Great Vehicle: Mahāyāna

Buddhism
 Two Vehicles (yana)
 Two ‘vehicles’ or methods of
achieving enlightenment
 1. Greater Vehicle (bodhisattva-yana,
mahayana)
 2. Lesser Vehicle (hinayana)
 Mahāyāna Buddhism
• At about the time of Christ, Buddhism became divided
– Theravada (Hinayana) – small raft (vehicle)
– Mahāyāna– large raft (vehicle)
• One striking feature of the Mahāyāna is its literature (Prajnaparamita Sutras)
– Written in Sanskrit
– Proliferated about 100 BC – 400 AD
– Too voluminous for any single person to read in a single lifetime
• “The wisdom gone to the other shore”
• Lotus Sutra, Diamond Sutra, etc.

Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana
%20Buddhism.ppt
 Mahāyāna Buddhism
• Theravada Buddhism: the 3 marks of all existence
– Anatta (no self); Dukkha (painfulness); Anicca (impermanence)

• Mahāyāna Buddjsm added “emptiness,” as the fourth mark of all existence

– Happiness is intrinsic to a healthy mind
– Don’t grasp; just “be”
– Reality is not an illusion; but its real nature (its reality) is transparent to analysis
– The objective world exists, but its independent existence, separate from its
subjective perception, cannot be found
– A “non-verbal” experience of reality is what is needed

Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana
%20Buddhism.ppt
 Comparison between the two schools (chart)
Theravada (Hinayana) Mahāyāna
• Teaching of the elders Spirit of the elders
• Small vehicle Large (great) vehicle
• Man as an individual Man involved with others
• Man on his own in the universe Man is not alone (grace is real)
• Key virtue: wisdom (bodhi) Key virtue: compassion (karuna)
• Religion is primarily for monks Religion is for laypersons as well
• Ideal: the Arhat (lonely saint) Ideal: the Bodhisattva
• Nirvana Nirvana + heavens, hells
• Buddha is a saint or sage Buddha is a savior
• Avoids metaphysics (speculation) Elaborates metaphysics
• Avoids ritual Includes ritual
• Conservative Liberal
• Pali texts Many later texts (Sanskrit)
• Old wisdom school New wisdom school
• Escape Samsara, and reach Nirvana Samsara is Nirvana (identity)
• Ceylon, Burma, etc. (Southern Bism) China, Korea, Japan (N Bism)
Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana
%20Buddhism.ppt
 Most Mahayanists hold that Buddha privately taught that man does
not have to save himself; there is help available. The number of
Buddhas proliferated. The authors of salvation are of three kinds:
• Manushi Buddhas (started from a human base – Gotama
Buddha)
 They came on earth, attained enlightenment, and are now
gone. They are teachers
 Gotama before his enlightenment
• Bodhisattvas
 Beings who vowed to become Buddhas and have enormous
merit; they postponed their entrance to Nirvana to help us
 Maitreya, Avalokitesvara, Kwan Yin, Amitabha
• Dhyani Buddhas (meditation Buddhas, never in human form)
 They achieved Buddha-hood, but not in human manifestation
 Vairocana, Amitabha are the most appealing of the D.
Buddhas

 Also, a mythology about the Buddha developed (Buddhology)

 The Trikaya (Triple Body of the Buddha)
• Dharmakaya (analogous to the “Godhead”)
• Sambogakhaya
Slide Credit: (analogous to the “resurrected” Christ)
• Nirmanakaya (analogous to the historical Jesus of Nazareth)
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana
%20Buddhism.ppt
The Bodhisattva became popular
 A being whose essence is enlightenment
 The bodhisattva vow (to save all sentient beings) [Vision p 41]

 Daily schedule of the schools of Buddhism (Theravada, Zen, Tibetan)

• Rise at 4 am
• Lunch is the main meal
• To bed by 10 pm
• A lot of time given to study/work

 Re: the conduct of the various schools

• Symbiotic relationship
• Conduct (gives merit, or punya) includes
 Rules of restraint (5 and 5)
 The perfections towards which we should strive
 Taking responsibility for one’s actions

Slide Credit:
www.euro-tongil.org/.../PPT/...Carlson/Mahayana
%20Buddhism.ppt
Beginings of the Mahayana

Rupert Gethin:

“...around the beginning of the Christian era there began to

emerge scriptures that challenged certain established Buddhist
teachings and ways of understanding, and which advocated
what is represented as a superior path of practice leading to
superior understanding” (Gethin , 224).
 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
•New texts on the sceneauthenticity?
•Not a problem particular to Mahayana, according to Davidson

“The buddhist traditions in India found themselves, at one time or

another, inundated with a morass of material that passed under
the rubric of the “word of the Buddha” (buddhavacana). As a
result, during the course of its approximately seventeen hundred
years in the land of its origin, Indian Buddhist communities
constantly found themselves encountering tension between the
more conservative masters of Buddhist doctrine and those who,
either tacitly or not, were open to the prospect of the
reinterpretation and recodification of the dharma preached by the
Tathagata.”

-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural

Authenticity in Indian Buddhism
 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
Authenticity
“But if the comparison is performed by examining the meaning
through reason which does not contradict the nature of reality,
then a meaning which harmonizes with the significance of
discourses and is characterized by reality accordingly
demonstrates its own significance. So those discourses which
demonstrate the significance of the disciples’ darma belong to the
disciples’ vehicle. Those discourses which demonstrate the
significance of the private budddhas’ dharma belong to the private
buddhas’ vehicle, and those discourses which demonstrate the
significance of the bodhisattvas’ dharma belong to the
bodhisattvas’ vehicle.”

Saramati’s Great Vehicle (408-409)

 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
Authenticity
“One who slanders the dharma of the Great Vehicle certainly
hastens to the lower states of existence. This person experiences
the maturation of his action and its real nature should be stated.

He is born sunk in hell, his body burning with a great flame, the
great torture of his incineration the reliable result of sinful action.”

Saramati’s Great Vehicle (406)

 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
Authenticity
“Futhermore, Mara, the Evil One, may come along in the guise of a
Shramana, and say: 'Give up what you have heard up to now,
abandon what you have gained so far! And if you follow this
advice, we will again and again approach you, and say to you:
"What you have heard just now, that is not the word of the
Buddha. It is poetry, the work of poets. But what I here teach to
you, that isQuoted
the teaching of the Buddha, that is the word of the
from: Astasahasrika
Buddha".” Prajnaparamita (The Perfection of
Wisdom in Eight Thousand Lines)
“Other early Mahayana works attest to the same traditionalist
criticism in much the same terms, so we are left in no doubt as to
its prevalence”
INSPIRED SPEECH IN
EARLY
MAHAYANA BUDDHISM I
-Graeme MacQueen
 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
Authenticity
“It is my intention to examine certain aspects of the development
of standards of scriptural authenticity in India:
1. the method of scriptural transmission of the early Sangha and
the general attitudes that contributed to the early scriptural and
doctrinal elaboration
2. the role of the councils in the compilation of a canon and the
codified standards of authenticity established to effect scriptural
purity
3. the claim to authority of the Abhidharmika masters as a model of
development and the response of their critics
4. the mythology and apologetics for the Mahayana
5. the steps taken by the Vajracaryas to establish the authority of
the Vajrayana”
-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of Scriptural
Authenticity in Indian Buddhism
 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
Authenticity
A bhiksu might claim that certain teachings were the dharma, the
Vinaya, the teaching of the teacher, as they were heard from:

1. the mouth of the buddha,

2. a Samgha of elders
3. a group of bhiksus who were
-specialists in the dharma
-specialists in the Vinaya
-specialists in the proto-abhidharma lists
-a single bhiksu who was such a specialist

-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of

Scriptural Authenticity in Indian Buddhism
 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
Authenticity
“Abhidharma was the first wholly new form of literature to arise in
Buddhist India claiming status as scripture. Its methodologies,
both intellectual and apologetic, were to set much of the stage for
the Mahayana.”

-Ronald Davidson, An Introduction to the Standards of

Scriptural Authenticity in Indian Buddhism
 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
Authenticity
•Abhidharma lists began as “little more than mnemonic devices
facilitating the memorization of certain groups of psycho-
physical developments” (Davidson, 303).

•However, they “became the focus of an intense scholastic

movement that aspired to remove any doubt about the
functional relation of any element of reality to any other
element, the sutras being neither exhaustive on all points of
doctrine nor written with a clear structural layout. With this in
mind, the Abhidarmika masters wished to construct a ‘definitive’
statement about which no doubt could be harbored, since they
maintained that the sutras were ‘intentional’ in their content,
being spoken by the Buddha for a certain audience in a specific
frame of mind” (Davidson, 303).
 Beginnings of the
Mahayana
As a movement:
Schopen’s data, page 17

Do you think Schopen’s argument is valid?

How confident is he/are we in his evidence?

Are certain pieces of his evidence more reliable than others?

http://kaladarshan.arts.ohio-state.edu/studypages/internal/CS321
/03MahayanaVajrayana.htm
 Women’s Liberation in Buddhism
“Throughout the history of Buddhism in Asia, the Dharma has been
transmitted via cultures that considered women inferior to men.
Undoubtedly, many of the outstanding Dharma teachers were male
chauvinists. Yet the message of the teachings broke through their
cultural prejudices against women. This message inspired female
seekers to find true spiritual liberation in spite of their oppressed
positions in society.”
-Rev. Patti Nakai
 Women in Buddhism
“If anyone wanted to present Buddhism as a viciously sexist
religion, they could easily do so by quoting out of context passages
from numerous sutras or from more recent texts such as Shinran's
wasan (poems) or the by-laws of the Shinshu Otani-ha (Higashi
Honganji's denomination) which denies female clergy the same
status as male priests. But I believe the essential spirit of
Buddhism absolutely includes all beings, male and female, in its
vision of enlightenment. If I did not believe in that then I would not
want to be a part of this religious tradition. In this intermittent
series, I hope to make it clear that women have always been
involved in Buddhist history and that their role has been very
crucial even if often overlooked.”
-Rev. Patti Nakai
 Women in Buddhism
“In Mahayana Buddhism, since discrimination between beings was a
delusion that must be transcended, lay people had as much
potential to be enlightened as clergy. "Lay" and "clergy" were only
artificial categories created by karmic conditions. For women this
meant a new opportunity to be recognized as seekers because
women were less free to leave their obligations in the secular world
than men.”
(breaking down dualisms)
-Rev. Patti Nakai
 Women in Buddhism
Gandhara
“In the rising merchant class, it was the women who were very
involved in supporting Buddhist temples. It may be crass to say,
but because women were in a position of economic power,
Buddhist institutions had to pay attention to their spiritual needs.
This explains the emphasis on sutras featuring women such as the
Meditation Sutra and the Queen Srimala Sutra.”
-Rev. Patti Nakai
 Women in Buddhism
China
In China, one of the most powerful champions of Buddhism was the
Empress Wu (late 7th century). She knew that a woman seizing
control of the throne went against Confucian tradition, so she used
Buddhist scriptures to justify her rule. Although she was ruthlessly
using Buddhism for her own political gain, the new sutras which
declared the spiritual potential of women benefited the nuns in
various Chinese sects.
-Rev. Patti Nakai