Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c2.5

c2.5

One of your best chapters, the newest by virtue of both the subject and the method, is that devoted to the Vinaya of the Great Vehicle. While reading it I have taken many of your notes and references. You have rectified some errors that have been current for a long time. We know that the Chinese pilgrims noticed long ago that the members of the two Vehicles resided together in a number of convents. The monks,—some adhering to the Great Vehicle and some to the Small, but belonging to the same sect, as also members of different sects within the convent of a particular sect,—lived in excellent harmony performing in unison the ecclesiastical acts, and evidently complying quite closely with the same disciplinary rules. Many European critics, not the less, or the least prudent, have denied it in the name of logic: "The sects have for their basis", says one of them, "not only traditional formalities but also some canonical writings, and precise doctrines; a sect divided into two yānas is therefore almost inconceivable. The statements of this nature found in the accounts of the Chinese pilgrims are due probably to confusion, or point to variations purely local and do not permit one to draw from them a general principle." All this is not clear; but we know, from the account given by I-tsing, the story of a Buddhist of the Great Vehicle, who had a horror for meat food: his master, of the Small Vehicle, refused him ordination as long as he did not eat the "three pure (kinds of meat).” This anecdote, so touching, shows where the difficulty lies. The master of Cittavarman saw nothing wrong in the fact that his disciple read books of the Great Vehicle; his sect had undoubtedly definite views about *sarvam asti*, about the inutility of the cult of the Bodhisattvas and so forth, but these were problems that did not affect the life of the monks within a convent. The important point is the respect shown to the traditional *Vinaya*. Cittavarman’s master cannot tolerate the scruples about eating which Cittavarman had foolishly learnt from the *Laṅkāvatāra*. In the same way, the king of Koutcha received respectfully Hiouen Tsang despite his Mahāyānism, but he had in mind to persuade him to take pure meat. Nevertheless, Cittavarman was received amongst the convinced and irreconcilable Hīnayānists, but all Hīnayānists were not of this sort and finally the diversities of diet were allowed in the same convent.