Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c6.s9.24

c6.s9.24

The treatise then proceeds to remove a suspicion that might be entertained by the opponents regarding the straightforwardness of the Teacher in the adoption of the upāyakauśalyas. It uses a parable to explain away the suspicion. A rich old man owns a very big house which can accommodate five hundred persons, but the house has only one door, and a roof of straw (tṛṇa). Suddenly, the house catches fire, the old man comes out, but his twenty sons remain within it unmindful of the fire. He thinks that he is strong enough to bring them out safely. The father apprises them of the fire and asks them to come out but they will not believe him. As the father knows the playthings coveted by his sons, he thinks of using the expedient (upāya-kauśalya) of tempting his sons out of the house by offering them the toys called Goratha, Ajaratha, and Mṛgaratha. He places them outside the house, and the boys run to reach them. When the father sees them all out of danger, he feels happy, and gives them not the ordinary toys placed by him outside the gate but toys of immeasurable value, as he is immensely rich.¹ Buddha is compared here to the rich father, and the three rathas to the three yānas. The means of exit from the fire is only one and the Teacher attracts his disciples out of the fire through the exit and gives them the invaluable ratha, the Buddhayāna.² This illustration is open to criticism, for the Hinayānists might say that Buddha promised one thing and gave another, and therefore, he was open to the charge of having spoken a falsehood. The treatise meets it by saying that though Buddha was speaking of three yānas, he had all along in his mind the excellent one. By all these it is sought to establish that Buddha had only one religion and it was Mahāyāna, but his first disciples were not intelligent enough to grasp it and what they gave out as Buddhism was really a superficial view of the religion.