The History of Buddhist Thought c25.2

c25.2

¹ The precariousness of the dating of the later period of Buddhism can be seen from Walleser's attempt to date the rise of the doctrine of the Void as seen in the Prajñāpāramitā literature. He says that it is fairly credibly recorded that the beginnings of Mahāyāna fall in the period immediately preceding the reign of Kanishka. This credible record is that of Tāranātha, a Tibetan author of the seventeenth century, and he only says that at the time of the third Council (i.e. of Kanishka) all sorts of Mahāyāna texts appeared. But we do not learn how long it had already existed in the oral teaching of the schools. The first systematic exposition of the doctrine of the Void was Nāgārjuna, who is usually put in the second century A.D. There were already Prajñāpāramitā sūtras in existence, works ascribed to Buddha and intended to give authority to doctrines already taught. They are probably among the earliest Mahāyāna works, and show close relation to the Sarvāstivādins both in literary resemblances and in their direct hostility to the older doctrine. We may place the doctrines and perhaps some of the sūtras as early as the first century B.C. Still earlier must be the period before the doctrines became the possession of a distinct school. Walleser, *Prajñāpāramitā*, p. 1; Stcherbatsky, *The Conception of Buddhist Nirvāṇa*, p. 66.