The early Mahayana Buddhism scholar Ashvaghosha introduced Bhuta Tathata to explain the inexplicable and transcended stage of the existent world. Ashvaghosha stated that life in the world can be distinguished in two ways – the aspect of Bhuta-tathata and samsara (aspect of cycle of birth and death). This suchness of existence has no attribute and it can only be indicated in speech as ‘suchness’. As soon as the totality of existence is spoken of or thought of, there is neither that which speaks nor that which is spoken of; there is neither that which thinks nor that which is thought of. This is the stage of suchness of existence. It transcends the range of human intellectual categories of comprehension.
The ignorant can see only the samsara as they are unable to
break the fetters of maya (mental constructions) of the phenomenal world. They
can just get a glimpse of the limited range of finite phenomena. The enlightened
one can experience the Bhuta-tathata. The phenomenal world is of the nature of
bhranti (illusion) for the ignorant but a state of Bhuta-tathata for the
enlightened.