Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c7.s2.5

c7.s2.5

A description like this does not suggest that Buddha was originally more than a man, a mortal. In the cosmology of the Buddhists, the gods of the various heavens, the highest of which is Brahmaloka,¹ are only beings of superior merit and power, but they are inferior, in the matter of spiritual attainments, to the saints or arhats. So in this description, the Hinayānists do not attribute any transcendental or theistic element to Buddha. All they say is that Śākyamuni, by pure and simple spiritual culture in this life and as a result of the accumulated merits of his previous lives, reached the highest stage of perfection and attained not only knowledge and power superior to any man or god but also the highest knowledge and power attainable. In the *Majjhima Nikāya*, Ānanda explains why Buddha should be considered superior to the Arhats as well, although both arrived at the same goal. He says that there is not a single bhikkhu who can be regarded as endowed with all the qualities in all their forms as possessed by Buddha. Moreover, a Buddha is the originator of the path not existing before, a knower and promulgator of the mārga, which is only followed by the sāvakas.²