Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c10.s5.2

c10.s5.2

The *Prajñāpāramitās* also like all other philosophical works had to eradicate many of the old deep-rooted ideas. They directed their attention mainly to their predecessors, the Hīnayānists. The Hīnayānists, as is well known, had already enjoyed a long lease of life and developed a fair amount of literature on their doctrines, the classification of dharmas, psychological analyses, etc. The *Prajñāpāramitās* took the most popular of these doctrines and disciplines, and tried to show that from the new point of view, which the *Prajñāpāramitās* set out to inculcate, they were all to be treated as mere names having no existence whatsoever. To give an illustration: They preach that a bodhisattva while practising the prajñāpāramitā does not consider himself attached or unattached to any (mentioning each and every one) of the 5 skandhas, 6 indriyas, 6 āyatanas, 6 vijñānas, 4 mahābhūtas, 12 links of the pratityasamutpāda, 6 pāramitās, 18 śūnyatās, 37 bodhipakṣikadharmas, apramāṇas, samādhis, samāpattis, āveṇikadharmas, balas, vaiśāradyas, phalas, tathatā, ātman, sukha, nirvāṇa, and so forth.