dharmadhatu

dharmadhātu is an important Dharma term that shows up in various texts and commentaries. There are many descriptions of what this is, but let's take Allan Wallace's explanation from Fathoming the Mind, Inquiry and Insight in Dudjom Lingpa's Vajra Essence which is a Dzogchen presentation:

The expanse of all phenomena in saṃsāra and nirvāṇa. This does not refer to space in the reified, Newtonian sense, but rather to an ultimate dimension of space out of which all manifestations of relative space-time and mass-energy emerge, in which they are present, and into which they eventually dissolve. Likewise, all manifestations of relative states of consciousness and mental processes emerge as displays of primordial consciousness, which according to the Great Perfection tradition has always been indivisible from the absolute space of phenomena.

Now, this term can mean the entire expanse of phenomena, but also the “essential element” of phenomena, which is emptiness, or an indivisible union of emptiness and fundamental clarity.

The Tibetan for dharmadhātu is ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་ chos kyi dbyings, or often shortened as ཆོས་དབྱིངས. Here ཆོས་ dharma could be used in many different contexts. Vasubandhu's Vyākhyāyukti list the following: knowable thing, path, nirvana, mental object, merit, life, teachings of the Buddha or its scriptures, material objects, rules or religious vows, and spiritual traditions. Or, they all relate to the sense of 'holding' as the Sanskrit root for dharma is dhṛ, to 'hold'.

དབྱིངས་ is Sanskrit dhātu, or expanse, sphere, space, a dimension of emptiness or basic space.

So the combination makes the dharmadhātu term quite vast, indeed. A common translation is Realm of Reality, for example used in Jared Rhoton's translation of Sakya Pandita's Clear Differentiation of the Three Sets of Vows,  སྡོམ་གསུམ་རབ་དབྱེ་,  sdom gsum rab dbye. Here's an example from his translation:

།ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་ནི་དུས་གསུམ་དང་། །ཁམས་གསུམ་དང་ནི་དགེ་སྡིག་ལས། 

“Utterly free of the three times, of the three realms, of evil and virtue is the Realm of Reality.”

Other examples of how this is translated are: basic space of phenomena, the realm of all dharmas, realm of phenomena, absolute expanse, expanse of reality, or as synonym for ultimate nature. To call  it “expanse” will invoke the space-like quality of the ultimate mode of being of all existing things.

Then dharmadhātu is used in specific contexts such as the wisdom of dharmadhatu ཆོས་ཀྱི་དབྱིངས་ཀྱི་ཡེ་ཤེས་ chos kyi dbyings kyi ye shes as one of the five wisdoms, or in Abhidharma as mental-object element, ཆོས་ཀྱོ་ཁམས་ chos kyi khams, the object of mental consciousness that is otherwise known as the “phenomena element.”

Many modern translations, such as the LotsawaHouse translations, keep the term in Sanskrit and then a footnote could be provided with the explanation for the specific translation. Maybe we have another Sanskrit-Buddhist-Western word in the making.

See Also:

• Thubten Jinpa, Tibetan Translation Master Class at Wisdom Experience, Session 28 where he and Anne Klein discusses this word and how Anne Klein has tried various approaches to translate this word based on the context.