The History of Buddhist Thought c22.9

c22.9

It was, however, the conception of Buddhism as a religion, a career in which the destiny of the individual could be realized, that formed the moving spirit of the new conceptions. It will be more profitable, instead of stating these doctrines in the abstract, to begin by analysing one of the most important of the Mahāyāna sūtras, the Lotus of the true Doctrine (Saddharmapuṇḍarīka). It shows us an early stage, in which the teaching is still defending itself in opposition to the older schools. It also shows the bodhisattva doctrine as subordinate to the teaching about the nature of a Buddha. It has been said to display Mahāyāna Buddhism with all its characteristic traits and all its excellences and defects, but that is saying too much. It presents only the popular side of the bodhisattva doctrine, and it has nothing to tell about the revolution in metaphysical thought achieved by the new movement. Though it mentions and takes for granted the doctrine of the Void, it is devoted to expounding the new doctrine of the nature of a Buddha, and in explaining away the pratyekabuddha and the career of a disciple or arhatship as errors or mere temporary expedients.