on the contrary, admits all his followers to the full blessings of his law.'

At the early period of the Hinayana system the list of the different gradations must have been closed with the Arhats, the Buddha even not being originally called by another name; but in the progressive developement of this system the Arhat was superseded by the Pratyēka Buddhas, the Bodhisattvas, and the most perfect Buddhas.

Pratyēka Buddhas are those men who, though attaining by their own unaided exertions the Bodhi of the supreme Buddhas, remain limited in their powers as well as their intellects. They are unable to release any one from the repetition of existence, as they only care for their own salvation, without contributing in the least towards that of other men. Pratyēka Buddhas are accordingly never said in the legends to have accomplished miraculous works similar to those of the supreme Buddhas, and are further considered never to appear when a real Buddha is living upon earth."

2

Bodhisattvas are the candidates for the Buddhaship, or those men who, by assiduity in the practice of virtues and meditation, have finally arrived at the intelligence, or Bodhi, of the supreme Buddha. Whoever strives to attain this sublime rank, has to pass through countless phases of existence, during which he gradually accumu

'I shall have occasion, in the chapter on Tibetan priesthood, to resume the admittance or non-admittance of this dogma by the various schools.About the Abhijnās, sce Burnouf, "Le Lotus de la Bonne Loi," p. 820.

2 See Foe koue ki, English translation, pp. 10, 95, 158; Burnouf's "Introduction," p. 297: Hardy's "Monachism," and "Manual," Index, voce Pase Buddha.

BODHISATTVAS.-BUDDHAS.

29

lates a greater degree of merit; he gains thereby the favour of a Buddha of contemporaneous existence on earth, and by his assistance he rises to one of the celestial regions above the earth, where he awaits his next birth as Saviour. Such candidates are not enumerated in the sacred Hinayana books amongst the companions of the Buddha Sakyamuni, with whom indeed no Bōdhisattva could be contemporaneous; nor are they believed to take an active part in the general welfare of man. The title simply denotes the condition of those who shall attain the Buddhaship at their following birth.'

The most perfect Buddhas (whose plurality has been promulgated by the Santrantika - Hīnayāna) are those Bodhisattvas who, at their last birth, have arrived at the sublime wisdom which enables them to direct man to the path leading to the cessation of existence. From the moment of departure from earth they have left behind them every kind of personality and form, and all connection with the world; they interfere with nothing and leave it to man to seek salvation by his own energy. This dogma was still further enlarged by some of the Hinayana sects, the Mahāsāmghika school even going so far as to discuss the infinity, eternity, and omnipotence of the Buddha.

1 Burnouf's "Introduction," p. 110; Hardy, l. c., Index, voce Bodhisattva.

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 Nagarjuna (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 Taranatha, however, is of opinion, that the most important Mahāyāna books had already appeared

1

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 Rāhulabhadra, who lived shortly before Nāgārjuna.

1

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 Nāgārjuna 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 Nāgas, 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 Hinayāna 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 Nāgas 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 Aryasanga'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 Tshin, 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."