Part 12 - Origins and Development of [Buddhist] Schools

The most probable forerunners of Mahāyāna were the Mahāsāṅghikas (Followers of the Great Assembly), a liberal branch of the Buddhist community that broke away from the more conservative mainstream some time before the reign of Indian king Ashoka in the 3rd century BC. Mahāyāna thinkers of later periods categorized the Mahāsāṅghikas as one of the 18 schools of Hinayāna Buddhism, but when Mahāyāna first emerged, it resembled Mahāsāṅghika in several areas of doctrinal interpretation. The most significant Mahāyāna innovation was the view of the Buddha as a supernatural being who assumed a transformation body (nirmāṇa-kāya) to be born as the historical Buddha.

Precisely when and where Mahāyāna arose in India is unclear, but its origin can be traced to between the 2nd century BC and the 1st century AD. The early growth of Mahāyāna was promoted by Indian philosopher Nāgarjuna, who founded the Mādhyamika School. His influential writings provide some of the most persuasive early formulations of Mahāyāna. The Mādhyamika School proliferated into a number of sects, and was carried to China in the early 5th century by Buddhist missionary Kumarajiva, who translated Nāgarjuna's work into Chinese. By 625 Mādhyamika had reached Japan by way of Korea, though everywhere it remained more influential among the scholarly elite than the common people.

The Pure Land school of Mahāyāna, based on the 1st-century Sukhāvativyūha Sūtra (Pure Land Sūtra; a sūtra is a writing that purports to record a discourse of the Buddha), was established in China in the 4th century by Chinese scholar Huiyuan, who formed a devotional society for meditating on the name of Amitābha Buddha (Buddha of Infinite Light). This sect grew and spread through the 6th and 7th centuries, especially among the common people.

The Vijñānavāda (Consciousness Only) school maintained that consciousness alone is real. Vijñānavāda first arose in India about the 4th century and was taken to China two centuries later by Chinese monk and pilgrim Xuanzang (Hsuan-tsang). A Japanese disciple, Dosho, who arrived to study with him in 653, conveyed it to Japan. A native Chinese Mahāyāna school, Avatamsaka (Huayan in Chinese), was established in the 7th century by Chinese monk Dushun around a Chinese translation of its basic text, the Avataṃśaka Sūtra (Garland Sutra). The school reached Korea in the late 7th century, and between 725 and 740 was carried to Japan, where it was known as Kegon. Another important Chinese school, the Tiantai (Tendai in Japanese), was founded by Chinese monk Zhiyi, who organized the entire Buddhist canon around the cardinal Mahāyāna scripture, the Saddharmapuṇḍarika Sūtra (Lotus Sūtra). This school became very influential in China and Korea, and also in Japan, where it served as a means for introducing Pure Land doctrines.

The Mahāyāna school called Dhyāna (Sanskrit for "meditation"; known in Chinese as Chan and in Japanese as Zen) was supposedly introduced into China in 520 by Indian monk Bodhidharma, but actually arose from crossfertilization between Mahāyāna and Chinese Daoism (Taoism). Chan split into a number of schools and was introduced into Korea and into Japan in the 7th century, though its full development occurred later. Zen and Pure Land both spread into Vietnam (under Chinese rule at the time) in the 6th century. Beginning in the 7th century the Indian form of Mahāyāna Buddhism was gradually introduced into Tibet.

Mahāyāna thus was established as the dominant Buddhist school of East Asia by about the 7th century. Some Mahāyāna influences penetrated into Sri Lanka, Indonesia, and other Southeast Asian countries -for example, the great Cambodian monuments of Angkor Thum reflect a 12th-century Mahāyāna tradition. These influences were later superseded by Theravāda, Hinduism, and Islam.

Buddhism in China suffered persecution under the emperor Wuzong in 845, and subsequently was overshadowed by the state cult of Confucianism, but remained an integral part of Chinese life. In Korea, where the Zen school (known as Son in Korean) had become dominant, Mahāyāna flourished in the Koryo period (935-1392), but was restricted under the Yi dynasty (1392-1910).

Japan supported a vibrant Mahāyāna culture, which after the 12th century gave rise to new Zen and Pure Land sects under such reformers as Japanese monks Dogen and Honen, as well as to Japan's only entirely indigenous Buddhist sect, Nichiren Buddhism. Japanese Mahāyāna lost much of its vitality in the Edo period (1600-1868), during which the Tokugawa shogunate used it for social control through registration of parishioners. The anti-Buddhist policy of Japan's new rulers in the first decade following the Meiji Restoration of 1868 foreshadowed much of Mahāyāna's experience in the 20th century, in which Communist regimes in China, Vietnam, and North Korea prohibited worship, and in which the Chinese annexation of Tibet led to considerable persecution of Mahāyāna practitioners. The easing of doctrinaire Communism led to a revival of Mahāyāna in some of these areas. Mahāyāna has also spread into new territory with the growing popularity in the West of Zen and other Mahāyāna schools.

Mahāyāna Buddhism introduced the idea of a deity in the religion. Buddha became the principal deity. According to them, Arhats are more limited than Buddhas, or the enlightened beings. As they consider Buddha as a deity, they worship him as a deity too. Mahāyāna Buddhism tries to reinterpret the obscure doctrine in its own way. Mahāyāna Buddhism believes in the versions of the Jātaka tales that describe the previous births of Buddha Śākyamuni as a Bodhisattva. Mahāyāna believes that there are one thousand Buddhas who will begin universal religions. They say there were many more before and will be many more after them too.

Mahāyāna says that everyone can become a Buddha. This is because of the fact that everyone is blessed with the Buddha-nature factor that can propel the attainment of the status of Buddha. Mahāyāna believes that Bodhisattvas alone practiced the ten far-reaching attitudes. According to Mahāyāna Buddhism, the ten far-reaching attitudes are generosity, skill in means, patience, ethical self-discipline, mental stability, joyful perseverance, strengthening, deep awareness, aspiration-filled prayer and discriminating awareness.

Mahāyāna Buddhism differs in the treatment of the four immeasurable attitudes, as well. It is indeed true that it teaches the practice of the four immeasurable attitudes of love, compassion, joy and equanimity. At the same time, it has difference in the definitions of these attitudes. Although, there is an agreement between Mahāyāna and Hinayāna Buddhism in terms of the definitions of love and compassion, there is some difference in the treatment of immeasurable joy and equanimity. Mahāyāna defines immeasurable joy as the wish that others have the experience of joy or happiness of continuous enlightenment. According Mahāyāna Buddhism, equanimity is the state of mind that is bereft of attachment, indifference and repulsion.