Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c5.s2.t2.19

c5.s2.t2.19

Like Buddhaghosa, the Mahāyānic expositors attempted to classify their literature according to the twelve aṅgas—a division current among the Sarvāstivādins, the Mahāsāṅghikas and others, placing the Aṣṭasāhasrikā-Prajñāpāramitā under Sūtra, the Gaṇḍavyūha, Samādhirāja and Saddharmapuṇḍarīka under Vyākaraṇa, and so forth.² But this division of scriptures into twelve Aṅgas was not the work of the Mahāyānists. It had been made by the Sarvāstivādins³ and the Mahāsāṅghikas and followed by some of the other Hinayānic schools. The three additional Aṅgas are Nidāna, Avadāna and Upadeśa.⁴ Burnouf explains Nidāna as those treatises which show the causes antecedent to events, e.g., how Śākyamuni became a Buddha. The cause was the completion of the Pāramitās by Buddha and so the treatises, or the portions of treatises, describing the completion of pāramitās are called Nidānas. He also points out that there is no literature which is classified under Nidāna.¹ The explanation of Burnouf is supported by the Nidānakathā of the Jātakaṭṭhavaṇṇanā. But in the Mahāyāna literature as well as in the Mahāvastu, Nidāna signifies the introductory description which sometimes contains, as in the case of the Mahāvastu,² hints of the topics to be dealt with in the treatise. The description of the preparations made by Buddha, viz., entering into samādhi and putting forth rays of light from the body, the appearance of Buddhas on lotus, and so forth before the preaching of the Prajñāpāramitā, is called Nidāna.³ In the Tibetan versions of the Ratnakūṭa-sūtras, the place where a particular Sūtra was delivered is referred to as Nidāna.⁴ Considering the uses of this expression, we may take it as that aṅga (portion) of a treatise, which contains the introductory matters. The sense of the term Avadāna is clear and needs no comment. It includes all stories of previous births whether of Buddha or of any of his disciples or of any prominent figure professing the Buddhist faith, and a huge literature has grown under this heading.⁵ In the explanation of the term Upadeśa, however, there is some obscurity. There is hardly any justification for considering the Buddhist Tantras as coming under the heading Upadeśa, for they had not come into existence when the term Upadeśa came into vogue.⁶ It certainly means "instruction" and this is supported by the Tibetan rendering of the term by bab-par-bstan pahisde. In one⁷ of the Chinese texts it has been explained as those discourses which contain expositions of the profound and mysterious dharmas. That the term later on bore this sense is also apparent from the fact that the *Abhisamayālaṅkārakārikā* is sometimes called *Prajñāpāramitopadeśaśāstra*.¹