Aspects of Mahayana Buddhism and its Relation to Hinayana c7.s3.t6.1

c7.s3.t6.1

Of late, many scholars have tried to elicit from the various passages of the Nikāyas dealing with Nirvāṇa the sense which Buddha had in his mind, or at least the sense with which the earliest Buddhism started. Most of the earlier scholars, who did the pioneering work in the field of Buddhism, namely, Childers, Burnouf, Hardy were inclined to interpret Nirvāṇa as annihilation or to use the common Indian term Ucchedavāda, a dogma which was opposed to the view of the early Buddhists.¹ Professor La Vallée Poussin suggests that this conclusion of the scholars was an inevitable consequence of the denial of soul by the early Buddhists.²