Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s1.21

c19.s1.21

There are also in minor details coincidences between the Hīnayāna and the Mahāyāna which show the continuity of development of Buddhist thought. The doctrine of the double form of teaching of the Hīnayāna² is repeated in the strengthened form of degrees of reality and truth in the Mahāyāna. While the Hīnayāna is not convinced that everything is void, it permits meditations on things as void,³ and the Vetulyakas, that mysterious sect, even appears on one reading as champions of the great void.⁴ Moreover, the Uttarāpathakas are credited with a doctrine of thusness⁵ or suchness (tathatā, from tatha, ‘true’) as indicating the unconditioned element at the bottom of things which may well be a precursor of the system of the Mahāyānaśraddhotpāda.