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Updated: June 29, 2025
Similarly it is held in the Far East that there were five periods in Śâkyamuni's teaching which after passing through the stage of the Hinayana culminated in the Prajñâ-pâramitâ and Amitâbha sutras shortly before his death. Many critics demur to the assumption that primitive Buddhism was a system of ethics purged of superstition and mythology. And in a way they are right.
All this implies the presence of difference if there were no difference, light or intelligence could not be what it is, it would be something altogether void, without any meaning. Here terminates the adhikarana of 'origination and so on. An objection to the purport of the preceding Sutras here presents itself.
Where a community of monks resides, they erect topes to Sâriputtra, to Mahâ-maudgalyâyana, and to Ânanda, and also topes in honor of the Abhidharma, the Vinaya, and the Sûtras.
Gembo, during a sojourn of two years at the Tang Court, studied the tenets of the Hosso sect, which, like the Sanron, constituted one of the five sects originally introduced into Japan. Returning in 736, he presented to the Emperor Shomu five thousand volumes of the Sutras, together with a number of Buddhist images, and he was appointed abbot of the celebrated temple, Kofuku-ji.
The Sarvâstivâdin Pitaka of the same name was entirely different and, judging from the Chinese Canon, the Mahayanists gave the title to philosophic works by such authors as Asanga and Vasubandhu, some of which were described as revelations from Maitreya. Specially characteristic of Mahayanist Buddhism are the Vaipulya sutras, that is sutras of great extension or development.
Applying this principle we may conclude that the Hinayana and Mahayana were flourishing side by side in India and Central Asia in the first century A.D. and that the Happy Land sutras and portions of the Prajñâ-pâramitâ already existed.
The word signifies Great Vehicle or Carriage, that is a means of conveyance to salvation, and is contrasted with Hinayana, the Little Vehicle, a name bestowed on the more conservative party though not willingly accepted by them. He says "Those who worship Bodhisattvas and read Mahayana Sutras are called Mahayanists, while those who do not do this are called Hinayanists."
If Patañjali's sûtras are posterior to Asanga, it also seems probable that the codification of the Yoga by the Brahmans was connected with the rise of the Yogâcâra among the Buddhists . The Sûtras describe themselves as an exposition of Yoga, which has here the meaning not of union with God, but rather of effort.
Sometimes the first three are contrasted with the fourth and sometimes the first two are described as lower, the third and fourth as higher. But the Anuttara-yoga is always considered the highest and most mysterious. Târanâtha says that the Tantras began to appear simultaneously with the Mahayana sûtras but adds that the Anuttara-yoga tantras appeared gradually.
A new category seems to be formed by the Buddhâvataṃsaka-sûtra with which the sutras about Amitâbha's Paradise are associated. Then comes the Mahâsannipâta-sûtra associated with works which may correspond to the Ratnakûṭa division of the Chinese Canon. The writer adds that there are "hundreds of myriads of similar sutras classified in groups and categories."
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