The History of Buddhist Thought c23.2

c23.2

THE bodhisattva’s career is one of long training, a progress rising in stages to Buddhahood. But in popular teaching its two prominent features are the enormous toils and sufferings that the aspirants have undergone, and the marvellous blessings that they confer on others. It is to these two qualities that the remaining chapters of the *Lotus* are devoted (ch. 22-6). Several bodhisattvas come before the two Buddhas in the stupa, but the outstanding one is Avalokiteśvara.¹ These chapters are probably later than the first part of the sūtra, and they show us another stage, but not the last, in the development of the religion of devotion or *bhakti* in Buddhism.