Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c7.s2.t11.1

c7.s2.t11.1

The Mahāyānic texts tried to show, on the one hand, that the Hinayānists were wrong in their belief that Śākyamuni was really a man of flesh and blood and that relics of his body existed, while on the other hand, they introduced the two conceptions of Nirmāṇakāya and Buddhakāya. Whatever is said to have been done by Śākyamuni is accounted for by these texts as the apparent doings of a phantom of the Buddhakāya, a shadowy image created to follow the ways of the world (lokānuvartana),² in order to bring conviction to the hearts of the people that the attainment of Buddhahood was not an impossibility. As the Buddhas possess the knowledge of all that is to be done (kṛtyānuṣṭhāna jñāna),¹ they can take any form they desire for the illumination of the various classes of beings. The Mahāyānic conception of the Nirmāṇakāya is essentially the same as that of the Mahāsānghikas.