“All beings in the world, Beyond words they are and expressions: Their ultimate nature, pure and true, Is like unto vacuity of space.”[10] _The Dharmakâya._ The Dharmakâya, which literally means “body or system of being,” is, according to the Mahâyânists, {46} the ultimate reality that underlies all particular phenomena; it is that which makes the existence of individuals possible; it is the _raison d’être_ of the universe; it is the norm of being, which regulates the course of events and thoughts. The conception of Dharmakâya is peculiarly Mahâyânistic, for the Hînayâna school did not go so far as to formulate the ultimate principle of the universe; its adherents stopped short at a positivistic interpretation of Buddhism. The Dharmakâya remained for them to be the Body of the Law, or the Buddha’s personality as embodied in the truth taught by him. The Dharmakâya may be compared in one sense to the God of Christianity and in another sense to the Brahman or Paramâtman of Vedantism. It is different, however, from the former in that it does not stand transcendentally above the universe, which, according to the Christian view, was created by God, but which is, according to Mahâyânism, a manifestation of the Dharmakâya himself. It is also different from Brahman in that it is not absolutely impersonal, nor is it a mere being. The Dharmakâya, on the contrary, is capable of willing and reflecting, or, to use Buddhist phraseology, it is _Karunâ_ (love) and _Bodhi_ (intelligence), and not the mere state of being. This pantheistic and at the same time entheistic Dharmakâya is working in every sentient being, for sentient beings are nothing but a self-manifestation of the Dharmakâya. Individuals are not isolated existences, as imagined by most people. If isolated, {47} they are nothing, they are so many soap-bubbles which vanish one after another in the vacuity of space. All particular existences acquire their meaning only when they are thought of in their oneness in the Dharmakâya. The veil of Mâya, i.e., subjective ignorance may temporally throw an obstacle to our perceiving the universal light of Dharmakâya, in which we are all one. But when our Bodhi or intellect, which is by the way a reflection of the Dharmakâya in the human mind, is so fully enlightened, we no more build the artificial barrier of egoism before our spiritual eye; the distinction between the _meum_ and _teum_ is obliterated, no dualism throws the nets of entanglement over us; I recognise myself in you and you recognise yourself in me; _tat tvam asi_. Or, “What is here, that is there; What is there, that is here: Who sees duality here, From death to death goes he.”[11] This state of enlightenment may be called the spiritual expansion of the ego, or, negatively, the ideal annihilation of the ego. A never-drying stream of sympathy and love which is the life of religion will now spontaneously flow out of the fountainhead of Dharmakâya.