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And this is possible only if, owing to unity of vidya, the qualities mentioned in the first text are included also in the meditation enjoined in the second text. Having thus established the unity of meditations, the Sutras proceed to state the practical effect of such unity.
II, 1, 22 and others have refuted the view that Brahman is to be considered as non-different from the personal soul, because in texts such as 'thou art that' it is exhibited in co-ordination with the latter. And other Sutras have proved that Brahman must, on the basis of numerous scriptural texts, be recognised as the inner Self of all things material and immaterial.
The Emperor Mommu enacted a law for the better control of priests and nuns, yet he erected the temple Kwannon-ji. Kamatari approved of his eldest son, Joye, entering the priesthood, and sent him to China to study the Sutras. He also gave up his residence at Yamashina for conversion into a monastery.
Many spirits responded and contributed their reminiscences which were examined by the Council and, when they did not contradict the sûtras and the Vinaya, were accepted, but otherwise were rejected. The selected pieces were grouped according to their subject-matter. Those about wisdom formed the Prajñâ Grantha, and those about meditation the Dhyâna Grantha and so on.
This may be reasonably held to include a recension of the text commented on but we do not know what that text was, and the brief and perplexing accounts of the Council which we possess indicate not that it gave its imprimatur to Mahayanist sutras but that it was specially concerned with the Abhidharma works of the Sarvâstivâdin school.
When they brought the Sutras forth, three lofty seats had been prepared and grandly ornamented. Sariputtra occupied the one on the left, and Maudgalyayana that on the right. Of the number of five hundred one was wanting. Amanda was then outside the door, and could not get in.
These works, of which the Lotus is an example, follow the same scheme as the older sutras but are of wider scope and on a much larger scale, for they often consist of twenty or more chapters. They usually attempt to give a general exposition of the whole Dharma, or at least of some aspect of it which is extolled as sufficient for the right conduct of life.
Great caution is necessary in using these data and the circumstances of China as well as of India must be taken into account. If translations of the Vinaya and complete collections of sutras are late in appearing, it does not follow that the corresponding Indian texts are late, for the need of the Vinaya was not felt until monasteries began to spring up.
This is the first thing to be kept in mind, in all that is said of spiritual powers in the third and fourth books of the Sutras.
The former is superseded by modern manuals, the latter by Mahayanist Sutras such as the Lotus and the Happy Land, which are however of respectable antiquity. As in India, each sect selects rather arbitrarily a few books for its own use, without condemning others but also without according to them the formal recognition received by the Old and New Testaments among Christians.
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