Part 16 - Brief Analysis of Three Mahāyāna Buddhists

Before turning to the presence and scope of the Bodhisattva Ideal in Theravāda Buddhism (the only extant school of Hīnayāna Buddhism), it may be beneficial to investigate briefly the sources that identify the Bodhisattva with Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Śrāvakayāna with Hīnayāna Buddhism. Instead of looking at how this model is appropriated by scholars of Buddhism, I will turn to the writings of three Mahāyāna Buddhists in which this bifurcation is suggested. One of the first Mahāyāna Buddhists who identifies the Bodhisattva with Mahāyāna Buddhism and the Śrāvakayāna with Hīnayāna Buddhism is Nāgārjuna. In his Precious Garland of Advice for the King (Rajaparikatha-ratnamala), Nāgārjuna rhetorically asks “Since all the aspirations, deeds and dedications of Bodhisattvas were not explained in the Hearer’s vehicle, how then one could become a Bodhisattva through its path?”^[1] In another instance, Nāgārjuna writes that “In the Vehicle of the Hearers] Buddha did not explain the bases for a Bodhisattva’s enlightenment.”^[2] While Nāgārjuna compares the Śrāvakayāna with the Bodhisattva in these first two passages, he later states that “the subjects based on the deeds of Bodhisattvas were not mentioned in the [Hīnayāna] sūtras.”^[3] Nāgārjuna’s third passage, then, suggests that subjects concerning bodhisattvas are found only in Mahāyāna texts and are absent from all Hīnayāna texts.

Another Mahāyāna Buddhist to uphold a Mahāyāna-Hīnayāna distinction based on a bodhisattva-śrāvaka opposition is Asaṅga. As Richard S. Cohen illustrates, Asaṅga posits, in his Mahāyānasūtralamkara, that the Great Vehicle and the Hearers’ Vehicle are mutually opposed.^[4] Their contradictory nature includes intention, teaching, employment (i.e., means), support (which is based entirely on merit and knowledge), and the time that it takes to reach the goal.^[5] After Asaṅga discusses the opposing nature of these two vehicles, he then identifies the Śrāvakayāna as the lesser vehicle (Hīnayāna), and remarks that the lesser vehicle (yānaṃ hinaṃ) is not able to be the great vehicle (Mahāyāna). Candrakirti is yet another Mahāyāna thinker who views the Mahāyāna and the Hīnayāna as being mutually opposed. Like Asaṅga, Candrakiirti uses the bodhisattva-śrāvaka distinction to separate Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna Buddhism as well as to promote the Mahāyāna tradition over and against Hīnayāna Buddhism. In his Mādhyamakāvatāra, for instance, he remarks that the lesser vehicle (Hīnayāna) is the path reserved solely for disciples and solitary Buddhas, and that the greater vehicle (Mahāyāna) is the path reserved solely for bodhisattvas. Not only does Candrakiirti associate the Bodhisattva with Mahāyāna Buddhism, he also clings to the belief that the Hīnayāna schools know nothing of the “stages of the career of the future Buddha, the perfect virtues (pāramitā), the resolutions or vows to save all creatures, the application of merit to the acquisition of the quality of Buddha, and the great compassion.”^[6] In other words, for Candrakirti (as for Nāgārjuna), the Hīnayāna tradition does not present a bodhisattva doctrine.

Problems of These Three Commentators

The points raised by these Mahāyāna Buddhists are problematic for three reasons. First, the dichotomy presented by both Asaṅga and Candrakirti sets up an opposition between an ideology and an institutional affiliation. Rather than comparing an ideology with an ideology (bodhisattva and śrāvaka) or a Buddhist school with another Buddhist school, this opposition contrasts one ideology (arahantship through following the Śrāvakayāna) with an institutional affiliation (Mahāyāna Buddhism). In order for a more accurate distinction to be constructed, then, we must either compare the Bodhisattva with the Śrāvakayāna, or compare a Mahāyāna Buddhist school with a Hīnayāna Buddhist school. Another problem with the ideas put forth by Nāgārjuna, Asaṅga, and Candrakirti concerns their statements that Mahāyāna and Hīnayāna Buddhism are mutually contradictory and exclusive. These assertions undermine the fact that the terms “Hīnayāna” and “Mahāyāna” refer to numerous schools and that the category of “Hīnayāna” includes even a number of “proto Mahāyāna” schools (e.g., the Mahāsāṅghikas).^[7] By using the terms “Mahāyāna” and “Hīnayāna” monolithically, these thinkers ignore the plurality of doctrines, goals, and paths that are present in the schools. The third problem inherent in the statements of these writers, and which will be the focus of this article, is that they assume that all followers of the Hīnayāna are śrāvakas striving to become arahants while all followers of the Mahāyāna are bodhisattvas on the path to Buddhahood. As we shall see through the example of the only extant Hīnayāna school, the Theravādin tradition, this is clearly not the case.

Footnotes and references:

[1]:

Majjhima Nikāya 3:119-120, and Digha Nikāya 2:108.

[2]:

Richard Gombrich, “The Significance of Former Buddhas in the Theravādin Tradition,” Buddhist Studies in Honour of Walpola Rahula, ed. Somaratna Balasooriya et al. London: Gordon Fraser Gallery, 2001, p. 68.

[3]:

H. Saddhatissa, trans., The Sutta-Nipata, London: Curzon Press, 1999, v. 683.

[4]:

Ibid., v. 693.

[5]:

In Buddhavamsa 1:76-77, Sariputta asks the Buddha about his process of Awakening and how he fulfilled the ten perfections. He then asks: “Of what kind, wise one, leader of the world, were your ten perfections? How were the higher perfections fulfilled, trow the ultimate perfections?”

[6]:

Cariyapitaka 1:1-1:8 and 1:9.

[7]:

Buddhavaṃśa 2A:54-55.