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Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c5.s2.t12: Contact of the Sarvāstivādins with the Mahāyānists

Aspects of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Relation to Hīnayāna c5.s2.t12

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Contact of the Sarvāstivādins with the Mahāyānists

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The Mahāsānghikas may have been the forerunners of Mahāyāna, but it is clear that the Sarvāstivādins contributed much to the growth of Mahāyāna in some way or other. As a sign of close contact, it may further be pointed out that Subhūti,¹ a prominent figure in the Sarvāstivāda tradition, plays an important rôle in the *Prajñāpāramitā*. It is anomalous to find a Hīnayāna monk explaining the *śūnyatā* doctrine,⁶ which goes directly against his own; so the *Prajñāpāramitā* offers us an explanation of the anomaly by saying that whatever was preached by Subhūti was preached not according to his own lights but through the influence of Buddhas. The adoption of the *Lalita Vistara* by the Mahāyānists as the recognised *Life of Buddha* also shows a point of contact between them and the Sarvāstivādins, for, as we know from the Chinese translators, the *Lalita Vistara* was a biography of Buddha of the Sarvāstivāda school. Mahāyānism in all probability germinated in the south, where the offshoots of the Mahāsānghikas had their centres of activities but the place where it appeared more developed was somewhere in the eastern part of India where the Sarvāstivādins were predominant. Tāranātha tells us that the *Prajñāpāramitā* was first preached by Mañjuśrī at Oḍivisa (Orissa),² which, if not the actual centre of the Sarvāstivādins, was in the neighbourhood of the Sarvāstivāda spheres of influence, for we have already seen that Dhitika propagated Sarvāstivāda Buddhism in Kāmrūpa, and Puṇḍravardhana was the extended eastern limit of the Sarvāstivāda Madhyadeśa. But the most fruitful contact between the Sarvāstivādins and the Mahāyānists took place at Nalanda, which became the principal centre of Mahāyāna and the seat of Nāgārjuna.

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¹ See, e.g., the *Ava. S.*, pp. 127-132 and p. xl. (*Kalpadrumāvadāna*); R. L. Mitra, *Nep. B. Lit.*, pp. 295-6. In the *Apadāna*, and in the *Aṅguttara*, and its commentary, Subhūti is mentioned as the chief of the Araṇavihārins, but he is not given much prominence in Pāli works.

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² *Tāra.*, p. 58.

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