Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c5.s2.t9.1

c5.s2.t9.1

We shall now proceed to take a panoramic view of the doctrinal developments that took place during this period and heralded the advent of Mahāyānism. The Mahāsānghikas were evidently the earliest school of the Hīnayānists to show a tendency for conceiving Buddha docetically, which was later on brought to completion by a branch of theirs, the Lokottaravādins.¹ But whether the conception of the Bodhisattva and the practice of the six pāramitās were introduced for the first time by the Mahāsānghikas or by the Sarvāstivādins is uncertain. The mention of the ṣaṭ-pāramitā, the fulfilment of which is compulsory for the Bodhisattvas, is frequently found in the works of both the Sarvāstivādins and the Mahāsānghikas, and both are responsible for the growth of the large mass of Avadāna literature,² the central theme of which is the fulfilment of the pāramitās.