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Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c7.s1.t2: Fundamental Points of Difference

Aspects of Mahāyāna Buddhism and its Relation to Hīnayāna c7.s1.t2

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Fundamental Points of Difference

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The Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka, in this manner, clearly brings out the fundamental points of difference between the doctrines of Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna. It shows :—

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(1) That Buddha resides aloof from the three dhātus, though he appears in them out of compassion for the innumerable beings who suffer on account of their ignorance of the Truth;

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(2) That the Nirvāṇa of Śrāvakas is only a place of rest where there is no misery, but it is not the real and final rest, and that Śrāvakas after attaining their Nirvāṇa have still to undergo a course of training to enable them to reach the only real and final state, Buddhahood; and

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(3) That the mental capacities of beings vary; so for a certain class of beings (i.e., Śrāvakas), the four Truths and the Law of Causation were preached in order to lead them out of the three dhātus, Kāma, Rūpa and Arūpa.

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These three points require separate treatment, for the first refers to the Trikāya conception of the Mahāyānists, the second to the conception of Nirvāṇa as held by Śrāvakas and Bodhisattvas, and the third to the conventional and transcendental truths in Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna.

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(b) The Doctrine of Kāya

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The first point of difference between the Hinayāna and Mahāyāna schools noticed by the Saddharma-Puṇḍarīka, viz., that Buddha makes a show of his existence in the three dhātus leads us to an examination of the question of the Kāyas of Buddha as conceived by the Hinayānists and the Mahāyānists. Of the Hinayāna schools, the Sthaviravādins had very little to do with the kāya conceptions, as Buddha was to them an actual man living in this world like any other human being and subject to all the frailties of a mortal body. Metaphorically they sometimes spoke of Buddha as identical with Dhamma without any metaphysical implication but these remarks gave opportunity to the Sarvāstivādins and the Mahāyānists to put forth their theories of Dharmakāya.

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The Sarvāstivādins commenced speculating on the kāya of Buddha, but it was the school of the Mahāsāṅghikas that took up the question of kāya in right earnest and paved the way for the speculations of the Mahāyānists.

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The early Mahāyānists, whose doctrines are mostly to be found in the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā, along with the school of Nāgārjuna conceived of two kāyas: (i) Rūpa- (or Nirmāṇa-) kāya, which included bodies, gross and subtle, meant for beings in general, and (ii) Dharmakāya, which was used in two senses, one being the body of Dharma, (i.e., collection of practices) which makes a being a Buddha, and the other the metaphysical principle underlying the universe—the Reality (Tathatā).

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The Yogācāra school distinguished the gross rūpakāya from the subtle rūpakāya, calling the former Rūpa- or Nirmāṇa-kāya and the latter Sambhogakāya. The Laṅkāvatāra, representing the earliest stage of the Yogācāra conception, calls the Sambhoga-kāya Nisyanda-buddha or Dharmatā-nisyanda-buddha (the Buddha produced by the Dharmas). The Sūtrālaṅkāra¹ uses the term Sambhogakāya for Nisyandabuddha and Svābhāvikakāya for Dharmakāya. In the *Abhisamayālaṅkārakārikā* and the recast version of the *Pañcaviṃśati-sāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā*, Sambhogakāya denotes the subtle body which the Buddhas adopted for preaching their doctrines to Bodhisattvas, and Dharmakāya, the body purified by the practice of the bodhipaksika and other dharmas which constitute a Buddha. For the metaphysical Dharmakāya they use the term Svabhāva- or Svābhāvikakāya. The *Vijñaptimātratāsiddhi* retains the conception of the *Kārikā* but adopts a new term, Svasambhogakāya, to denote the Dharmakāya of the *Kārikā* and distinguishes the Sambhogakāya by calling it Parasambhoga-kāya.

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¹ Sūtrā., pp. 45, 188.

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