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Updated: June 22, 2025
Folk-lore and sagas, ancient jokes and tragedies, the whole stock in trade of rhapsodists and minstrels are made an edifying and interesting branch of scripture by simply identifying the principal characters with the Buddha, his friends and his enemies in their previous births . But in Hinayanist Buddhism legend and mythology are ornamental, and edifying, nothing more.
From that time onwards Mahayanist literature as represented by Chinese translations steadily increases, and after 400 A.D. Hinayanist literature declines, with two exceptions, the Vinaya and the Abhidharma books of the Sarvâstivâdins.
He mentions the Vinaya and Abhidharma without further particulars, whereas in describing the Hinayanist versions of these two Pitakas he gives many details. The importance of this list lies in the fact that it is Indian rather than in its date, for the earliest catalogue of the Chinese Tripitaka compiled about 510 is perhaps older and certainly ampler.
Some writers speak as if after our era Mahayanism was predominant in India and the Hinayana banished to its extreme confines such as Ceylon and Kashmir. Yet about A.D. 640 this zealous Mahayanist states that half the monks of India were definitely Hinayanist while less than a fifth had equally definite Mahayanist convictions.
The Andhra kings who reigned from about 240 B.C. to 225 A.D. all claimed to belong to the Śâtavâhana dynasty. See Grünwedel, Mythologie, p. 34 and notes. Polemics against various Hinayanist sects are ascribed to him. Vincent Smith in Early History of India, third edition, pp. 328-334. Winternitz, Ges. Ind. Lit. II. i. p. 256. Watters, Yüan Chwang, I. pp. 210, 355-359. Taranâtha, chap.
The strength of the Hinayanist schools lay in the Vinaya. The Mahayanists showed a tendency to replace it by legends and vague if noble aspirations. But a code of discipline was necessary for large monasteries and the code of the Sarvâstivâdins enjoyed general esteem in Central Asia and China.
The Mahayana laid less stress on monasticism than the Hinayana and therefore its strength may have lain among the laity, but even so the admitted strength of the Hinayana is remarkable. Three Hinayanist schools are frequently mentioned, the Sthaviras, Sarvâstivâdins and Sammitîyas.
Like the Chinese Tripitaka it recognizes both Mahayanist and Hinayanist works, but evidently prefers the former and styles them collectively Bodhisattva-Piṭaka. It enumerates about fifty sutras by name, beginning with the Prajñâ-pâramitâ, the Lotus and other well-known texts. Then comes a list of works with titles ending in Samâdhi, followed by others called Paripṛicchâ or questions.
Neither does he indicate that any strong animosity prevailed between Maha and Hinayanists. But the two parties were distinct and he notes which prevailed in each locality. Nearer India, in countries apparently corresponding to parts of Kashmir and Gilgit, the monks were numerous and all Hinayanist. The same was the case in Udyana, and in Gandhara the Hinayanists were still in the majority.
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