The Yogacara Reaction (a Third Turning Exemplar)

Was it a reaction to problems with Madhyamika? Certainly, the problems it claims to address are that of negativity and the potential for nihilism of the Madhyamika way (how Middle Way can negation really be, it essentially argued?) This school also (as with Madhyamika) arose out of the practice of meditation more than as a purely scholastic divergence. Its name means “practice (cara) of (a) discipline (yoga)” and it rose to prominence in the 4^th and 5th Centuries CE – so it was the latest starter I’ve so far considered (though I’ve briefly mentioned later-developed schools such as Zen and the Tibetan Vajrayana schools and also modern day divisions).

The Mahayana view, generally, had begun to dominate India and Buddhist thought was experiencing one of its heydays. One of its greatest thinkers and the great Sarvastivadan scholastic abhidharma commentator Vasubandhu lived at this time and eventually converted to the less scholastic Yogacara Mahayana view himself after producing his great Sarvastivadan commentary (in which he noted with concern the Sarvastivadan school’s decline), though he remained a thinker and commentator, just with the reduced scholastic pressure inherent in this meditative school. He was apparently converted by his half-brother Asanga and clearly went on to become a key philosopher of the new school.

Asanga had been Sarvastivadan but become a devotee of the not-yet-Buddha, Maitreya, and was also the originator (with alleged assistance of Maitreya during meditation) of much of the Yogacara School’s ideology. According to a popular fable, Asanga’s complete conversion to Maitreya devotion had come about after much searching and prayer to Maitreya for guidance. Finally, when he had reached a point close to despair if not of actual despair, he saw a dog ridden with worms. Further, he realised in his then state that the only way to rid the extremely weakened dog of the worms without killing it was to lick the worms out of its body one by one and proceeded to do so (whereupon the dog revealed itself to be Maitreya and explained that his compassion and wisdom had finally allowed him to see the Maitreya, who had always been with him, in the dog). Besides the Sandinirmocana that I refer to below, Asanga was given five other Sutras by Maitreya (hence their author is usually cited as Maitreya-Asanga). There is a story of one of these Sutras being recited to Asanga by the alleged voice of Maitreya in front of an assembly that was unable to see Maitreya (could Asanga (or Maitreya) have been a great ventriloquist?)

The view’s major special claim to fame is its explicit emphasis on the idea that we all have a Buddha nature (remembering from an earlier post that there was a class of Sutras that had this emphasis – it is, generally, a Yogacara-specific class of Sutra). One of its pre-eminent ones is called the Sandinirmocana, which explicitly mentions that its teachings are a third turning of the wheel of dharma and discusses the limitations of the other turnings (without supplementation by the affirmation and negation of Yogacara that is the true Middle way).

The most completely Yogacara-only class of Mahayana scriptures is the Mind Only class (in terms of what different Mahayana Siddhantas view as useful Mahayana texts). As a rule, it has a more positive-sounding spin on things than Madhyamika. There is for this new view something in the sunyata of an excellent or even an ordinary mind that luminesces, radiates and possesses clarity (prabhasvara).

The difference between these schools is perhaps reminiscent of the difference between Plato and Aristotle later further developed in Western philosophy on the nature of mind and in fact this school may have been inspired by debate within the Hellenistic world that came to the attention of Buddhists.

The Avatamsaka Sutra uses an analogy that suggests all Buddhas are like jewels in an infinite cosmological net all reflecting off each other for us to experience in all their splendid co-reflected awesomeness. This became an especially important Sutra in China where it was seen by many as the highest explanation of what Siddhartha’s actual way of experiencing the universe was (once he became a Buddha). Many of the apparent paradoxes and confusions generally found in Zen and Chan commentaries and thought can be partly traced back to this particular idea of Siddhartha’s (and, by extension, enlightened ones') experiences. For instance, when asked what the ultimate principle of Buddhism is, a Zen master might answer “the oak tree in the garden” because the enlightened Zen monk is expected to see the luminescence, radiance and 'thusness' or 'suchness' (tathata) in all things where the ordinary person isn’t looking.

Being all about meditation, it was natural for its focus to be on the mind, perception and experience. It attempted to deal with so-called false appearances to the mind (pravrtti) by a turning about of this false reality (paravrtti) to get around the false appearances. The focus is on the teaching that it is realisable that there are no objects or subjects, which it calls graspable things (grahyas) and graspers (grahakas), in this state. The unique emphasis here (by the unique use of these specific terms and rejection of the more usual Mahayana terms subject and object and thereby their existence) is thus on undermining whatever it is that ‘causes’ grasping by denying any possible graspability of any actual object by any actual subject.

The Madhyamika Mahayana School (Emptiness, the Second Turning and the Prajnaparamita Sutra)

This school in fact regarded itself as the most middle way.

Nagarjuna, who probably lived in the 1^st Century CE, is known as the founder and pre-eminent philosopher of Madhyamika. His idea was that Buddhism required ‘unpacking’ and especially favoured the Prajnaparamita Sutras as useful tools for this. He added his own thoughts in writing where he deemed clarification necessary, of course.

The school’s main theme is that what had been thought to be effable was, in fact, ineffable, and this is thus a critique of earlier Buddhism. Attempting to 'eff' what wasn’t effable (reality) was clearly an effing waste of energy. Zen/Chan Buddhists also favour the Prajnaparamita scriptures (among others) and meditation over scholastic effing efforts. Their well-known koens (for example, “what is the sound of one hand clapping” and “if a tree falls in the forest, and there is nobody around to hear it, does it make a sound”) attempt to illustrate this recognition of the ineffability of reality when the iconic Zen master answers “neti, neti (no, no)” to any and all efforts to answer such a koen (in terms of final truth). Incidentally, the Upanishad scriptures had the same idea of ineffability. Two truths are thus again delineated (if both are not effed): paramartha (final) and samvrti (relative).

Again, this may be compared to the philosophical concerns of Western philosophers. Kant especially, possibly the greatest philosopher of the past 500 years, had a go at ineffability in his Critique of Pure Reason. The basic idea that he used against all arguments for God’s existence of the time was that one can’t apply human reason or language in fully explaining God, for example as a uniquely uncaused cause. God for him must surely be beyond cause, not uncaused (could we even prove that we were truly in a caused reality, after all?) While he was a Christian, his philosophy contributed to a new Western agnostic movement. The difference in the use of ineffability in Buddhist philosophy is that Madhyamika Buddhists still believe that while the infinite may not be explained it may certainly be understood or it may be better to say realised (eventually) by a properly trained human mind.

This concern to notice an ineffability reminds us in effect of Siddhartha’s concern to not answer his famous 14 questions of the two earliest canons (by not answering, was he in effect answering them “neti, neti”? On the Madhyamika view, the answer to that is yes - he knew the answer but didn’t answer because there were no words for the answer – that is, it’s ineffable. He allowed his non-answer to be noted, though, for the same reason the Zen school broadcasts koens – so that we may see that there may well be an answer but one that isn’t effable). The subtlety of all this is seen (especially by this school) to be part of the reason Siddhartha was at first so reluctant to teach. Nagarjuna philosophised that Madhyamika Buddhism was engaged in a dialectic debate that was certainly necessary but definitely not sufficient for a complete understanding of ultimate truths. The reality loomed beyond and over the debate that brought it near to view, clarified sensitivity to it and partly illuminated it.

So the specific characteristics (svalaksana) of the dharmas and other things listed in the abhidharma gave merely a version of relative truth that Siddhartha left to Madhyamika to complete when monks were ready to reject nihilism (and, in the way monks of the first turning still believe they are true, at least, they aren’t really true). Even the duality of samsara and nirvana is now seen to be illusory. Importantly, there can be no right concept. Some are certainly regarded as more right (or at least more complete) than others but dualities are thus not replaced by nihilistic nullities and eternalities but by mere relativities (and the purest idea of non-self); dependent arising is as real as it’s ever been and then some. Even dharmas had no self, Nagarjuna needed to make plain. The abhidharma critiques come from both Nagarjuna and the Prajnaparamita discourses themselves.

So the Arahants have unfortunately (or perhaps fortunately, who can say) missed out (so far). This went some way to democratising Buddhism, though, because it went some way towards cutting down the tallest of tall poppies in the world of Buddhism.

The concise Heart Sutra is perhaps the best known and most important Buddhist scripture today and for all time and is a Prajnaparamita Sutra. A 9^th Century copy of it in Chinese is also in the oldest known extant printed book. Its focus, too, is on the emptiness emphasised by this school. It is also favoured by Thich Nhat Hanh, who I’ll discuss in a later post. The emptiness emphasised in the Heart Sutra is the emptiness of independence from other things. Nhat Hanh treats this subject in an article in which he wonders aloud how a piece of paper is different from the sun that shone on the tree that was the source of the paper to grow it or the labour of the logger that chopped the tree down to begin the paper production process or the logger her/himself or the food the logger eats and so on.

So the emptiness that follows from this is not solipsist but rather emptiness of self-existence (svabhava). This, then, is the paramartha truth: both and neither nothingness and the eternal – the true and ultimate Middle Way. This idea of emptiness is needed to reduce attachment to the ultimate extent (even to the teachings of the school itself – anything that may be expressed in words may be likened to Siddhartha’s famous ‘raft’ of the raft parable – one day they may all be discarded). What’s more, the awe of truly realising the ultimate cannot but produce the purest compassion.

More on the Three ‘Turnings’

Examining the idea of three ‘turnings’ again, we may strengthen our understanding of the history of Buddhism, so let’s give it a go.

The first turning was the basic teaching of the four noble truths and whatever else was taught in the discourses (Suttas/Sutras) in the Pali Nikayas/Sanskrit agamas, initial guidelines for religious orders (in the vinayas in both languages) and the idea of non-self (the idea of the skandhas was especially developed in the abhidharma and its commentaries also initially in both Pali and Sanskrit). This can be seen as Siddhartha’s ‘turning’ towards teaching a kind of ‘Middle Way’, the melding of the best of the Bramana and the Sramana ideas of India’s major religious tendencies.

The second turning was first called and is still regarded as Vaipulya (an extension) and not a repudiation of the first (as with the third). It was not uncritical of the abhidharmas, however. It represented, in fact, a ‘turning’ away from an excessive reliance upon an intellectual understanding of them. True understanding was beyond intellectual understanding and to underscore the great incomprehensibility of it all, ‘turning’ towards the intensely strange idea of no thing-ness became central to the ‘turning’ away from the intellect. This was arguably to ultimately aid in truly understanding the abhidharmas, however, not to supplant them.

The ‘turning’ was also, concurrently, and perhaps consolingly, to the relatively pro-social and thus most likely relatively comforting Bodhisattva ideal. It also ‘turned’ towards an explanation of cosmology admittedly in negative terms, explaining, as an extension of the idea of non-self, not what the universe (including nirvana) was, but what it was not. In this sense it may also be seen as true to the reluctance of Siddhartha to fully explain what the universe actually was and at the same time as a kind of answer to the questions; in effect, then, another ‘middle way’ and another partial answer.

Was the third turning, then, the full answer? What ‘turn’ happened? The ‘turn’ was indeed towards bringing an understanding of what is in contrast to what ‘it’ isn’t within the reach of the adept and even potentially the layperson. It was a ‘turning’ back to society, then (and back to reality, perhaps, albeit a rather magical one). No thing-ness could possess qualities, it taught, such as the radiance (prabhasvara – a special technical word in Buddhism that I’ll come back to) and beauty attainable by the Bodhisattva (among other qualities). It also ‘turned’ towards teaching the potential of all of us (even the meanest devil) to achieve this radiance by virtue of our innate Buddha Natures. It was thus not only humanist but in fact everythingist. The ten bhumis were taught for the Bodhisattva path (as I mentioned in an earlier post, the Arhat, either as a hermit or in a religious community, only had to get to number six and may or may not be re-born) and one could also, as a regular or even a religiously honoured layperson, simply choose to gain merit, by leading a good life, for a later, better re-birth).

So there were four main Buddhist Siddhantas (orthodoxies) of the three turnings in India: those of the first turning, Sarvastivada, represented by the Abhidharmakosa of Vasubandhu, and Sautrantika, outright rejecters of the abhidharma; that of the second turning, represented by the Madhyamika school, stressing emptiness and scripturally represented by the Mulamadhyamakakarika; and that of the third turning, represented by the Yogacara school and scripturally represented by the treatises of Maitreya-Asanga. They all argued over which turning represented the highest teaching of Siddhartha while the Theravadans were down in Sri Lanka doing their own Sarvastivadan thing and regarding all of the Indian versions including Sarvastivada as bastardised Siddhantas.

Classes of Mahayana Scriptures

For the purposes of study, it may be useful to list the types of scripture that exist and then discuss some of their class histories in the coming posts (groupings courtesy of Rupert Gethin):

“Perfection of Wisdom (Prajnaparamita)” Scriptures (that teach about the “emptiness” and Compassion of the Bodhisattva life)

Scriptures such as the “Dasabhumika Sutra” and “Bodhisattva-pitaka” (that set out stages on the Bodhisattva path)

Meditation Sutras (that teach about meditation)

“Mind-Only” Scriptures (that stress the way the mind “constructs” the world and getting past the self)

“Embryo of Tathagata” or “Buddha Nature” Scriptures (that teach of the Buddha within all of us – their taxonomy overlaps somewhat with that of the “Mind-Only” group)

Scriptures Central to East Asian Buddhism, especially (such as the Saddharmapundarika Sutra)

“Pure Land” Scriptures (regarding the “pure land” of Amitabha, the Buddha of Boundless Light)

The class believed to be the oldest in origin is the Prajnaparamita class and the oldest of the class is probably the “Perfection in 8,000 Lines (Astasahasrika Prajnaparamita)” being first written in 8,000 lines of Sanskrit. Paramita means perfection, Prajna means wisdom and the class is collectively called the Prajnaparamita sutras. They don’t have the clear historical moorings of any of the Tripitaka Canon (especially the first two pitaka) and their style is more poetic, certainly, than the 3^rd pitaka, the abhidharma, against the intellectualism of and scholasticism related to which they are thought, in part, to be a criticism. The style is also visionary and there is much allusion and reference to mythology and cosmology. We can regard it as somewhat breaking the so-called “noble silences” of Siddhartha concerning such things as I mentioned in an earlier post. It directly teaches the ultimate nature of reality in a less intellectualising and more intuitive way than the abhidharma does and promotes this form of teaching over the way of the scholastics. The symbol of the sword as seen in pictures and statues of the Buddha Manjusri as below is often used in its imagery:

This sword possibly symbolises the radical and heroic nature of Mahayana Buddhism and also the tool (prajña) required to ‘cut away’ all illusion. The realisation expected in this state of prajña is that all is nothingness or no thing-ness (sunyata) so in effect the sword, too, is an illusion. It is the ineffable true nature of ‘things’ that there is no thing. Those who developed these ideas realised that this would be regarded (and perhaps disparaged) as nihilism (and suggest that prospect as the reason it wasn’t the first thing that Siddhartha taught). It’s more radical even than non-self. The world is likened to things like a dream or a flame. Even nirvana is so regarded and, in case we think there is anything or anywhere else that could exist or not or both or neither, we’re told there isn’t anything else that isn’t no thing-ness, too.

Traditionally, these teachings were withheld until a Bodhisattva was well into the Bodhisattva path. Anyone else, proponents argued, would certainly misuse them. They are taught as the answer but only for the so-initiated. The powers (cittis) that are said to come from meditation in the jhanas for such people include the ability to walk through walls, teleport, fly and read minds but are themselves taught as being unwanted distractions (at best) from arriving at the final truth of sunyata. They are in fact temptations that may lead to pride, which is certainly undesirable. The cittis are really regarded as quite dangerous for those reasons.

It is unclear how literally this belief in no thing-ness is meant to be taken. Perhaps the idea is simply meant to make ‘letting go’ of ‘things’ easier (since if they don’t really exist in the first place it can’t make sense to ‘hold on’ to ‘them’). Letting go is after all what ‘the doctor (Siddhartha)’ ordered.

Mahayana sutras say things like ‘awakening is openness’, ‘awakening is liberation rather than negation’ and ‘awakening is radiance, awareness and beauty’ so it can’t really be nothing. It may be both nothing and something, though. No opinion (drsti) of this can be anything other than limited, of course, because all of our elaborations (prapancas) of the world are limited of necessity. The ideas are regarded as quite scary from a normal human perceptual viewpoint. Sunyata is the basic focus of the second turning.

The “Mind-Only” class (and the classes below) are regarded as firmly within the third turning.

The “Mind-Only” sutras, especially, are about ‘getting over ourselves’, basically.

The “Embryo of Tathagata” or “Buddha Nature” class are all about us having the same kind of mind as Siddhartha’s and other Buddhas’ and the consequence that we all have the potential to be Buddhas.

As I wrote above, the group I’m calling “Scriptures Setting out the Stages of the Bodhisattva Path” includes the Dasabhumika Sutra. This sutra sets out ten stages (bhumas) on the Bodhisattva Path each perfecting a different Buddha quality. On this scale Prajnaparamita is only stage six. Stage seven (perfecting upaya) is how we learn to teach others the first six. Whether the stages need to be undergone in order isn’t entirely clear, although it seems likely. Here are the names of the ten in order from one to ten:

Perfection of: Name of Stage:

Generosity Joyous

Good Conduct Stainless

Patience Radiant

Vigour Resplendent

Meditative Concentration (Dhyana) Invincible

Wisdom Face-to-Face

Upaya Far-Reaching

Determination Unshaking

Strength Excellent

Knowledge Cloud of Dharma

The scriptures central to East Asian Buddhism, especially, include the well-known sutra “Lotus of the True Dharma” or simply the Lotus Sutra.

The “Pure Land” sutras discuss at least one other realm (perhaps more) that one may get in touch with/get to in order to progress to Buddhahood faster and/or more easily. Some Japanese “Pure Land” sects teach that reciting the Japanese version of Amitabha (the name of the Buddha that rules a “Pure Land” realm – he may be regarded by many as the head of all the Buddhas) will lead to rebirth in his realm. Here ‘he’ is (with my obligatory feminist ‘scare quotes’):

Amitabha in Japan (from Wikipedia)

The meditation sutras are about just that (meditation). The Pratyuptpanna-buddha-samukhavasthita-samadhi Sutra teaches how to get to meet the Buddhas face-to-face during meditation (and that’s basically the meaning of the long title).

More on the Controversy and Mahayana Buddhism

So I’ve referred to the great Buddhist controversy and noted that the Mahayana tradition came out on top in India and eventually North Asia via Tibet and Afghanistan. But let’s examine what the actual controversy meant in real terms. It really comes down to Arhat v Bodhisattva and also to where Siddhartha might be today.

The Mahayanan Lotus Sutra tries to explain why there have needed to be these two Buddhisms. It gives the story of a man talking his children out of a burning building by offering them temptations such as beautifully carved rhinoceros toys as an aid. The idea here is that the idea of nirvana being desirable was the temptation humans needed to persuade us out of our old lives. It is certainly true that we can achieve nirvana but that man probably wouldn’t recommend that his children play with toys all day once the emergency has passed and neither did Siddhartha (in this role as a loving father) recommend that we all seek nirvana even though we may selfishly choose to (in our roles as ignorant children). This splitting also appears to be a feature of at least Christianity and Islam, to an extent (along the lines I mentioned in at least one earlier post – competing morality and wisdom traditions seem to coexist in most religions).

Far from being a simple and invented way out for laypeople to get more of the trinkets, the Mahayana School saw itself as offering the most mature way to be a Buddhist directly approved by Siddhartha. This partly gets to where Siddhartha is now and how there can possibly be new scriptures goes along with that. Apparently monks could still access him after his parinibbana (when they meditated).

I’ve mentioned the idea that the Mahayana view was a cult of some kind. One example of a version of Mahayana that may indeed be viewed as a cult is the mainly Japanese Ni Chi Ren Sho Shu Ha (日蓮系諸宗派 in Japanese) or NiChiRen Buddhism. Ni Chi Ren was a 13^th Century Buddhist who became its inspiration. This sect focuses today on the Lotus Sutra (the sutra from which the ‘burning building’ parable I’ve just discussed came). Pronouncing its short title in Japanese is said to have ‘magical’ results. In some sense this Sutra is also said to actually be Siddhartha (or perhaps some kind of composite of the Buddhas). Tina Turner has been a devotee of this cult. Things like levitation are possible according to various versions of Mahayana Buddhism especially.

A particular effect of the advent of the Mahayana tendency to innovate was that this vaipulya Buddhism could now cross-pollinate with indigenous religions such as Chinese Daoism, Japanese Shinto and Tibetan Bön even more easily. As a matter of authority, however, Mahayana belief is that their Canonical works are teachings of Siddhartha’s “second and third turnings” during his lifetime. What precisely that means isn’t entirely clear today but it appears that the second and third turning teachings were first taught in the order suggested by their names by Siddhartha during his lifetime after he had already been enlightened and teaching the “first turning” (often but not always accepted as the Tripitaka – sometimes Mahayana Buddhists prefer to exclude the abhidharma, often decried as too intellectualising, as any actual teaching of Siddhartha) for 16 years. The sravakas (hearers) were reckoned to only be ready for the idea of striving for Arhathood for the first 16 years. The second turning was apparently taught at one place but the third turning may have been taught much more widely. The Mahayana beliefs include the idea that the written teachings were hidden for many years by semi-divine snake-like beings called nagas (see below):

(From Wikipedia – guarding a temple in Vientiane)

The nagas are also known more generally in Indian religions as keepers of esoteric learning. The tradition continues that in around the year 1 BCE or CE around 500 teachers of what became known as Mahayana Buddhism held a conference at Mount Abu (now in Rajasthan in North West India) and there made the decision to reveal the hidden scriptures and begin to teach their meaning(s). To be continued...

The Split within Buddhism as an argument over the Abhidharma – Mahayana

Early in the tradition of Buddhism there were as many as eighteen schools of thought (and perhaps more than 30 have been discerned by modern scholars). Of these, a group called the Mahasanghika (Greater Assembly) proved the most controversial. Within India, their position became the majority viewpoint while Sthaviravadans (“keepers of the doctrine of the elders” – now called Theravadans with the same meaning but in Pali in Sri Lanka and south-east Asia) became the main opposition party. In India, the Sthaviravadan School became the Sarvastivadan School later responsible for the lost Sanskrit Canon. Another school (the Pudgalavadins (personal exponents) or Vatsiputriyas) believed in the actual existence of a soul (person – pudgala) beyond the skandas. The idea of the transmigration of ‘souls’ from lifetime to lifetime was also a controversial area (among many others). The Pudgalavadins were among those that sailed closest to the wind, which is part of the reason for their development of the idea of the pudgala. It was all very scholastic.

I mentioned in an earlier post that there were two accepted councils in the first hundred years after Siddhartha’s death. There was actually a second 2^nd council soon after the 2^nd council and soon after that the Mahasanghika split occurred. Mahayana Buddhism owes something to the Mahasanghika view but it is certainly a different view. The advent of Mahayana (after firstly being brought into existence) as the major of the two streams of Buddhism by the 5^th Century CE (as reported by 5^th Century Chinese pilgrims - the minor stream became Theravada) wasn’t simply brought on by an argument over abhidharma (although the existence of two versions presented that opportunity) but that was part of it. An orthodox Buddhism beyond the abhidharma had developed that was questioned and Buddhism had no problem intrinsically with any questioning. As I mentioned in an earlier post, monks and nuns could happily exist in the same communities for a long time despite holding different views.

Ultimately, though, disagreement upon Canon inclusions and especially the acceptable form of the vinaya forced new communities to be formed. Mahayanans still accepted the Sarvastivadan Canon in full, however. The scriptures that distinguish the Mahayana view appear to have been written around the time the Pali Canon was written but tradition asserts an earlier ultimate inspiration directly from Siddhartha (as does the tradition of the Pali Canon, of course). The name “Mahayana” probably arose in the 3^rd or 4^th Century CE possibly along with the derogatory “Hinayana” euphemistically translated as “the lesser way or vehicle”.

In this period the ‘Buddhist’ Mauryan Empire established by Asoka with its capital near modern-day Patna on the Ganges and extending to southern India and Afghanistan and Pakistan had been broken up by invasions from the north-west. Many of the invaders had taken on the Buddhist religion in some form for the same reasons Indians and others did (discussed in an earlier post). Two new Buddhist strongholds formed: one in the north-west of the old Empire under Kusana rule and one in the south. A further settlement project had occurred in Sri Lanka. Much later (by around the 13^th Century) Buddhism had virtually died out completely in India itself.

The disagreement in the views had to do with the ultimate aim of Buddhism.

The conservatives who had virtually fled to Sri Lanka believed the object of Buddhism was the making of Arhats as soon as possible. This process was individual and to be undergone essentially by the monks. Other Theravada Buddhists could really only hope to be reborn as monks before they could get to this stage in their own existences. This view meant that each monk was only responsible for achieving his own nirvana and thus becoming free of his own cycle of death and rebirth. They did, however, accept (naturally, as Mahayana arguments made a lot of sense within Buddhism) that Bodhisattva- and Buddha-hood were noble enterprises (while yet not accepting that they were superior pathways).

This view also had it that this was all Siddhartha had taught and that to teach anything else was to corrupt his message. The proto-Mahayana views, they held, claimed that the Arhat was still a conditioned being and that Siddhartha had planned something different for them.

This was actually a misrepresentation of the Mahayana view which was that the Arhat did become unconditioned but shouldn’t. He should rather pull back so that he might benefit others (I write “he” because nuns and other women were probably not considered as likely to arrive at being a potential Arhat in the first place).

The Theravadans were also most keen to stress the humanity of Siddhartha. The idea that he truly had a super human quality and was actually enlightened before the lifetime in which he taught Buddhism was another Mahayana view that they opposed. On that view, his whole life as Siddhartha was a teachable moment for humanity undergone due to this enlightened being’s extreme compassion.

But the Vaipulya (expanded – Mahayana) view gained the ascendency based on the newly recognised Vaipulya scriptures. There were five distinguishing features of the new teachings that led to claims of superiority:

1) It was better to also help others (as the historical Buddha, himself, did) rather than merely achieve nirvana for oneself only, as the Arhats did (thus the idea of being a Bodhisattva or Buddha was better than the idea of being an Arhat);

2) The more traditional view had wrongly changed since the time of Siddhartha to exclude even nuns from the possibility of Arhathood (thus the expanded teaching also accorded better with the original teaching, though there were several sub-views concerning the enlightenment potential of laypeople);

3) More upaya (ways to become enlightened) became available according to these scriptures (so Buddhism was actually easier than it had been claimed to be – even a king could remain a king and still become enlightened, though this hadn’t been Siddhartha’s path);

4) The newly revealed scriptures and thus commentaries upon them had a more comprehensive cosmology and ontology that also incorporated the first three features well (so it had a coherent theology); and

5) It had more canonical scriptures (84,000) so this made Buddhism easier to understand fully.

The Mahayanans claimed in addition that these teachings were genuine but had been initially hidden for the good reason that it was first necessary for a sufficient number of people to understand the traditional teachings before a critical mass could appreciate the expanded teachings. So these were the real teachings of gnosis. One particular correction to the old view was that Buddhas could in fact (and potential Arhats should also aim to) remain in existence in some sense beyond their parinirvana (for the good of others). The ultimate Mahayana view was that there were actually three so-called “turnings of the wheel of dharma” begun by Siddhartha and that the old Canons represented the first, only, of the turnings.

The opposing view also asserted that the Mahayana view was an innovation produced by simply bowing to popular pressure. There have been six Western scholarly views (all but the last of which are still held by some scholars):

1) The ‘new’ scriptures were the centre of a new “cult” of Buddhism;

2) The Mahayana view was a speculation prompted by new ideas within Hinduism (including the Bhakti tendency) as well as other Indian religions;

3) It was an anti-intellectualism anti-abhidharma trend and a trend towards a more holistic approach to Buddhism;

4) It was a set of ideas derived during meditation during which Buddhas had been encountered and had taught the meditators (the scriptures themselves support this idea);

5) Mahayana Buddhism was simply realised to be in the true spirit of the original teachings of Siddhartha (c.f. “the second and third turnings of the wheel of dharma” idea – further turnings may yet perhaps be realised); and

6) Some Japanese scholars especially suggested that pressure from the laity (Japanese priests marry
suggesting susceptibility to the scholars) led to Mahayana Buddhism (note that this view also agrees
with the traditional view).