CHAPTER V.

THE MAHAYANA SYSTEMS.

NAGARJUNA. THE FUNDAMENTAL MAHAYANA PRINCIPLES. THE CONTEMPLATIVE MAHAYANA (YOGACHARYA) SYSTEM. THE PRASANGA-MADHYAMIKA SCHOOL.

Nāgārjuna.

MOST of the sacred Tibetan writers consider Nāgārjuna (in Tibetan Lugrub) as the founder of this system, which means "great vehicle." Nagarjuna is reported in their books to have lived in the southern parts of India, four hundred years after the death of the Buddha Săkyamuni or according to Westergaards calculation in the first century A.D.; the sacred books of the Southern Buddhists give the second century B.C.' The Tibetan historiograph Tārānātha, however, is of opinion, that the most important Mahāyāna books had already appeared

1 See p. 7.-The Tibetans are decidedly wrong in considering Nāgārjuna as the author of the numerous Mahāyāna writings; for the treatises which they refer to him are ascribed in the Chinese translations to other authors. According to Wassiljew's opinion he is most probably a mythological personage, without any real existence; in which case we should have to regard Nāgārjuna as the generic name of the various authors who wrote upon the Mahāyāna doctrine before the time of Aryasanga. See his "Buddhismus," pp. 140, 219.

in the Time of Sri Saraha, or Rahulabhadra, who lived shortly before Nagarjuna.

According to some Tibetan legends, Nagarjuna received the book Paramartha, according to others the book Avatamsaka, from the Nagas, fabulous creatures of the nature of serpents, who occupy a place among the beings superior to man, and are regarded as protectors of the law of the Buddha. To these spiritual beings Sakyamuni is said to have taught a more philosophical religious system than to men, who were not sufficiently advanced to understand it at the time of his appearance. In a Chinese biography Nagarjuna is described as an exceedingly clever man, who considered his theory to be entirely different from that of Buddhism in its contemporaneous form, until, after conversation with the Nagas, he discovered an exactly similar doctrine to have been taught by the Buddha Sakyamuni himself. Hence the biographer infers the system to contain the same principles as those of genuine Buddhism, though it is more sublime. This vindication of orthodoxy naturally leads to the conclusion, that Nagarjuna's followers were well aware of their being in opposition to the Hinayana schools, which they would have reproached with heresy, had the latter not adopted some of the principles established in the new system, and by doing so, admitted the correctness of the innovations thus introduced. The Hinayana system existed still for many centuries; Hiuen Thsang, in his reports, frequently mentions that he has met during his travels adherents of the "little vehicle."

1 Concerning the Nagas see, Foe koue ki, English translation, p. 155.

In none of the sacred books treating on the Mahāyāna system do we find a record of the historical development of its theories prior to the appearance of Aryasanga (in Tibetan Chagpa thogmed), a reformer who founded the Yogacharya school (in Tibetan, Naljor chodpa).' It is impossible, therefore, to indicate, with any approximation to accuracy, either the origin, or the authors, of the divergent theories to be clearly traced in the Mahāyāna religious books, which were all of them written before Āryāsanga's time. In the works relating to this system two divisions essentially different are apparent: the first illustrating the principles of Nagarjuna, which have been adopted by the Madhyamika schools (Tib. Bumapa); the second, which is the more developed one, being appropriated by the Yogacharya school, or the contemplative Mahāyāna. I shall treat these divisions separately as also the peculiarities that developed in the Prasanga branch, the most important of the Madhyamika system.

The fundamental Mahāyāna principles.

The leading principles of this doctrine are to be found in the earliest works attributed to Nagarjuna, among

1 Aryasanga is said to have been taught his doctrine by the future Buddha Maitreya, the president of the region Tushita, from whom he received back the five short treatises in verse known in Tibet as "the five books of Maitreya," or Champai chos nga. Csoma places him in the seventh century, but according to Wassiljew's researches (pp. 225, 230) he must have lived much sooner, as the biography of his younger brother, Vasubandhu, was translated by the celebrated Tshin thi into Chinese under the dynasty T'shin, who ruled between the years 557-588 A.D. Also the the remarks of Wilson in R. As. Soc., Vol. VI., p. 240, on the period when the principal works still extant in Sanskrit were written, may be quoted in prove of the period being an earlier one. He believes it now "established, that they have been written at the latest, from a century and a half before to as much after, the era of Christianity."

FUNDAMENTAL LAWS.

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which may be specially mentioned: Samādhirāja, Buddhāvatamsaka, and Ratnakūta.

I. The fundamental dogma is that of the emptiness, or nothingness of things (in Tib. Tongpanyid, in Sanskrit Sūnyatā); it is also called Prajnā Pāramitā (in Tib. Pharchin, also Sherchin), "the supreme intelligence which arrives at the other side of the river." This dogma, it is evident, is simply an enlargement and development of the principal law of Buddhism:-All is perishable, or partakes of impermanence, misery, and unreality. The idea of emptiness is referred both to single objects and also to absolute existence in general. When relating to single objects, the expression "void or ideal" signifies that which we consider in any object as original, existing by itself, and permanent; hence, even the Buddha is but the product of judicious reflection and meditation. When referred to absolute existence, emptiness is the abstract essence, existing in every thing without causal connexion, and comprising all though containing nothing.

Sakyamuni is said to have connected this dogma with the consideration, "that no existing object has a nature, Ngovonyid, whence it follows, that there is neither beginning nor end-that from time immemorial all has been perfect quietude, Zodmanas zhiba (viz. nothing has manifested itself in any form), and is entirely immersed in Nirvana." The Mahāyāna schools demonstrate the doctrine of voidness by the dogma of the three characteristic

There is an interesting treatise on nothingness, called the Vajramandā Dharani, which contains a resumé of the ideas connected with this dogma. It is translated by Burnouf, in his "Introduction," p. 543. Concerning the dogmas of the Mahayana system see Wassiljew, 1. c., pp. 128-43, 319-24, 330.

marks, and of the two truths; the three characteristic marks enumerating the properties of any existing object, and the two truths showing how by the perfect understanding of these properties clear comprehension shall be attained.

The three characteristic marks are the following: Parikalpita (Tib. Kun tag), Paratantra (Tib. Zhan vang), and Parinishpanna (Tib. Yong grub).

Parikalpita is the supposition, or the error. Of this kind is the belief in absolute existence to which those beings adhere who are incapable of understanding that every thing is empty; of this kind is also whatever exists in idea only, without specific quality; or, in other words, whatever is attributed by our reflections and meditations to any object. The error can be two-fold; some believing a thing existing which does not, as e. g. the Non-ego; others assert the real existence of an object which only exists in the idea, as e. g. all outward things.

Paratantra is whatever exists by a dependent or causal connexion; it forms the basis of the error. Of this kind are: the soul, the sense, comprehension, and also imperfect philosophical meditation. Every object exists by concatenation, and has a specific nature; therefore, it is called dependent upon others, Paratantra.

Parinishpanna, "completely perfect," or simply "perfect," is the unchangeable and unassignable true existence, which is also the scope of the path, the summum bonum, the absolute. Of this kind can be only that which enters the mind clear and undarkened, as for instance,