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Updated: June 29, 2025
Three thousand six hundred holy priests of Buddha must read the sutras in order to deliver the old dragon so that he may rise again to the skies, and keep his original form. But the writings and readings of men will not be enough to ensure this. It will be necessary to go to the Western Heavens and thence bring words of truth."
This view of the divine activity is expounded by so serious a writer as Śaṅkara in his commentary on the Vedânta Sûtras, and it also finds mythological expression in numerous popular legends. The Tamil Purâṇas describe the sixty-four miracles of Śiva as his amusements: his laughter and joyous movements brighten all things, and the street minstrels sing "He sports in the world.
Nimbârka expressed his views in a short commentary on the Vedânta Sûtras and also in ten verses containing a compendium of doctrine. As among the Śivaites, so among the Vishnuites of the south, history begins with poet-saints. They are called the twelve Âr̤vârs. For the three earliest no historical basis has been found, but the later ones seem to be real personalities.
A great number of Hinayanist sutras were translated before 300 A.D. but very few after 450. On the other hand portions of the sutra about Amîda's Paradise, of the Prajñâ-pâramitâ, and of the Avataṃsaka were translated about 150 A.D. and translations of the Lotus and Lalita-vistara appeared about 300.
So far it has been shown that the doctrines of Kapila, Kanada, Sugata, and the Arhat must be disregarded by men desirous of final beatitude; for those doctrines are all alike untenable and foreign to the Veda. The Sutras now declare that, for the same reasons, the doctrine of Pasupati also has to be disregarded.
At that time, from emperors and kings down to the peasants in the villages, the wise and the ignorant alike were filled with reverence for Buddha. But under the last two dynasties his gospel came to be more and more neglected. In these days the Buddhist monks run to the houses of the rich, read their sutras and pray for pay. And one hears nothing of the great saints of the days gone by.
It has been already shown, viz. under I, 2, 21, that the highest Brahman constitutes the initial topic of the Upanishad. And by the arguments set forth in the previous Sutras of the present Pada, we have removed all suspicion as to the topic started being dropped in the body of the Upanishad. And on account of abiding and eating. 'Two birds, inseparable friends, cling to the same tree. Up.
The third of the above three religious celebrities was a Chinese missionary named Kanshin. He went to Japan accompanied by fourteen priests, three nuns, and twenty-four laymen, and the mission carried with it many Buddhist relics, images, and Sutras.
Such are the Mahayanist version of the Mahâparinirvâṇa recounting the death and burial of the Buddha and the Mahâsannipâta-sûtra, which apparently includes the Sûryagarbha and Candragarbha sutras. All these works were translated into Chinese about 420 A.D. and must therefore be of respectable antiquity. Besides the sutras, there are many compositions styled Avadânas or pious legends.
Even the earth was embroidered, as it were, with sutras and shastras. Symbolical landscape gardening, which, in its mounds and paths, variously shaped stones and lanterns, artificial cascades and streamlets, teaches the holy geography as well as the allegories and hidden truths of Buddhism, made the city of Nara beautiful to the eyes of faith as well as of sight.
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