Dharmakaya

The dharmakāya (Sanskrit: धर्मकाय; Pali: धम्मकाय, lit. "truth body" or "reality body") is one of the three bodies (trikaya) of the Buddha in Mahayana Buddhism. Dharmakāya constitutes the unmanifested, "inconceivable" (acintya) aspect of a Buddha, out of which Buddhas arise and to which they return after their dissolution. Buddhas are manifestations of the dharmakāya called nirmanakaya ("transformation body"). Reginald Ray writes of it as "the body of reality itself, without specific, delimited form, wherein the Buddha is identified with the spiritually charged nature of everything that is."

The Dhammakaya Movement of Thailand and the Tathāgatagarbha sūtras of the ancient Indian tradition view the Dharmakāya as the true self of the Buddha, present within all beings.

There are three ways of seeing the concept of the Dharmakaya in the prajnaparamita sutras:

First, the dharmakaya is the collection of teachings, particularly the Prajñaparamita itself. Second, it is the collection of pure dharmas possessed by the Buddha, specifically pure mental dharmas cognizing emptiness. And third, it comes to refer to emptiness itself, the true nature of things. The dharmakaya in all these senses is contrasted with the Buddha’s physical body, that which lived and died and is preserved in stupas.