Triratna
(Sk.)
Also: • Ratnatraya •
The Three Jewels, the technical term for the well‐known formula “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha” (or Samgha), the two latter terms meaning, in modern interpretation, “religious law” (Dharma), and the “priesthood” (Sangha). Esoteric Philosophy, however, would regard this as a very loose rendering. The words “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha”, ought to be pronounced as in the days of Gautama, the Lord Buddha, namely “Bodhi, Dharma and Sangha and interpreted to mean “Wisdom, its laws and priests ”, the latter in the sense of “ spiritual exponents ”, or adepts. Buddha, however, being regarded as personified “ Bodhi” on earth, a true avatar of Âdi‐Buddha, Dharma gradually came to be regarded as his own particular law, and Sangha as his own special priesthood. Nevertheless, it is the profane of the later (now modern) teachings who have shown a greater degree of natural intuition than the actual interpreters of Dharma, the Buddhist priests. The people see the Triratna in the three statues of Amitâbha, Avalokiteshvara and Maitreya Buddha; i.e., in Boundless Light” or Universal Wisdom, an impersonal principle which is the correct meaning of Âdi‐Buddha; in the “Supreme Lord” of the Bodhisattvas, or Avalokiteshvara; and in Maitreya Buddha, the symbol of the terrestrial and human Buddha, the “Mânushi Buddha ”. Thus, even though the uninitiated do call these three statues “the Buddhas of the Past, the Present and the Future ”, still every follower of true philosophical Buddhism — called “atheistical” by Mr. Eitel — would explain the term Triratna correctly. The philosopher of the Yogachârya School would say — as well he could — “Dharma is not a person but an unconditioned and underived entity, combining in itself the spiritual and material principles of the universe, whilst from Dharma proceeded, by emanation, Buddha [ Bodhi rather], as the creative energy which produced, in conjunction with Dharma, the third factor in the trinity, viz., ‘Samgha’, which is the comprehensive sum total of all real life.” Samgha, then, is not and cannot be that which it is now understood to be, namely, the actual “ priesthood”; for the latter is not the sum total of all real life, but only of religious life. The real primitive significance of the word Samgha or “Sangha” applies to the Arhats or Bhikshus, or the “initiates”, alone, that is to say to the real exponents of Dharma — the divine law and wisdom, coming to them as a reflex light from the one “boundless light ”. Such is its philosophical meaning. And yet, far from satisfying the scholars of the Western races, this seems only to irritate them; for E. J. Eitel, of Hongkong, remarks, as to the above : “ Thus the dogma of a Triratna, originating from three primitive articles of faith, and at one time culminating in the conception of three persons, a trinity in unity, has degenerated into a metaphysical theory of the evolution of three abstract principles ”! And if one of the ablest European scholars will sacrifice every philosophical ideal to gross anthropomorphism, then what can Buddhism with its subtle metaphysics expect at the hands of ignorant missionaries? (TG).
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- Quotes: H. P. Blavatsky
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Shortly: The Three Jewels, the technical term for the well‐known formula “Buddha, Dharma and Sangha” (or Samg...