The tathāgatagarbha doctrine of Mahāyāna Buddhism affirms the existence of some permanent, significant content of sentient beings that is of the same character as a Buddha. While this alone was an important innovation within Buddhist thought, some of its authors ventured further to deem this significant content an ātman: a ‘self’, in apparent contradiction to the central Buddhist teaching of the absence of self (anātman) in the constitution of all beings. The aims of this thesis are two. Firstly, to examine usage of the term ātman in the Indian tathāgatagarbha sources which develop use of this expression. This entails a close reading of relevant sources (primarily Mahāyāna sūtra literature), and attention to how this term is used in the context of each. These sources present different perspectives on the tathāgatagarbha and its designation as a self; this study aims to examine significant differences between, and similarities across, these texts and their respective doctrines. The second aim is to attempt an account of why authors of these texts ventured to designate the tathāgatagarbha with the term ātman, especially when some of our sources suggest that this innovation received some opposition, while others deem it in requirement of strong qualification, or to be simply inappropriate. It is not my objective to account for whether or not the tathāgatagarbha is or is not implicitly what we may deem ‘a self’ on the terms of Buddhist tradition; rather, I am concerned with the manner in which this expression itself was adopted, and – in light of clear difficulties raises by it – what may have motivated those authors responsible. I argue not only that we can trace the development of this designation across the tathāgatagarbha literature, but also that those authors responsible for its earliest usage adopted an attitude towards non-Buddhist discourses on the self that requires special attention. This, I believe, had its roots in an account of the Buddha and his influence that advances our understanding of one tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhology, and its ambition to affirm its superiority over other Indian religious traditions.

楞嚴經中的身心關係, 簡單地說來, 是以空性為基礎而達至 '身心一體' 的結論, 實際理論分析的過程, 則可用 '不即不離本一體, 非因非自體空寂' 二句話概括. '不即' 是指因先揀擇真妄 (心真身妄) 而顯現出心與身之不一, '不離' 則是說明此虛妄之身與心之不異, 而不一不異的可能性在於二者 '本一體'; 然此體非一實在之自體, 其性空寂, 雙遣因緣和自然, 展現出離一切戲論言說之妙真如性, 後者即一般所謂的 '空如來藏'. 在論文的第二章第二節 '視覺分析與光影成像' 中,我們藉一般的常識說明普通人 的觀念----書在眼外, 心在身內----是錯 誤的, 文中名之為 '視網膜弔詭', 這是理解本論文的重要方法.