@Coemgenu Sorry for reviving this tread, but seeing attempts to justify non-Early Buddhist doctrines in the early texts where none exist causes me to wonder about this “Dharma-body” thing.
In Venerable Sujato’s DN 27 translation, he translates the relevant passage as “For these are terms for the Realized One: ‘the embodiment of truth’, and ‘the embodiment of holiness’, and ‘the one who has become the truth’, and ‘the one who has become holy’.” His translation of SN 22.87’s famous statement is “One who sees the teaching sees me. One who sees me sees the teaching. Seeing the teaching, you see me. Seeing me, you see the teaching.” These passages seem to simply point to the fact that the Buddha is the (first) one who teaches the truth, and that those who see (understand) the teachings, see (understand) the Buddha. This sense is especially clear in both MN 28/MA 30 where Venerable Sariputta quotes the Buddha’s words “One who sees dependent origination sees the teaching. One who sees the teaching sees dependent origination.” The Buddha also says to have yourself and the teachings as your own island and refuge, with no other refuge (interestingly, DA 2 mistranslates “island” as “light” but the correct translation as “island” appears in DA 21). I don’t see any non-Early Buddhist doctrine in these passages, let alone the Dharma-body doctrine of Mahayana/Vajrayana Buddhisms.
It is really weird that, as you said, the term dhammakaya seems to never appear in the Pāli when 法身 appears in the Chinese. Also, as you said, it appears only once in the Dharmaguptaka’s Dirgha Agama, which is DA 2. According to Venerable Sujato, it appears only once in the Pali Nikayas, which is DN 27. This term seems to appear here and there in different locations.
Now that I think about it, is there actually any Mahayana/Vajrayana text that explicitly talks about Dharma-body? Or does it only appear in commentaries and/or treatises?
In your opinion, do you think this term is simply a later addition to the early texts? Or, it’s early but Buddhists of the later periods misunderstood this term, and developed later doctrines concerning this term based on their misunderstanding?