Buddhbm in India

73

from that of indigenous popular cults, the Buddha was repre

sented and worshiped as an image.
A further development which encouraged the tendency to
theism was the growth of interest in the bodhisattva. iTiis
term, literally meaning Being of Wisdom, was first used
in the sense of a previous incarnation of the Buddha. For
many lives before his final birth as Siddhartha Gautama the
Bodhisattva did mighty deeds of compassion and self-sacrifice,
as he gradually perfected himself in wisdom and virtue.
Stories of the bodhisattva, known as Birth Stories (Jdtaka)
and often adapted from popular legends and fables, were very
popular with lay Buddhists, and numerous illustrations of
them occur in early Buddhist art.
It is probable that even in the lifetime of the Buddha it
was thought that he was only the last of a series of earlier
Buddhas. Later, perhaps through Zoroastrian influence, it
came to be believed that other Buddhas were yet to come,
and interest developed in Maitreya, the future Buddha, whose
coming was said to have been prophesied by the historical
Buddha, and who, in years to come, would purify the world
with his teaching. But if Maitreya was yet to come, the chain
of being w^iich would ultimately lead to his birth (or, in
the terminology of other sects, his soul) must be already in
existence. Somewhere in the universe the being later to be
come Maitreya Buddha was already active for good. And
if this one, how many more? Logically the world must be full
of bodhisattvas, all striving for the welfare of other beings.
The next step in the development of the new form of
Buddhism was the changing of the goal at which the believer
aimed. According to Buddhist teaching there are three types
of perfected beingsBuddhas, who perceived the truth for
themselves and taught it to others, pratyeka-buddhas, pri
vate buddhas, who perceived it, but kept it to themselves
and did not teach it, and arhants,^ Worthies, who learned
it from others, but fully realized it for themselves. According
to earlier schools the earnest believer should aspire to become
an arhant, a perfected being for whom there was no rebirth,
who already enjoyed Nirvana, and who would finally enter
that state after death, all vestiges of his personality dissolved.
*Pali, arahant, usually translated perfect being in our extracts.