Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c42.s2.t5.45

v2.c42.s2.t5.45

The Bodhisattva conception apparently was not fully developed in the *Mahāvastu*. The conception presented in the text is half-way between Hinayāna and Mahāyāna. The Bodhisattva, it has in view, is the previous existences of Gautama Buddha.¹ It makes no reference to the acquisition of pāramitās i.e., the inconceivable and immeasurable virtues acquired by Bodhisattvas in the several bhūmis, as detailed in the Daśabhūmikasūtra² or the Bodhisattvabhūmi.³ There can be no doubt therefore that in the Mahāvastu, we have not only the earliest speculations about the life and career of a Bodhisattva, but also the earliest Jātaka stories. It is in the Saddharmapuṇḍarīka⁴ that we find a fairly developed conception of the Bodhisattva. The Śrāvakas in this work are not disparaged as is done in the later Mahāyāna texts, and a hope is held out to them, that by taking recourse to certain Bodhisattva practices they could still achieve Buddhahood. The new ideals preached in this text electrified the mass, made Buddhism an all-India religion, and we may say that the popular form of Buddhism reached its climax about the time of composition of this work, i.e., about the 2nd century A.D.