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The History of Buddhist Thought c21: Chapter XIII. Development of the Doctrine : The Buddhas

The History of Buddhist Thought c21

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Chapter XIII. Development of the Doctrine : The Buddhas

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THE psychology of the Abhidhamma books shows the basis from which later developments in the doctrine started, but in itself it was merely the systematizing of the older theories. It remained unchanged to such an extent that Vasubandhu's great work became a " treasury " of the Mahāyāna schools. In Abhidhamma the question of an ātman or soul was not prominent. As a modern psychologist says, in words that a Buddhist might have used : " To the psychologist the conception of a soul is not helpful. He has no independent means of knowing anything about it which could be useful to him. For him the term ' soul ' is virtually only another name for the total system of psychical dispositions and psychical processes." 1

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Yet some of the Buddhists came to see that the totality of dispositions and processes does not express the whole matter. This totality is arranged in groups called individuals. If one of these groups is nothing more than these dispositions and processes, how is he distinguished from any other group ? Why should there be groups at all ? Hence the doctrine of pudgalavāda, the view that the individual is an entity plus the skandhas of which he is composed. This is not the ātman-doctrine, though that doctrine would be one possible solution of the problem.² The ātman-doctrine, however, as formulated by the opponents of the Buddhists, was always rejected, and the upholders of the pudgala-doctrine guarded themselves against it by maintaining that the individual is neither the same as the elements which constitute him nor different from them.³

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² The sutta arguments against an ātman are all reproduced in the refutation of the pudgala in *Kathāv.*, i, 1.

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³ *Abhk.*, ix, p. 232. Besides psychology and logic there is classification of much more in Abhidhamma, but they do not represent a progress in thought. They can be best studied in the *Abhidharmakośa*.

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The most important developments of doctrine which took place between the time of Asoka and the beginning of the Christian era were concerned with the nature of a Buddha. It was also within this period that the new metaphysical speculations must have begun, but these form a separate problem. The chief schools that have to be considered in connection with the new buddhological doctrines are the Theravādins, the Mahāsanghikas, and the Sarvāstivādins. Of these the Sarvāstivādins are the most important. Their chief seat was at Mathurā, but they extended up to the northwest as far as Kashmir. They broke up into schools, all closely related, and their differences appear to have been mainly due to the development of slightly varying traditions in the separate centres of their activity. The Theravādins, so far as they are known in India, must have existed in Magadha, and probably also along the route to the south past Kosambī (the capital of the Vatsas or Vaṃsas), and Ujjenī. The Mahāsanghikas also existed in Magadha, but when we come down to the historical period, we find the holders of their doctrines established in South India. Mr. Matsumoto treats the Sarvāstivādins as a mere branch of the Theravādins, and it is certain that at some period this must have been the case. But separation by mere extent of distance made independent growth inevitable. Their study of Abhidharma was systematized in their own compositions, and they developed the rest of their Scriptures independently in their Vinaya legends and avadānas. It is here that we find the new doctrines appearing which were to transform the older ideal of arahatship, and were to form the central motive for later theories concerning Buddhas and aspirants to Buddhahood. The Mahāsanghikas developed another side of buddhology which led to a kind of docetism.

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¹ G. F. Stout, *Groundwork of Psychology*, p. 8.

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We have seen what the conception of the nature of a Buddha was as developed in the suttas (p. 149). The great transformation that took place was that everyone might seek not merely to win salvation, but might aim at becoming a Buddha. Such a person is a bodhisatta (Skt. bodhisattva).¹ The doctrine that Buddhahood is a possible goal for everyone never appears in the suttas, but the term bodhisattva does. There it means the state of a Buddha (Gotama or one of his predecessors) before his enlightenment. We also find in the latest suttas a list of six previous Buddhas, Vipassin (Vipaśyin), Sikhin (Śikhin). Vessabhū (Viśvabhuk or Viśvabhū), Kakusandha (Krakucchanda), Konāgamana (Kanakamuni), and Kassapa (Kāśyapa).¹ These names agree in all the schools, though there is evidently some corruption in the forms. A number of still earlier Buddhas have been added, but they vary in the different schools and appear to be inventions later than the sutta period.² They all contain the name of Dīpankara, the Buddha under whom Gotama first made the vow to attain complete enlightenment. As a part of this doctrine of a succession of Buddhas arose the belief in a future Buddha, Metteyya, or Maitreya.³ Gotama Buddha both in the Dīgha (iii, 76) and in the Mahāvastu (iii, 240) prophesies Metteyya’s future coming. These quasi-historical Buddhas do not play a large part in later doctrine, as they were overshadowed by the bodhisatta-doctrine and the innumerable Buddhas to which this doctrine gave rise.

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¹ The Sanskrit form has no doubt been formed from the Pāli or Prākrit bodhisatta, which is ambiguous. It may mean a “being (sattva) of enlightenment”; but it may also mean “attached (sakta) to enlightenment”. The latter interpretation is adopted by the commentator of Ang., i, 258, and is more probably the original one. But the Sarvāstivādins understood it in the other way, as the later Pāli authors did.

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¹ Mahāpadāna-sutta (Dīgha, ii, 1), where the life of each is given. The story of Vipassin is also given in great detail largely in the same words as in the account of Gotama’s birth and enlightenment in Majjh., iii, 120 ; i, 167 ; Vin., i, 1.

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² Buddhavamsa ; Lal., 5 ; Mvst., iii, 230 ff. ; longer Sukhāvatī-vyūha, § 3.

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³ E. Abegg, Der Messias-glaube in Indien und Iran.

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This is the extent to which we find the Buddha doctrine developed by the Theravādins in their Scriptures. There was some further development, which is found in the commentaries, but this, as will be seen, was probably due to external influences. The insignificance of the bodhisatta doctrine for the Theravādins may be gathered from the fact that it is practically absent from the Abhidhamma. Even in the Puggalapaññatti, which gives a classification of different types of individuals, it is not mentioned. In this work there is some development of the Buddha doctrine, for a Buddha is said to be omniscient, and another kind of Buddha is also described, the paccekabuddha (pratyekabuddha), “independent or separate Buddha.” He is said to differ from the complete Buddha (sammāsambuddha) in not being omniscient and in not having mastery of the fruits of complete buddhahood.⁴ Unlike the arhat, he has attained enlightenment independently and without the help of a Buddha’s teaching, but he is not able to preach it like a complete Buddha. This conception of a private Buddha winning the truth merely for himself remained one of the Theravāda doctrines, and is also found in other schools, but it never had any historical importance. Legends of such beings are frequent in the commentaries and later literature. ✓

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⁴ Pugg., i, 28, 29.

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It is in the avadānas of the Sarvāstivādins that we first find the bodhisattva ideal. There we read that Buddha preached so that “ in some the roots of goodness that form a part of release were produced, in some those (four) roots that form a part of penetration, in some the fruit of Entering the Stream was realized, in some the fruit of the Once-returner, in some the fruit of the Non-returner, in some arhatship with the abandonment of all the vices was realized, in some the thought of (attaining) the disciple’s enlightenment was produced, in some the thought of a pratyekabuddha’s enlightenment, and in some the thought of complete enlightenment was produced.”¹ Here the different stages of the disciple’s career are described as we find it in the suttas, but it is preceded by preparatory stages, and there is added to them the thought of becoming a pratyekabuddha as well as the career of a bodhisattva, the thought which arises in him when he decides to win the enlightenment of a complete Buddha. It is sometimes said that this is a borrowing from Mahāyāna. For this, whether true or not, there is no evidence. We do not know how the earliest schools of Mahāyāna began, but we do know that they must have begun amongst the Sarvāstivādins. In the Sarvāstivāda schools there were all the conditions for the rise of such a doctrine. There was the belief in one particular human being who had attained such enlightenment, the belief that he was only one among previous beings who had done so, and also (with the doctrine of rebirth) the belief that he had gradually prepared himself for the great attainment. It is thus clear how the belief might arise that other beings might do the same. Buddha was already preached as the great being who had for cycles of ages undertaken this task for the good of all beings. That others should also undertake the task and, instead of merely winning their own release work also for the release of others, was a new and greater ideal. We know that this new ideal did originate, but we know nothing about its actual origin. To say that the Sarvāstivādins borrowed it from Mahāyāna schools explains nothing. The Mahāyāna schools themselves were originally Sarvāstivādin, so that in any case the doctrine arose in Sarvāstivādin schools.

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¹ *Divy.*, 50, 209, etc.

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The doctrine would not at first produce a schism. We actually find it in Sarvāstivāda works held along with the teaching of the older ideal of arhatship. It would only lead to the rise of a new sect when the older ideal was rejected as a low career (*hīna-yāna*) and the actual consequences of the new doctrine were developed. In any case the oldest form in which we find it expressed is in Sarvāstivāda works. It finds another expression in the *Avadāna-śataka*, in a story repeated in different forms of a king in the far past who was visited by a Buddha. The king was delighted by the Buddha’s description of the qualities that produce enlightenment, and made the vow to win supreme enlightenment. That king, we are told, was the individual who became Gotama Buddha. He thus as a layman put aside the thought of winning the truths under that Buddha in order after repeated rebirths to win all the qualities of a Buddha.

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Although we are unable to point to the actual place or the particular school in which the doctrine arose, we thus find all the conditions for its origination among the Sarvāstivādins. We can speak of Mahāyāna doctrine when it began to be cultivated as the sole or only worthy ideal. As the Mahāyānists existed at the time when the extant Sarvāstivāda documents were compiled, it is possible that reciprocal Mahāyāna influences may be found in them, but it is in these documents that we find the earliest form of the bodhisattva doctrine.

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The above list of stages speaks of three enlightenments, that of the disciples (*śrāvaka*), that of the pratyekabuddhas, and the complete enlightenment of a Buddha. These are the three careers (*yāna*) spoken of in Mahāyāna works, but here they are not yet placed in opposition to one another. The career of a disciple ending with the state of arahat is that described in the suttas. It has been extended by the Sarvāstivādins by making seven preliminary stages in which the faculties are produced and trained.¹

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¹ *Abhk.*, vi, 15-33, 70; cf. *Divy.*, 80, 240.

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(1) The first is that of the beginner (*ādikarmika*) in which the “ roots of goodness ” are first produced by meditation on the body, etc.¹ Then follow four stages called roots that belong to the penetration of the truths (*nirvedhabhāgīya*):

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¹ The Theravādins also developed a preliminary stage, *gotrabhū* “one who belongs to the clan (of disciples)”. La Vallée Poussin says it corresponds to the stage of *laukikāgradharmas*. *Abhk.*, vi, 20.

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(2) *Ushmagata*, “state of heat,” in which the disciple meditates on the four truths under sixteen aspects.²

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² *Mvyut.*, 54.

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(3) *Murdhānah*, “heads,” so-called because they are the tops of the roots of goodness from which fall is possible. The meditation is as before.

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(4) *Kshānti*, “patience,” but here rather in the sense of the pleasurable acceptance of the truths. Here the disciple increases the faculties of faith, courage, etc., so that he cannot fall back.

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(5) *Laukikāgradharmāh*, “supreme secular qualities.” Here the faculties become powers (*bala*), for they cannot be crushed by the passions.

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Through the knowledges thus acquired he enters on

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(6) *Bhāvanamārga*, the way of meditation, and

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(7) *Darśanamārga*, the way of insight.

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When the disciple has entered the fourth stage he cannot fall back, so that he is destined to become an arhat and attain Nirvāṇa. Hence the candidate for bodhisattvaship and Buddhahood does not enter that stage.³

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³ The *Kathāv.*, iv, 8, treats as a heresy the view that Gotama reached the stage of the determination (*niyama*) of his career under the previous Buddha Kassapa.

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There is a bodhisattva doctrine also in Theravāda works. It first appears in the two latest books of the Canon, the *Buddhavamsa* and the *Cariyāpiṭaka*. The differences from the Sarvāstivāda doctrine are striking. It is never looked upon as an alternative to arhatship, but is applied only to Gotama Buddha. Yet it is explained in such a way as to make it appear as if it were a possible career for others. In a memorial verse eight conditions are stated as necessary in order that the wish to attain Buddhahood may be realized : the candidate must be (1) a human being, (2) a male, (3) he must have the capacity to attain arhatship, (4) he must have made his wish in the presence of living Buddhas, (5) he must have left the world and not be a householder when he makes the wish, (6) he must be in possession of the five higher knowledges (*abhiññā*) and the eight attainments, (7) he must have undertaken to sacrifice his life for the Buddhas, and (8) he must have great desire and strength and exertion for the purpose of the qualities that make a Buddha.¹ He is further credited not only with six perfections of virtue (*pāramitā, pāramī*), but four more are added, making a list of ten.

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¹ *Buddhavamsa*, ii, 59; com. in *Jāt.*, i, 141.

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The developed state of the bodhisattva doctrine in Theravāda, with its entire absence in the earlier literature, makes it appear as if it had been introduced from another school. The *Buddhavamsa* existed in a Sanskrit form, and it is probable that the doctrine in this developed form was introduced along with this work. It was explained in such a way that it could be held in an orthodox manner in harmony with earlier doctrine, for it was never applied to any other individual than the historical Buddha or his predecessors. The *Buddhavamsa* was evidently known to the compiler of the *Mahāvastu*, and in this work the Bodhisatta doctrine, though more developed, is essentially like that in the *Buddhavamsa*.

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It is the *Kathāvatthu* which chiefly allows us to see the relation of the Theravādins to other schools. The Sarvāstivādins are mentioned by the commentary only three or four times, evidently because there was little matter of dispute between these schools. Other doctrines chiefly of psychological and ethical import are mentioned, which although not attributed to the Sarvāstivādins belong to the problem of the classification of dharmas or mental factors as elaborated in the Abhidharma schools. There are three questions concerning Bodhisattas, but only in one case, and that only in the commentary, can any reference to the career of the bodhisattva be seen. There it is said (xiii, 4) that Buddhas by the power of their knowledge have prophesied that “this person in the future will attain enlightenment”. This rather resembles the Sarvāstivāda doctrine than that of the Theravādins and Mahāsanghikas, who represent Buddha as prophesying only of his successor Metteyya.

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The most important part of the *Kathāvatthu* doctrinally is that which deals with the views of the Pubbaseliyas and Aparaseliyas, related schools of south India, who are referred to collectively as the Andhakas. The commentary does not reckon them among the eighteen sects, but it gives them a very important share in the points discussed. They are evidently the same as the three schools of Caityaśailas, Aparaśailas, and Uttaraśailas mentioned by Vasumitra¹ as branches of the Mahāsanghikas. We may put aside what is said of the Mahāsanghikas in the Ceylon Chronicles. There we are told that this school formed a great Council after being defeated at the second Council on ten points of discipline. Bhavya, however, says that the dispute was on five doctrinal points. These points are given by Vasumitra as (a) arahats can be tempted by others, (b) they have still ignorance, (c) and doubt, (d) they gain enlightenment through the other (i.e. a teacher), (e) the path is realized by utterance (by uttering an exclamation). These five points occur in the Kathāvatthu (ii, 1-6) almost in this form, where they are attributed to the Pubbaseliyas, etc.²

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¹ Masuda, p. 15.

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² La Vallée Poussin, "The five points of Mahādeva," JRAS., 1910, 413. Whether these points were actually discussed at the second Council is not important. The historical fact is that they were held by the Mahāsanghikas along with their buddhological theories.

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Evidently these schools belong to the southern group which in addition to these doctrines developed a docetic theory of the nature of a Buddha. The theory is best known in literature from the Mahāvastu, which expressly claims to be drawn from the Vinaya of the Lokottaravādins, a branch of the Mahāsanghikas. The tendencies of this group of schools can be well seen in the Kathāvatthu. The commentator puts most of the group in south India, and he is probably speaking of contemporary circumstances with which he was in close contact. The chief principle is that a Buddha is supramundane (lokottara), above the laws and conditions of ordinary human existence. Hence his behaviour as a human being was merely a convention. It should not even be said that he abode in the world of men and taught the doctrine. It was only a mind-formed image of him which appeared in the world. These schools also exalted the powers of the great disciples by holding that they had acquired the powers of a Buddha, and that they as well as a Buddha could work miracles in the true sense.³

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³ The magic powers (iddhi) acquired by an arhat are held to be normal processes for anyone who applies the means necessary for acquiring them. This heresy consisted in holding that by a mere act of will such things as the creation of food or stopping the process of decay might be produced.

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The teaching of the Mahāvastu is essentially the same. "Nothing in the fully enlightened Buddhas is comparable to anything in the world, but everything connected with these great sages is supramundane ” (i, 159). When a Buddha is born from the side of his mother, he is uninjured, for he has a mind-formed body. He is, however, not really born from a mother and father at all, but arises as an apparitional being by the force of his own qualities (i, 145). The Sarvāstivādins, on the other hand, emphasized the human character of Buddha. Their Vinaya even speaks of the union of his parents at his conception.¹ The Lalitavistara (100), in a passage which probably preserves Sarvāstivāda doctrine, says that unbelievers will arise who will refuse to believe in Buddha’s birth from a mother, but that it was not as a god that he turned the Wheel of the Doctrine, for then human beings would be discouraged, thinking, “ we are mere men and unable to reach the state of a god.” But it also has docetic passages, pointing out that Buddha acts like a human being in order to conform to the custom of the world. It was for that reason that he allowed himself as an infant to be taken to the temple, though he pointed out that he had already been addressed as devātideva, god surpassing the gods.² So when he first saw the signs of old age, sickness, and death, of which he had been kept in ignorance, he asked his charioteer what they meant. But the sūtra says that he asked “ although he knew ”.

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¹ Foucaux, Rgya tch'er rol pa, ii, p. xxi.

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² Lal., 134 (119) ; the term is also found in Pāli, Niddesa, ii, 307.

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We find these tendencies at work before the period at which Mahāyāna can be called a separate system. The earlier Mahāyāna sūtras lay stress on the nature of a Buddha and his qualities. Later on the career of the Bodhisattva becomes prominent. But this career ends in Buddhahood, so that it becomes impossible to separate the Buddha doctrine from the theory of his existence as a mere human being, who rises by a long course of training practised for ages until he becomes an omniscient Tathāgata.

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The chronology of this period, which may be said to extend from Asoka, circa 250 B.C. to the beginning of the first century A.D., contains some interesting problems. The most significant event is the Council said to have been held under the Kushāna king Kanishka. In the first century B.C. the Yue-chi Tatars had invaded India, and the tribe of the Kushānas formed an empire extending from Afghanistan to the Panjab.

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The names of the first three rulers are given as Kujula Kadphises, V’ima Kadphises, and Kanishka, but it is not agreed whether Kanishka came first or third.¹ If he came first, his reign would have begun in the first century B.C., but the archæological discoveries of Sir John Marshall have led Professor Rapson to conclude that he succeeded the other two, and that the Śaka era which began in A.D. 77-8 was the date of Kanishka’s accession. This at present appears to be the most probable opinion. It is in his reign that we hear of a Buddhist Council being held, and according to this scheme of chronology the most likely date for it would be about A.D. 100. For the Sarvāstivādins it is the third Buddhist Council. The earliest account of it is found in Hiuen Tsiang, about five centuries later.²

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¹ O. Franke, *Beiträge aus chin. Quellen zur Kenntnis der Türkvölker und Skythen*, Berlin, 1904; H. Oldenberg, “The era of Kanishka,” *JPTS.*, 1912; E. J. Rapson in *CHI.*, vol. i, ch. xxiii.

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² Beal, i, 151 ff. Hiuen Tsiang does not say where it was held. It is usually assumed to have been at Jālandhara.

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Kanishka is looked upon as a second Asoka. Hiuen Tsiang tells us that he found the views of different schools so contradictory that he decided to arrange the teaching of the three Piṭakas according to the various schools, and summoned a Council for the purpose. So many men appeared that a selection had to be made, and finally there remained 499 arhats, exactly as at the first Council. The venerable Vasumitra was not among them because he was not an arhat, but, like Ānanda at the first Council, he proved his fitness by a miracle, and was admitted. Then the Council under Vasumitra’s guidance composed three commentaries, the Upadeśa-śāstra to explain the Sūtra-piṭaka, the Vinaya-vibhāshā-śāstra for the Vinaya, and the Abhidharma-vibhāshā-śāstra for the Abhidharma. Kanishka ordered them to be engraved on sheets of copper and enclosed in a stupa with the Scriptures in the middle. The details do not look very credible, and in fact the whole account only proves that five centuries later the existence of the Council was believed in. La Vallée Poussin calls the account “an apologetic quasi-invention ”, and points out that the Abhidharmakośa does not appear to make any mention of it. “The narratives of this Council are to some extent dogmatic legends, and seem only to bear witness to the literary activity of the Sarvāstivādins.”³

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³ “Councils,” in *ERE.*

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The commentaries (which in any case were not composed at the Council) really existed. Two commentaries on the Abhidharma still exist in Chinese, the *Vibhāshā* and the *Mahāvibhāshā*.¹ On the basis of these Vasubandhu is said to have compiled his *Abhidharmakośa*. He belongs to the second half of the fifth century A.D.,² but even without the guarantee that the Council was a reality we can place the doctrine expounded in the first century B.C. The language of the Vibhāshās was almost certainly Sanskrit, and their existence implies that the Sarvāstivādin Canon had already been committed to writing. As the grammatical peculiarities of the Canon show clearly that it was previously existent in Prākrit, it is quite likely that its systematic committing to writing implied at the same time its translation into Sanskrit. The Vibhāshās were especially studied by the Sarvāstivādins of Kashmir, and hence their name of Vaibhāshikas. The story of the Council, and the Council itself, if it ever existed, belonged to the Sarvāstivādins. There is no reason for the supposition that the Mahāyānists had anything to do with it. Yet the Mahāyāna must have already been growing. It did not, however, start from Abhidharma. One impulse came from the religious enthusiasm of the bodhisattva ideal. Another lay in the new treatment of the ontological doctrines latent in the dogmas of impermanence and of the non-existence of a self.

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¹ Takakusu, "The Sarvāstivādin Abhidharma books," *JPTS.*, 1905.

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² *Indian studies in honor of C. R. Lanman*, Cambridge, Mass., 1929, where the question is discussed by three Japanese scholars.

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