Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c8.s2: ii. Buddhism.

An Outline of the Religious Literature of India c8.s2

Language
English

Contents

ii. Buddhism.

A. The Hīnayāna.

c8.s2.t1.1

§ 113. We must think of Buddhism at the beginning of this period as active and spreading in most parts of India and Ceylon, and also in Burma, along the Himalayas from Nepal to Kashmir, in Afghanistan, and also in Central Asia. In the first century A.D. the religion found a welcome in China, and about the same time entered Kuchar and Khotan in E. Turkestan, and also Persia. Naturally we can trace only in very broken outlines the literary work of the Buddhist Church in its various schools scattered over these wide regions.

c8.s2.t1.2

The community already had numerous schools of thought,¹ but these distinctions did not create sects: all Buddhists still worshipped together. Of these schools we must now distinctly envisage three, if we are to understand the development, the Sthaviras, who were phenomenalists, the Sarvāstivādins, who were realists, and the Mahāsānghikas, who were idealists.

c8.s2.t1.3

¹ Kern, B. 110 f., 123; ERE. VI. 686.

c8.s2.t1.4

a. Sthavira Literature.

c8.s2.t1.5

§ 114. The Sthaviras, the oldest of the schools, were found in North India and predominated in Ceylon. The Pāli books which exist to-day are the Canon of the Sthaviras of Ceylon as reduced to writing there in the first century B.C. Hence, if we accept the critical opinion that the Abhidhamma Piṭaka did not exist in the time of Aśoka,² we must conclude that it was formed somewhere between the two dates. The natural conclusion then is that the seven works of that collection were gradually formed and compiled, either in North India or Ceylon, during the first part of our period. This fresh material is not of the same value or interest as the best parts of the Sutta Piṭaka. It consists for the most part of dry, unilluminating classifications and definitions of Buddhist terms and ideas, served up in scholastic fashion for the training of monks.³

c8.s2.t1.6

² See § 64.

c8.s2.t1.7

³ Winternitz, II. i, 134 ff.

c8.s2.t1.8

The Canon was reduced to writing in Ceylon during the first century B.C., but the date cannot be more exactly defined.⁴ Since then the text has been preserved with fair, but certainly not with faultless, accuracy.

c8.s2.t1.9

⁴ Kern, B. 120; Winternitz, II. i. 11.

c8.s2.t1.10

§ 115. The Questions of King Milinda is the name of a famous book, the main part of which was written in North India, probably in the first century B.C., possibly a little later.

c8.s2.t1.11

In what language it was originally written is not known. It has been preserved only in Pāli in Ceylon and in two Chinese translations. It is clear from quotations that the Canon which the author used was the same as the Pāli Canon, yet the readings do not agree precisely. The book is much honoured in Ceylon. Indeed it enjoys a consideration and an authority very little inferior to the Pāli Canon itself. Milinda is the Pāli for Menander, a Greek King who ruled in the Punjab and attacked the empire of Magadha, about 155 B.C. According to tradition he became a Buddhist. The book is a piece of apologetic, a dialogue, in which a monk named Nāgasena answers the king’s questions about Buddhist faith and practice.

c8.s2.t1.12

It seems clear that the original work covered only a fragment of Book I with Books II and III. The subjects discussed in those sections are amongst the most important of all Buddhist questions, e.g. nirvāṇa and karma, individuality and soul, renunciation, faith, perseverance, and meditation; and the style is strikingly beautiful, the expression easy and graceful, and the illustrations exceedingly well chosen. In Books IV to VII a large number of minor questions are dealt with; the style, though still good, lacks the brilliance of Books II and III; and, while the main teaching keeps very close to the Pāli canon, yet the influence of later ideas is visible. A tendency is shown to turn away from the ideal of the Arhat, who wins nirvāṇa by a strenuous discipline at once, to the conception of the Bodhisattva,¹ who reaches release by means of devotion in a long career reaching through countless lives.² These last books were probably written much later in Ceylon.

c8.s2.t1.13

¹ Lit. ‘one whose nature is wisdom’, but used technically of one who is destined to become a Buddha.

c8.s2.t1.14

² See § 124 B.

c8.s2.t1.15

§ 116. All the Buddhist schools of North India which have left literature wrote in Sanskrit or in various forms of what is known as mixed Sanskrit. The origin and history of these literary dialects have not yet been definitely ascertained. Some scholars are inclined to think that they are the work of imperfectly trained men trying to write Paninean Sanskrit, while others think they are literary modifications of local dialects. There are two facts about them which require to be carefully noted: first, each school seems to have its own dialect; secondly, as time went on, pure Sanskrit steadily won its way in all the schools.

c8.s2.t1.16

b. Sautrāntika Literature.

c8.s2.t1.17

§ 117. The Sautrāntikas¹ were a branch of the Sthavira school who received their name because of their reliance on the Sutta Piṭaka, to the neglect of the Abhidhamma. It thus seems clear that their rise must have coincided with the gradual formation of the Abhidhamma. They formed, in exposition of their teaching, a philosophical system which is called the Sautrāntik philosophy. They believed in the existence of the external world, and held an atomic theory of matter, but taught that perception happens indirectly.² Their theory of the self, founded on the original Buddhist conception of man's psychical life,³ proved a stepping-stone from the phenomenalist position of the Sthaviras to the Mahāyāna Philosophy of Vacuity.⁴ The self, they argued, is a long series (*santāna*) of phenomenal elements, each member of which exists only for a moment so infinitesimal that its apparition and destruction may be said to be simultaneous. Each momentary member (*kṣaṇa*) of the series is both an effect and a cause, yet possesses no real activity. Birth, existence, old age, death, are all illusions; for the series in uncreated, uninterrupted. Thus there is no identity, no continuous existence. On the other hand, they declared this self, consisting of a phenomenal series, to be autonomous; for ‘all we are is the result of what we have thought’. They also hold the self to be self-conscious, conscious directly of self and indirectly of other things. The scholar with whose name this philosophy is connected is Kumāralabdha,¹ a contemporary of Nāgārjuna,² but very little is known about Sautrāntika literature.

c8.s2.t1.18

¹ *Sautrāntika* is formed from *sūtrānta*, the Pāli form of which is *suttanta*, a variant of *sutta*.

c8.s2.t1.19

² Jacobi, *ERE*. II. 201.

c8.s2.t1.20

³ See § 61.

c8.s2.t1.21

⁴ See § 124 c.

c8.s2.t1.22

¹ Kern, *B.* 127; Poussin, *Opinions*, 178 ff.

c8.s2.t1.23

² See § 128.

c8.s2.t1.24

c. Sarvāstivādin Literature.

c8.s2.t1.25

§ 118. The home of the *Sarvāstivādin*, i.e. the ‘All-things-exist’, or realist, school seems to have been Kashmir, but they spread far and wide. Their Canon was in Sanskrit and, apart from the Sthavira, was the only Canon which possessed a third, or Abhidharma, ‘basket’. As has been already remarked, the contents of this Abhidharma were absolutely distinct from the Sthavira Abhidhamma. We may be certain that the Vinaya and Sūtra ‘baskets’ of their Canon were already in existence by the beginning of our period, but it is as yet impossible to say how far they differed from the Sthavira Canon: for we are almost entirely dependent for our knowledge upon Chinese and Tibetan translations, only fragments of the original Sanskrit having survived. They seem to have had also a special literature of their own. Like a number of the other leading schools, they had their own Life of the Master; and it must have been a powerful and popular work, for it was taken over afterwards by the new Buddhism, called the Mahāyāna, and it survives only in its altered form, the most famous of all lives of the Buddha, the *Lalita Vistara*.³

c8.s2.t1.26

³ Nanjio, 159, 160; Winternitz, II. i. 194 ff.

c8.s2.t1.27

The *Sarvāstivādin* philosophy, an outgrowth from the realistic teaching of the sect, is an atomic doctrine of matter combined with a theory of direct perception.⁴ Thus, in their speculative teaching, they stood near the Jains and the Vaiśeṣikas, but they denied the eternity of atoms.⁵ The foundation-text of their Abhidharma Piṭaka, the *Jñānaprasthāna-śāstra*, is by their most renowned scholar, Kātyāyanīputra. Six ancillary works, called ‘the feet’ of the Abhidharma, by Vasumitra and other writers, complete the contents of the Piṭaka. The date of these books is not yet known with certainty. On these works commentaries were then written, which carried the philosophy a step farther. The commentaries were called Vibhāshā, and hence the philosophy was called Vaibhāshika. Tradition suggests that the Vibhāshā arose in the reign of Kanishka.

c8.s2.t1.28

⁴ Jacobi, *ERE.* II. 201.

c8.s2.t1.29

⁵ Ib. 202 C.

c8.s2.t1.30

According to Sarvāstivādin books, a general Buddhist Council was held, under the authority of Kanishka, at some place in Kashmir, and at the Council commentaries on the three baskets of the Canon were composed, those on the Vinaya and Abhidharma being called Vibhāshā and those on the Sūtra Piṭaka Upadeśa. The traditions about this Council are, however, very untrustworthy, so that some scholars doubt whether it was ever held at all. Others think that a Sarvāstivādin council was actually held, and that, in imitation of the story of the Council of Aśoka, they called it a General Council. In any case, the commentaries which in the tradition are associated with the Council are Sarvāstivādin, and a number of them were probably written after the time of Kanishka.

c8.s2.t1.31

From the Sarvāstivādin Vinaya and the ancient Jātakas there sprang numberless tales of heroic deeds done by Buddhas and saints called Avadānas, precisely like the Apadānas of the Pāli Canon. Two collections belong to this period, the Avadāna-śataka¹ or Century of Tales, and the Karma-śataka,² or Century of Deeds. A third collection of great renown, the Divyāvadāna,³ or Divine Tales, which probably dates from after 200 A.D., calls itself a Mahāyāna work, but is manifestly of Sarvāstivādin origin. From these books sprang an edifying literature which flourished for many centuries.

c8.s2.t1.32

¹ Winternitz, II. i. 216.

c8.s2.t1.33

² Ib. 221.

c8.s2.t1.34

³ Ib. 221 ; Mitra, 304.

c8.s2.t1.35

The famous writer Aśvaghosha was a Sarvāstivādin and probably wrote some of his works before he became a Mahāyānist.⁴

c8.s2.t1.36

⁴ See § 127.

c8.s2.t1.37

d. Mahāsānghika Literature.

c8.s2.t1.38

§ 119. The Mahāsānghikas, one of the very earliest schools, were idealists in Metaphysics. They were inclined to raise the Buddha above humanity, and to identify his personality with that of the former Buddhas. They had a Vinaya Piṭaka and a Sūtra Piṭaka, written in a curious mixed Sanskrit. Of the Vinaya two works still exist in Chinese and Tibetan; and the Ekottarāgama preserved in the Chinese and the Tibetan Canons is from the Mahāsānghika Sūtra Piṭaka.¹ One of the branches of this school was known as the school of the Lokottaravādins, or Transcendentalists, because they believed that the Buddha was not a human being enmeshed in the life of the world, but one raised far above it. A book called the Mahāvastu, written in the curious Mahāsānghika Sanskrit, has come down to us. It arose in the Vinaya of the Lokottaravādins, but very little Vinaya material now remains in it. The book contains a vast amount of matter of different kinds and also of varying dates—a life of the Buddha, tales and sermons, poems and Jātakas, many of them early compositions; so that it forms ‘one of the most noteworthy books of Buddhist antiquity’. The Buddha-Biography does not differ in any appreciable degree from the narratives of the Pāli Canon, but its theory of the person of the Buddha is distinctly docetic. ‘The Buddha of the Mahāvastu is a superman. He feels neither hunger nor thirst; he lives in ignorance of carnal desires; his wife remains a virgin. It is from consideration for humanity, in order to conform to the customs of the world, that he behaves as a man, or that he gives to men the false impression that he is behaving as a man. In technical terms, he is lokottara, superior to the world.’ The work lays great stress on the saving power of

c8.s2.t1.39

¹ Pāli Sutta Piṭaka :
1. Dīghanikāya.
2. Majjhimanikāya.
3. Saṃyuttanikāya.
4. Aṅguttaranikāya.
5. Khuddakanikāya.

c8.s2.t1.40

Sanskrit Sūtra Piṭaka :
1. Dīrghāgama.
2. Madhyamāgama.
3. Saṃyuktāgama.
4. Ekottarāgama.
5. Kṣudrakāgama.

c8.s2.t1.41

devotion to him. It also names large numbers of former Buddhas, and believes in the existence of many worlds besides our own, in each of which a Buddha reigns concurrently with the Buddha here. The Mahāvastu thus forms the bridge between the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna. The chapter called Daśabhūmika,¹ which describes the stages (bhūmis) through which a man passes in becoming a Buddha is probably a later interpolation. Much of the book is early.²

c8.s2.t1.42

¹ ERE. II. 744 f., VIII. 329 f.

c8.s2.t1.43

² Winternitz, II. i. 193.

c8.s2.t1.44

§ 120. Mātr̥icheṭa was born a Brāhman but became a Buddhist. He was invited to the Kushan court, seemingly by Kanishka, but begged to be excused on account of age. He left two hymns of praise, which were used for centuries by Mahayanists as well as Hinayanists, and which served as models for later writers. One has survived, and fragments of the other, along with his letter to the king.³ He seems to stand between the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna.

c8.s2.t1.45

³ Thomas, ERE. VIII. 495; Winternitz, II. i. 211; Nanjio, 1456; Hoernle, MRBL. 58-84. Vidyābhūshaṇa, JASB. 1910, 425, refers him to the fourth century.

c8.s2.t1.46

e. Buddhist Worship.

c8.s2.t1.47

§ 121. From 200 B. C. down to the Christian era the great Buddhist stūpas were enriched with masses of beautiful sculpture. Pious Buddhists were accustomed to walk round the stūpas with reverent steps. Enclosing this path of circumambulation there stood a stone railing with a lofty arched gate at each of the cardinal points. These gates were covered with sculpture, and in certain examples the railing itself was decorated with sculptured plaques and panels. Examples, ruinous or well-preserved, have been found in several places.⁴ In this early work no image of the Buddha appears, but in many of the scenes represented his presence is indicated by some symbol, and all the carved work breathes the spirit of devotion. Here we have the reflection in art of the new spirit which shines out from the literature.

c8.s2.t1.48

⁴ Notably at Sāñchī in the Bhopal State, at Bharhut in Rewa, at Buddh-Gayā in Bihar, at Amarāvatī on the Kistna and in Ceylon. V. Smith, HFA. 65-81; 86-8.

c8.s2.t1.49

In the first century A. D. a new Indo-Greek art, distinctive above all in its sculptures, arose in Gandhāra, the district of which Peshawar is the centre. Images of the Buddha were for the first time made by these artists; and all the Buddhist schools used them as aids to devotion: this is a noteworthy and far-reaching change.

c8.s2.t1.50

§ 122. Buddhist monks found it necessary to keep abreast of all the culture of the day, so as to be able to influence the rising laity. We therefore find them well acquainted with Hindu philosophy and with the new forms of religion enshrined in the Epic. In the last quarter of the first century of our era, the strong government of the Kushan empire, extending far to the west and the north of India, opened the doors wide to Buddhist Missions; and the numerous races the missionaries had to teach, coupled with the rich variety of foreign influences which met in the empire, led to great changes in Buddhist thought and practice.

B. The Mahāyāna.

c8.s2.t2.1

§ 123. These movements, coupled with new ideas and practices which had been gaining ground in the old sects for two centuries, found their culmination in the creation of a new Buddhism called the Mahāyāna, or great vehicle, in contrast with the old Buddhism, which was depreciated as the Hīnayāna, or small vehicle.¹ The Mahāyāna is, on one side, the acute Hinduizing of Buddhism, the on the other, the humanizing of the old discipline, so as to make Buddhism more suitable for the cultured Indian layman and for the men of many races now crowding into the community. The rise of this system is probably to be placed in the reign of Kanishka (perhaps A.D. 78-123), towards the end of the first and the beginning of the second century; for all tradition points to that time, and many Mahāyāna texts were translated into Chinese before A. D. 170.¹

c8.s2.t2.2

¹ It is probable that Hīnayāna was originally used with reference to Arhatship, the mode of individual salvation, as opposed to Bodhisattvaship, the plan for the salvation of many.

c8.s2.t2.3

¹ Nanjio, Cols. 381-3.

c8.s2.t2.4

The vast literature created by the Mahāyāna does not survive as a definite Canon in the original tongues. Portions of it have been found in Nepal² and fragments elsewhere; but for our knowledge of the mass of the books we have to have recourse to the Chinese³ and Tibetan⁴ Canons.

c8.s2.t2.5

² See especially Mitra, *Nepalese Buddhist Literature*.

c8.s2.t2.6

³ Bunyiu Nanjio, *A Catalogue of the Chinese Translation of the Buddhist Tripitaka*.

c8.s2.t2.7

⁴ *ERE*. VII. 785, 789; Feer, *Analyse du Kandjour*, Annales du Musée Guimet, II.

c8.s2.t2.8

a. The Full Mahāyāna.

c8.s2.t2.9

§ 124. There are two distinct Mahāyāna systems to be recognized at this time. The first may be called the full Mahāyāna, as it contains all the features of the new Buddhism. They may be summed up under three heads:

c8.s2.t2.10

A. Devotion. Mahayanists recognize that there are innumerable Buddhas, each in his own world, and innumerable Bodhisattvas, the most advanced of which live in the heavens. Buddhas and advanced Bodhisattvas are fit objects of devotion, and devotion brings its rich rewards. One result of this change was that the Buddhas, though they were still thought of as being in nirvāṇa, were regarded as responding in some way to the devotion showered upon them. Their personality and activity consequently became more distinct, until they were thought of almost like Hindu gods. We must recognize here a distinct change in the conception of nirvāṇa.⁵ Thus in that most orthodox Mahāyāna book, the *Saddharma Puṇḍarīka*, Gautama is made almost an eternal being of omnipotent power, who from time to time descends to earth, like Viṣṇu, to be born in the world of the living. Similarly those Bodhisattvas who are drawing near the stage of final enlightenment are now regarded as mighty divinities living in the heavens, helping men, and actually declining to enter nirvāṇa in order that they may help men the more.

c8.s2.t2.11

⁵ Thomas, *Buddhist Scriptures*, 15.

c8.s2.t2.12

The Mahayanists created a showy worship, with processions, music, and incense; and a rich liturgy was prepared for each Buddha. The monks took charge of the cult; so that the old chaitya became a temple and the monk a priest.

c8.s2.t2.13

B. The Bodhisattva Life.¹

c8.s2.t2.14

¹ Poussin, *ERE.* art. ‘Bodhisattva’, and VIII. 33 f.; *Opinions*, 275 ff.

c8.s2.t2.15

The monk of the Hīnayāna sought to become an *arhat*, a man who, by a life of asceticism and meditation in obedience to the precepts of the Buddha, has reached the nirvāṇa of the extinction of all desire; but he regarded himself as a mere pupil, following the directions of the omniscient Buddha, and never dreamt of becoming a Buddha himself. The Mahāyāna now declared that, to reach real release, it was necessary to acquire the perfections and the omniscience of the Buddhas, and that, though the upward struggle would take an incalculable number of ages, the goal was within the reach of every human being. Each person, man or woman, was therefore exhorted to take at once the vow to become a Buddha; and the assurance was given that the power of that vow was sufficient to bear them through the innumerable births and serious sufferings which lay before them. If they began a life of active benevolence, and sought to rouse within themselves the desire to save all creatures, they would pass through the ten stages (*bhūmis*) of the career. Since the end was certain, each person who took the vow at once became a Bodhisattva, one destined to become a Buddha. The influence of the Jātakas, which contain narratives of numerous acts of incredible self-sacrifice done by Gautama in his earlier births, is very manifest in the new conception. Since Gautama was believed to have lived as a householder for countless lives, celibacy was not a necessary element of the discipline. Neophyte Bodhisattvas, both men and women, were encouraged to marry, but they were allowed to acquire merit by living the monastic life for a time, if they cared to do so. On the other hand, the Mahāyāna prohibited the eating of flesh.

c8.s2.t2.16

C. The Mahāyāna Philosophy of Vacuity.¹ The early denial of the existence of the ego and the Sautrāntika doctrine, that the ego consists of an endless series of infinitesimal moments, led to the formulation of the doctrine that there is no real existence, that all things are but appearance, and are in truth empty. This is the famous doctrine of śūnyatā, Vacuity. The young Bodhisattva cannot see the truth of this doctrine, but in the course of his progress to Buddhahood he will come to realize it; for it is the sum of the wisdom of all the Buddhas.

c8.s2.t2.17

¹ ERE. art. ‘Madhyamaka’.

c8.s2.t2.18

§ 125. A large literature was produced by this school during our period. Amongst these works is one of the greatest of Buddhist books, the Saddharma Puṇḍarīka,² ‘The Lotus’, or, as we should say, ‘The Rose of the True Religion’. The book probably appeared towards the end of the first or the beginning of the second century,³ but six of the chapters of the work as it has come down to us (xxi-xxvi) are of later origin. The original work contains the whole Mahāyāna system. The most noteworthy element is the way in which Gautama the Buddha is represented. According to the old teaching, he has gone to nirvāṇa and can no longer have any relations with the world of men. Here he is represented practically as an omnipotent God, whose life is limitless before and after, in whose hands are the universe and all creatures, who dwells continually in infinite glory. It is true he also teaches the Buddha-laws, but his birth, life, teaching, and death are but an appearance, and his passing away into nirvāṇa is but a device to lead men to accept the Buddha-laws. The influence of the Vedānta and of the Gītā are very prominent here. The conception of Kṛṣṇa-Viṣṇu as the Supreme is adapted to Buddhist conceptions. Many of the titles are borrowed unchanged, Supreme Spirit, Self-existent, Great Father, World-Father, Ruler of the Triple World, Creator, Destroyer, Physician. He is Everlasting, All-knowing, All-seeing. He wields magic power, *māyā*, which he uses in sport, *līlā*. He is repeatedly born in the world of the living. When men become unbelieving, he appears in this world to save. Yet, although Buddha in the *Lotus* is practically the Supreme, the language is so carefully guarded throughout that Prof. Poussin can say, ‘There is not a single word in the *Lotus* which is not capable of an orthodox, i. e. “atheist” interpretation.’¹ The work had large influence in India, whence it passed to China and Japan, and later to Nepal. It is the most popular of all Buddhist books in Japan to-day.

c8.s2.t2.19

² ERE. art. ‘Lotus of True Law’; Winternitz, II. i. 230-8; Kern, SBE. xxi.

c8.s2.t2.20

³ Winternitz puts it about A. D. 200; Poussin in the first century, Opinions, 259.

c8.s2.t2.21

¹ *ERE.* VIII. 145.

c8.s2.t2.22

§ 126. The philosophic doctrine of Vacuity was taught in a large number of books, short and long, called the Prajñāpāramitā-sūtras,² i.e. ‘the sūtras of the wisdom-perfections’ of the Buddhas. Of these the *Daśasāhasrika Prajñāpāramitā-sūtra*,³ i.e. the ‘Ten-thousand-line Sūtra’, belongs to our period. This work also describes the ten stages (*bhūmis*) of the Bodhisattva career. The chapter called *Daśabhūmika*⁴ interpolated into the *Mahāvastu* probably comes from this time also.

c8.s2.t2.23

² Nanjio, cols. 1 to 8; *ERE.* IV. 838; VIII. 235.

c8.s2.t2.24

³ Nanjio, col. 381; also no. 5.

c8.s2.t2.25

⁴ See § 119.

c8.s2.t2.26

§ 127. Aśvaghosha⁵ was born of Brāhman parents, but became a Buddhist, first of the Sarvāstivādin school, but finally of the Mahāyāna. His splendid genius proved of signal service to Buddhism; for he is a most notable figure in Sanskrit literature, and one of the greatest of the predecessors of Kālidāsa. He was equally distinguished in epic, dramatic, and lyric poetry. His greatest work is the *Buddhacharita*, an epic poem on the life of Buddha. Part of it is lost, yet enough remains to show his genius and his art. In its delineation of the life and work of the Buddha, it scarcely goes beyond the Pāli Canon, but in freshness and power it stands altogether on another level, the work of a true poet. A second epic, the *Saundarānanda-Kāvya*, which deals with a number of scenes and incidents connected with the life of Buddha, also survives. The *Sūtrālaṃkāra*, of which a Chinese version and a few fragments in Sanskrit are extant, is a collection of avadānas, i.e. Buddhist legends told in mingled prose and verse, the style in common use then for artistic romances. A large number of these stories are old, many are new, but all are graced and heightened by Aśvaghosha’s charm. There are two philosophical works ascribed to him, the *Vajrasūchī*, i.e. the ‘Diamond-needle’, and the *Mahāyānaśraddhotpādaśāstra*, the ‘Mahāyāna-faith-awakening Treatise’, but serious doubts as to his authorship of both works still remain.

c8.s2.t2.27

⁵ *ERE.* art. ‘Aśvaghosha’; *SBE.* xlix; Winternitz, II. i. 201; H.P. Śāstrī, *JASB.* 1909, 47; Nanjio, col. 369.

c8.s2.t2.28

§ 128. Nāgārjuna,¹ a Brāhman convert, who became the greatest authority on Mahāyāna Buddhism, is regarded as a younger contemporary of Aśvaghosha in Buddhist tradition; and modern scholars are inclined to place his activity in the latter half of the second century. His chief service was to think out the new doctrine of Vacuity. In those days a philosopher embodied his teaching in a series of aphorisms, either in prose (*sūtras*) or in verse (*kārikās*), and expounded them in a commentary. Nāgārjuna’s work is in verse, and, as the system is called the middle teaching, Mādhyamaka, the book is known as the *Mādhyamaka-kārikās*. The system is called Mādhyamaka because its leading idea, ‘All things are empty’, takes the middle course between existence and non-existence. Two distinct kinds of truth must be recognized, apparent truth, *saṃvṛitisatya*, and real truth, *paramārthasatya*.² The world appears to be real, but the appearance is an illusion, as empty as a dream; yet we must live in it and in practice take it as real. The actual truth, that all things are empty, seems to us to be folly, but it is the final truth of the world; and when we rise to the wisdom of the Buddhas, we shall see its truth. Thus we need not hope to find the truth by intellectual activity, but must strive to hear the silence which is neither affirmation nor denial. Thus the Mādhyamaka philosopher has no system; he has only a method. The doctrine is thus a guarded nihilism, a faith in the emptiness of all things which does not profess to see the truth of what it believes, but holds hard by its faith, while it frankly lives on that which it declares to be illusion. The early Prajñā texts, and a number of other works are said to be by Nāgārjuna. An extraordinary mass of legends gathered round his head.

c8.s2.t2.29

¹ Winternitz, II. i. 250-4; *ERE*. IV. 838; VIII. 235, 336.

c8.s2.t2.30

² Poussin, *Opinions*, 189 *n.* 1.

c8.s2.t2.31

b. The Paradise Mahāyāna.

c8.s2.t2.32

§ 129. The second type of Mahāyāna doctrine is of a much simpler nature and may be described as the Paradise Mahāyāna.¹ It does not trouble to teach the doctrine of Vacuity, nor does it impose on its followers the long ages of discipline which are required for the career of the Bodhisattva. Every person may easily make certain of being born in his next birth in the Western Paradise, where under the fostering care of a great Buddha named Amitābha he will live for ever in joy and will reach final perfection. One of the chief texts of this school, the longer Sukhāvatīvyūha,² or ‘Description of the Land of Bliss’, was translated into Chinese before A.D. 170, and thus belongs to our period. In this book we hear of many hundred thousands of millions of Buddhas, and amongst them of one named Amitābha, ‘measureless light’, who lives and reigns in Sukhāvatī, a Paradise of glory and bliss far away to the West, beyond the limits of the world where Gautama lives. When this new Buddha was but a monk, he vowed and toiled for this Western Paradise, and prayed that he might never obtain the highest perfect knowledge, unless it should be possible for all creatures to be born in that Land of Bliss and there reach perfection, wisdom, perfect joy, and release. All has now been realized. Amitābha reigns in the wonderful land of bliss, and whoever struggles forward, seeking to make good karma, praying faithfully, worshipping Amitābha with deep devotional feeling, and uttering his name, will be born in that Western Paradise and will live in bliss for ever. A very large part of the book is given to descriptions of the beauties and pleasures of Sukhāvatī.

c8.s2.t2.33

¹ Poussin, *ERE.* VIII. 331 b.

c8.s2.t2.34

² Nanjio, col. 381; *SBE.* xlix.

c8.s2.t2.35

Of the numerous Mahāyāna texts translated into Chinese during the second century¹ a number of works, in addition to the longer *Sukhāvatīvyūha*, seem to belong to the Paradise school,² but the mass undoubtedly derive from the chief school.

c8.s2.t2.36

¹ Nanjio, nos. 5, 25, 28, 33, 51, 54, 57, 73, 76, 102, 112, 161, 174, 202, 260, 282, 289, 381, 385-7, 431, 435, 478, 1093, 1326, 1331, 1337, 1338, 1360, 1361, 1368.

c8.s2.t2.37

² Nanjio, nos. 25, 28, 33, 51, 54, 57.

C. Buddhism in China.

c8.s2.t3.1

§ 130. Buddhism does not seem to have made rapid progress in China for some two or three centuries; yet it is clear that large efforts were made to win the people. Some reflection of the activities of the Missionaries may be found in the long lists of translations carried out during the two centuries under review.³ Most of the sūtras selected for translation are quite short, and deal with the simpler elements of Buddhist teaching or with practical questions touching life and discipline. They are taken from Mahāyāna as well as from Hīnayāna sources, the first text translated, *The Sūtra of Forty-two Sections*,⁴ being a compendium of Buddhist teaching drawn from many books. There are only four noteworthy translators during the period, and their extraction is significant; two of them, Kāśyapa Matānga and Lokaraksha,⁵ were Indians, An Shi-Kao was a Parthian prince, while Ch'Yao was probably a Kushan.

c8.s2.t3.2

³ Nanjio, cols. 379-85.

c8.s2.t3.3

⁴ Nanjio, no. 678.

c8.s2.t3.4

⁵ This man seems to have translated only Mahāyāna works: Nanjio, col. 381.

Linked texts (18)