana-kaya, " a body of artifice " or even moro literally
" a body of measurement" ; a body made, then, as images
and other works of art are made, by a " measuring out"
(root ma). In the Divyavadana, ch. xxxvii, the word nimUlam
is similarly used of the Buddha's appearance which he himself
emanates and projects for Rudrayana's painters, who cannot
grasp his likeness unaided. It may be remarked that Indian
imagery is always as much or more an iconometry (tdlamdna)
than an iconography; and that all this has an important
bearing on the pragmatic equivalence, in Buddhist iconodule
theory, of the verbal, carnal, and fictile manifestations by
means of which the Buddha is presented to the world in a
likeness. Our present object, however, is rather to point out
what has not been generally recognized hitherto, that proto
types of the expressions nirmana-kaya and nimittam occur
already in the Brahmanas and Sarhhitas.
We have, for example, RV., iii, 29, 11, " This, 0 Agni, is
thy cosmic womb, whence thou hast shone forth. . . . Metered
in the Mother (yad amimita mdlari), thou art Matarisvan," and
x, 5, 3, " having measured out the Bambino " (mitva iiium).
The Jaiminlya Brahmana, iii, 261-3, is even more explicit.
Here the Devas, about to undertake a sacrificial session,
propose in the first place to discard " whatever is prude in
our spiritual essence" (lad yad esdm kruram dtmann1 dsit),

1 Emm kruram dtmanali corrcpponds to Mailri Up., vi., 8, prajapaleb

slhavisfd tanur yd lokavati, "Frajupati's most concroto form, that which
is cosmic."
Caland translates " von unserem Korpcr ". It is, however, tho Spirit,
and not a " body ", that is the common property of tho Dovas : " Spirit
JRAS. JANUARY 1938. 0

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 82 NIRMANA-KAYA

that is to set aside whatever are the possibilities of physical

manifestation inherent in the Spirit; which possibilities they
propose to " measure out" (tan nirmamdmahi). Accordingly
" They measured it out (nirmdya) and put what had thus
been wiped off (sammarja7n) * in two bowls (sardvayoh, i.e.
Heaven and Earth, dydvdprthivi). . . . Thence was born the
mild (akhala) 2 Deva ... it was verily Agni that was born....
He said, ' Why have ye brought me to birth ? ' They answered
' To keep watch'" (aupadrastydya). Similarly in the
Gopatha Br., i, 1, the Brahman-Yaksa, being alone, reflects,
" Let me measure out a second God of like measure with
myself " manmdtram dvitiyam devam nirmame); this second
God, Atharvan-Prajapati, is instructed to emanate and care
for creatures, ib., i, 4.
Here then Agni-Prajapati's embodiment in the world is
already a nirmdna-kaya, a factitious body of measurement.
That Agni is to " keep watch " corresponds on the one hand to
the Vedic conception of the Sun as the " Bye of the Devas ",
and on the other to that of the Buddha, described in the
Pali texts as the " Eye in the World " (cakkhum loke), cf.
Hatha Up., v, 11, "the Sun, the eye of the whole world"
is the whole property of a Deva " (atma sarvam devasya, Nirukta, vii, 4).
What the Dovas transfer to the realm of mcasuromcnt aro the Spirit's
possibilities of formal manifestation.
A confusion of tho Spirit with the bodily self is described in Chandogya
Up., viii, 8, 5, as a ** devilish doctrine ". " Body " and " field " are
alternative expressions (idam sariram . . . ksetram) and tho " field " is
described as all that wo nowadays mean by " body and soul " (Bhagavad
Qita, xiii, 1 and 5, 6): with what bitter sarcasm Saiikara then, commenting
on ib., xiii, 2, remarks of such " learned " pandits as those who say " I am
so and so " or ** This is mine ", that " Their * learning * consists in regarding
tho field itself as their Spirit "... idam tat pandityam, yal ksetra eva utmadar
sanam I Many a modern scholar's " learning " is of this sort.
1 It is in the same way that Indra's young mother (yuvali) thinks him
"unspeakable" (avadyam) and abandons him (pardsa), RV., iv, 18, 5-8,
and that in v. 2, 5, Agni is pitied as a " mere mortal" (maryakam), cf. x,
72, 8, 9, where Aditi " casts away " the mortal Sun unto repeated birth
and death.
1 With reference to Siva. It is really tho embodiment of Rudragni
that is spoken of. Tho later assimilation of tho Buddha to Siva is by
no means without good reasons.

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 NIRMANA-KAYA 83

(sarva-lokasya caksus), and similar older texts. We

can, however, go farther. Maya, the principle of " magic "
by which the world is natured (mdyd-maya), and mdt,r,
" mother," " matrix," are likewise from root ma, " to
measure". Who else, indeed, than the Magna Mater in
whom the divine child is " measured out" and in this way
" formed ", has full right to be spoken of as Maya-devi ?
The origin of this name of the Buddha's mother can be
followed backward from the later Buddhist sources to the
Rgveda. The Buddha's temporal mother, who is, of course,
the earthly counterpart of the eternal Magna Mater, in the
same sense that " Mary in the flesh " is the counterpart of
"Mary ghostly", "was herself called 'Maya* distinctively
because her own appearance had as it were been measured
out by Maya" (mdyd-nirmitam iva bimbam mdyd-ndma
samketd, Lalita Vislara, Lefmann, p. 27, 1, 12). Very closely
related to this is Atharva Veda, viii, 9, 5, " Brhati, the measure
(mdtrd), was measured out (nirmitd) from the maternal
measure (mdtrdyd mdtur. . .adhi), Maya was born of Maya, and
Matall (= Matarisvan) from Maya." This points directly
to the idea expressed in RV. iii, 29, 11, and x, 5, 3, quoted
above. All that the Lalita Vistara adds to the concept of
the Buddha's nirmdnia-kdya, created, factitious, or iconometric
body, is the perfectly logical, and, as we have seen, traditionally
entertained presumption that the temporal Theotokos is herself
a nirmitam bimbam, a created and iconometric likeness?in
the sense of Augustine's " I made myself a mother, of whom
to be born " (Contra V Haereses, 5). We need only add, with
out pursuing the matter in detail, that similar conceptions
are to be met with in Christian theology, where creation and
generation are one and the same act of being in divinis:
it is thus, for example, that in John i, 4, quod factum est,
" What was made " (by the divine art), replaces the Greek
3 yzyzvev, " What was begotten."
There docs not appear to be any sufficient ground for
equating the Buddhist doctrine of the nirmdya-kdya with

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 84 THE MIGRATION OF THE PARSEES

the docetic heresy. The " created" body has surely the
same degree of "reality" as that of other created things,
and particularly, the same degree of reality as that of
the world itself, also traditionally thought of as brought into
being by a " measuring out" (root, nid with vi); as in RV., v,
85, 5, where it is Varuna's " mighty Magic " (maya) that he
" measured out the earth " (vi yo mame prthivim), x, 71, 11,
where it is the measure of the sacrifice that is " measured out "
(yajnasya mdtrdm vi mimite), i, 110, 5, where the "field"
is measured out (ksetram iva vi mamuh)y and many passages
in which it is a question of measuring out the " atmosphere "
(anlariksa) or " spaces " (rajanisi), i.e. of creating the worlds.
Whatever " reality ", then, attaches to the magically naturcd
(mdya-maya) world attaches equally to the magically natured
factitious or created body of the Buddha, born of Maya. If
there is also postulated in the Indian tradition a " real of the
real" (satyasya salyam), that is to say a higher reality than
that of the created world or that of anything manifested
in it, even this does not involve a docetism, but corresponds
to Augustine's point of view when he says that " Compared
to Thee, these things are neither good, nor beautiful, nor are
at all" (nee sunt, Gonf., xi, 4). But we are not at present
concerned with the problem of degrees of reality ; the point
is that the same degree of reality attaches to the world and
to the Buddha's iconometric manifestation in the world, where,
as it is expressly stated, it is in accordance with his command
of all convenient means (updya) that he appears to those
whom he would teach in their own likeness?as Augustine
says again, Faclus est Deus homo ut homo fieret Deus.
357. Ananda K. Coomaraswamy.

BALADURI AND HAMZA ISFAHAN! ON THE MIGRATION

" OF THE PARSEES
In my examination of the tradition relating to the migration
of the Parsees to India, in connection with the condition of
the Muslim world in the middle of the seventh century, I have

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