The History of Buddhist Thought c22.8

c22.8

All this concerns the doctrine as apprehended by the layman, but there are also sūtras of a more philosophical character. They teach the doctrine of the Void, a theory of the nature of ultimate reality. It appears to have no connection with the religious teaching about bodhisattvas, but we find it taken for granted in the most devotional type of sūtras. It was a development of the ancient teaching which analysed the supposed reality of the self into separate elements, and it is represented by two chief schools, the Mādhyamika and the Vijñānavāda.