Buddhist Philosophy in India and Ceylon c24.s5.7

c24.s5.7

This is in accord with even the Hinayāna, but the Mahāyāna recognizes in the Bodhisattvas, who are alive, the qualities which permit of true devotion. It is, indeed, asserted that these holy beings can do us no good that we have not merited, though they are styled as ‘loving without cause’ and ‘givers of fruits not asked’; but the essential fact is that we can profit ourselves by acts towards them which are openly and avowedly acts of pious worship and devotion. We owe them homage and adoration; we confess to them our sins: the misery we have caused to men is misery to the Bodhisattvas, the compassionate ones, and we admit our wrongdoing that the saints whom we have injured may pardon it.⁴ We rejoice in the merits acquired by the Bodhisattvas; we supplicate the Buddhas to light the lamp of the law, and beg them to delay their entry into Nirvāṇa in order that they may continue to save creatures. We apply also our merit for the benefit of others; we cannot in any other way serve the Bodhisattvas, who have no need of our devotion for themselves, but rejoice in the work of salvation. The culminating act of this devotional service or Bhadracaryā¹ is an action, the surrender of oneself to the Bodhisattvas and Buddhas (ātmabhāvaniryātanā),² a rite interesting because it is mentioned by the orthodox Buddhaghosa. The formula in Sanskrit is decisive of the spirit of the action: ‘I hand myself over to the Jinas, and to their sons, all in all. Accept me, ye sublime beings. With devotion (bhakti) I become your slave.’ We have in this the fullest acceptance of theism; the Bodhisattvas and their spiritual fathers, the Buddhas or Jinas, conquerors, are regarded as powerful to save, endowed with the power of forgiving sins. But we must not be deceived into believing that we are on the ground of relative truth; there is nothing to prove that we are in anything more than the region of imagination.