Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c19.s2.2

c19.s2.2

The most important text to shed a light on the origin of Mahāyāna ideas is doubtless the Mahāvastu,¹ claiming to be the Vinaya of the Lokottaravādin school of the Mahāsānghikas, a style which it deserves only in so far as, like the Mahāvagga of the Vinaya Piṭaka it does give an account of the first conversions and of the founding of the community of monks, following upon an immense narrative of the life of the Buddha, in the main in accord with the Pali tradition. Distinctively Mahāyāna is undoubtedly the account of the ten stages of the Bodhisattva’s progress to Buddhahood; we find also the doctrine of the existence of many Buddhas, and the view that the worship of the Blessed One is sufficient to win Nirvāṇa. Unhappily, we cannot ascertain the date of the text; its Hunnish and Chinese references, its recognition of the halo, introduced from Greek art into the art of Gandhāra, prove comparatively late redaction, though much may be older, as is suggested by the fact that the whole is composed in mixed Sanskrit without the addition of passages in purer Sanskrit as in the Mahāyāna Sūtras proper.