Drewes, D. Early Indian Mahayana Buddhism II_ New Perspectives

Early Indian Mah�ay�ana Buddhism II: New Perspectives

David Drewes*University of Manitoba

Abstract

Part 1 of this article surveyed and appraised recent developments in the study of early IndianMah�ay�ana. Part 2 continues by presenting a number of new perspectives on the nature ofthis movement, the practices it advocated, and the preachers, known as dharmabh�a

_nakas, that seem

to have been its primary agents. An appendix discusses the use of terms such as Mah�ay�ana, The-rav�ada, Hınay�ana, and Mainstream Buddhism.

If the leading new theories on early Mah�ay�ana are inadequate, as I suggested in part 1 ofthis article, where does this leave us? Will even a basic framework for making sense ofearly Indian Mah�ay�ana forever elude us? If any solution is to be found, the first thing thatmust be done is to decide what exactly we are trying to account for. This, I believe, canonly properly be the nature of the movement that produced Mah�ay�ana s�utras. Scholarshave long often identified the problem as uncovering the origin of the bodhisattva ideal,but this misses the mark. Mah�ay�ana s�utras are what we have actually got. The reason thatscholars have searched for the origin of the bodhisattva ideal is that Mah�ay�ana s�utrasadvocate it. To raise the question of the origin of the bodhisattva ideal above the ques-tion of the origin of Mah�ay�ana s�utras, or to conflate the two questions, as is often done,is to presuppose that the adoption of the bodhisattva ideal was the primary factor moti-vating the composition of these texts, and there is no reason to believe that this was thecase. As we saw in part 1, early Mah�ay�ana s�utras often present their teachings as usefulnot only to people who wish to become Buddhas, but to those who wish to attain arhat-ship or pratyekabuddhahood as well. The old idea that the Mah�ay�ana began with the rejec-tion of the arhat ideal in favor of that of the bodhisattva is thus clearly incorrect.Mah�ay�ana s�utras have several characteristics that distinguish them from earlier or moretraditional s�utras, including expanded cosmologies and mythical histories, ideas of purelands and great, ‘celestial’ Buddhas and bodhisattvas, descriptions of powerful new reli-gious practices, new ideas on the nature of the Buddha, and a range of new philosophicalperspectives. The bodhisattva ideal is just one of several new elements and there is noreason to identify it as the cause of the others.

Mah�ay�ana authors never denied the facticity of the early Buddhist world; rather, theyexpanded on it to the point where it became largely irrelevant, left with little more thana toehold in a vast new universe. The primary importance of the bodhisattva ideal seemsto be that it provided them with a framework for doing this. A fair amount of materialin early Buddhist s�utra literature suggested that the Buddha knew far more than herevealed there. In a sutta in the P�ali Sa

_myutta Nik�aya, for example, the Buddha holds up a

handful of leaves and tells the monks that the things he has told them are like the leavesin his hand, while the things he knows but has not told them are like the leaves in theforest. The idea of the bodhisattva is found in early Buddhists texts, and dates as far back

Religon Compass 3 (2009): 1–9, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00193.x

ª 2009 The AuthorJournal Compilation ª 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

in Buddhist history as we can see, but early texts provide little information about bodhi-sattvas besides depicting them as heroic strivers for what Nattier (2003) calls ‘the highestachievement that the Buddhist repertoire had to offer.’ As bodhisattvas were training tobecome Buddhas, who were believed to be omniscient, however, it would be reasonableto suppose that they would need to learn many things that arhats did not. Mah�ay�ana s�utraauthors took advantage of this broad lacuna and presented their new ideas in texts whichthey claimed were special s�utras that the Buddha delivered for bodhisattvas. This enabledthem to plausibly introduce a full range of ideas and practices that differed significantlyfrom those found in early Buddhist texts and simultaneously induce people to adoptthem. It seems that some people already identified as bodhisattvas before the developmentof Mah�ay�ana s�utras, though many of them rejected these texts when they first emerged(Fujita 2009). People probably began to identify themselves or others as bodhisattvas inan occasional and irregular manner as soon as the idea of the bodhisattva developed, justas they do in Therav�ada countries today. Teachings intended specifically for bodhisattvascertainly would have appealed to at least some of these people as well as to others whomay have found the possibility of easily attaining the glory of a Buddha to be attractive.For people who sought arhatship and pratyekabuddhahood, the claim was that s�utras forbodhisattvas were especially powerful and could propel them toward these goals morequickly than more traditional s�utras.

So what sort of movement produced Mah�ay�ana s�utras? The knee jerk reaction hasalways been that it must have been some sort of school or sect. The first scholar to noticea distinction between Mah�ay�ana s�utras and more traditional ones was Eugene Burnouf(1844) and he immediately suggested that they were the product of a distinct school(ecole). Other scholars followed his lead and set about trying to figure out what sort ofschool it was and how it came into existence. The fact that several leading scholars of thelate 19th and early 20th centuries concluded that the Mah�ay�ana was not distinct fromthe nik�ayas, as Silk has shown, did little to check this trend. Scholars started talking of theMah�ay�ana as a school again almost immediately, apparently for no other reason than thatthey found it difficult to think of it in any other way. Once the fact that Mah�ay�ana wasnot a separate school resurfaced in the late 1980s and early 1990s, and the fact that earlyMah�ay�ana left virtually no evidence for its existence apart from its s�utras became clear, asimilar move was made again with the development of the forest hypothesis. Mah�ay�anaonce again became the product of a particular group or groups of Buddhists living apartfrom others, devoted to a distinct form of practice. With the forest hypothesis now seem-ing implausible, the new sect approach has perhaps come to the end of the line.

So we have literally hundreds of Mah�ay�ana s�utras but no school or sect to connectthem to. How can this be? The answer is likely very simple. There was probably simplynot much to early Mah�ay�ana apart from these texts. What the evidence collected overthe last century and a half suggests is that early Indian Mah�ay�ana was primarily a textualmovement, focused on the revelation, preaching, and dissemination of Mah�ay�ana s�utras,that developed within, and never really departed from, traditional Buddhist social andinstitutional structures.

Apart from the fact that no evidence suggesting that the Mah�ay�ana was more than atextual phenomenon has yet come to light, and that no attempt to envision it as such hasheld up, Mah�ay�ana s�utras themselves contain a significant amount of material to supportthis view. As mentioned in part 1 of this article, many Mah�ay�ana s�utras advocate the useof Mah�ay�ana s�utras as a group. Early s�utras do not call them ‘Mah�ay�ana,’ but use theterms vaipulya (extensive) s�utras, gambhıra (profound) s�utras, and a few other names. ManyMah�ay�ana s�utras, including such well known texts as the A

_s_tas�ahasrik�a, Pratyutpanna, larger

2 David Drewes

ª 2009 The Author Religon Compass 3 (2009): 1–9, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00193.xJournal Compilation ª 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

Sukh�avatıvyuha, Vimalakırtinirdesa, and Bhadrakalpika, present a revelatory scenario inwhich the Buddha entrusts this corpus of s�utras to certain bodhisattvas who vow tosojourn in heavens or other Buddhafields after the Buddha’s death and then return to thisworld five hundred years later to preach, teach, and study them. Paul Harrison (1990),commenting specifically on the passages in the Pratyutpanna, argues that the authors ofthis text presented themselves as reincarnations of the bodhisattvas to whom the Buddhaoriginally entrusted it in order to vindicate themselves and legitimate their s�utra. Sincethey depict the future revelation of multiple s�utras, however, the authors of the Pratyutp-anna and s�utras like it are clearly not attempting to provide legitimation for just theirown texts, but for a broader Mah�ay�ana phenomenon. Passages advocating the use ofmultiple Mah�ay�ana s�utras in fact seem to be the only passages in Mah�ay�ana s�utras thatreflect an awareness of a Mah�ay�ana movement coalescing around more than individualtexts. It seems that we may see in them a rare glimpse of the early Mah�ay�ana movement’sself-understanding, a fleeting reflection of the movement in the mirror of its attempts tojustify itself. Key to notice is that what these passages try to justify is not any sort ofsplinter group, any new doctrine or special practice, or the bodhisattva ideal, but simply anew textual revelation.

Also important to consider are the practices advocated by Mah�ay�ana s�utras. Attemptingto figure out the religious practices of early Mah�ay�anists has been a central preoccupationof scholars in the field almost from the start. As we saw in part 1, scholars have variouslyclaimed that Mah�ay�anists were compassionate do-gooders, celestial bodhisattva andBuddha worshippers, st�upa worshippers, book shrine worshippers, and ascetic mediators.All of these claims have been based primarily on speculation, with little or no supportingevidence from Mah�ay�ana s�utras themselves. In fact, Mah�ay�ana s�utras that seem likely to beearly almost never advocate anything like social service, apparently never advocate theworship of celestial bodhisattvas, hardly ever advocate the worship of pure land Buddhas,never mention book shrines, advocate st�upa worship only from time to time and with littleurgency, and rarely encourage ascetic practice or meditation, and then usually indiffer-ently. The practices that Mah�ay�ana s�utras recommend most frequently and enthusiasticallyare creatively conceived methods that they depict as making it possible to attain Buddha-hood quickly and easily. Dozens of s�utras, for instance, present easy practices, such ashearing the names of certain Buddhas or bodhisattvas, maintaining Buddhist precepts, andlistening to, memorizing, and copying s�utras, that they claim can enable rebirth in the purelands Abhirati and Sukh�avatı, where it is said to be possible to easily acquire the merit andknowledge necessary to become a Buddha in as little as one lifetime. Another commonlyand enthusiastically recommended practice is that of anumodan�a, or rejoicing, in thecollected meritorious actions of all previous Buddhas and other beings. This practice ispredicated on the very old Buddhist idea that it is possible to gain merit equal to the meritgained by the giver of a gift by rejoicing in that person’s act of giving, and is said to beextremely powerful, enabling one to immediately gain more merit than the total amountof merit possessed by all beings. The practices that Mah�ay�ana s�utras recommend far andaway more frequently than all others, however, and promise by far the greatest rewards forin terms of the acquisition of merit and rapid progress toward Buddhahood, are onesinvolving the use of Mah�ay�ana s�utras themselves. Again and again – almost continuouslyin many s�utras – we are told that if we listen to Mah�ay�ana s�utras, memorize them, recitethem, preach them, copy them, or worship them we will make more merit than if wefilled worlds full of jewels and gave them to Buddhas, caused worlds full of people toperform Buddhist practices, and so forth. Scholars have generally ignored these passages, ordismissed them as simply ‘cult of the book’ related material. Often they have read them as

Early Indian Mah�ay�ana Buddhism II 3


tricky devices for encouraging people to preserve Mah�ay�ana s�utras, but as otherwise havinglittle to do with the concerns of these texts or the Mah�ay�ana movement. A more straight-forward interpretation would be that Mah�ay�ana authors recommend s�utra-orientedpractices more often and more enthusiastically than all others simply because these werethe main practices that the movement wanted to encourage.

Part of the problem with imagining this to be so is that Westerners have long tendedto ignore the importance of Buddhist textual practices, especially those connected withmemorization, recitation, and preaching, imagining true Buddhism to be primarily a mat-ter of meditation and philosophy. In fact, composing, memorizing, reciting, preaching,listening to, and copying texts – a vast labor of extending Buddhist narrative – seemalways to have been significantly more important than philosophy and meditation inSouth and Southeast Asian Buddhism, in both theory and practice. In P�ali suttas peopleare depicted as attaining various stages of liberation significantly more often from listeningto the Buddha preach than from practicing meditation. Listening to the dharma preachedby a Buddha has always been understood as the standard context for the attainment ofarhatship. Buddhist monastics devoted their careers to the memorization of texts for cen-turies, despite the presence of written texts, and many still do today. Along with makingritual offerings to monastics and venerating relics and Buddha images, listening to the rit-ual recitation and preaching of the dharma is the central religious practice of contempo-rary Therav�ada laity. Anthropologist Jane Bunnag (1973) comments that in central ThaiBuddhism ‘in ideal terms, the primary purpose behind any man’s renunciation of the layworld is that of improving his understanding of the Word of the Buddha as set out in the[Tripi

_taka]’ and reports that of ‘the bhikkhus of Ayutthaya [that she interviewed]…direct

questioning as to their reasons for becoming ordained almost invariably provoked aresponse in these terms.’ Skilled preachers are generally the most highly regarded monksin contemporary Therav�ada countries. Evidence provided by Chinese pilgrims suggeststhat this was true in ancient India as well.

Perhaps the most revealing material in Mah�ay�ana s�utra literature, which has gone all butneglected in scholarship, concerns a group of textual specialists called dharmabh�a

_nakas, or

‘preachers of dharma.’ In pre- and non-Mah�ay�ana Buddhism, specialized monastics whomemorized, transmitted, and preached s�utras were known as bh�a

_nakas or dharmakathikas

(e.g., Adikaram 1946; Norman 1983, 1997). Preachers called dharmabh�a_nakas are men-

tioned significantly more frequently in Mah�ay�ana s�utra literature than bh�a_nakas or dharma-

kathikas are mentioned in any genre of non-Mah�ay�ana text. To give just a few examples,the standard Sanskrit edition of the A

_s_tas�ahasrik�a refers to dharmabh�a

_nakas by name 37

times; the Pratyutpanna, eleven; the surviving Sanskrit portion of the K�asyapaparivarta,eight; the standard Sanskrit edition of the Saddharmapu

_n_darıka, or Lotus, 61; and the Gilgit

Sam�adhir�aja, 49. Although not all Mah�ay�ana s�utras mention dharmabh�a_nakas so frequently,

most that I am familiar with, even relatively late ones, mention them at least a few times.The term dharmabh�a

_naka is not known to occur in non-Mah�ay�ana Indian Buddhist texts,

which strongly suggests that this type of preacher was peculiar to the Mah�ay�ana.As we would expect, Mah�ay�ana texts depict dharmabh�a

_nakas as people who memorize

texts, recite them, and teach them to students who travel with them. They also depictthem as people who preach s�utras to assemblies in monasteries and towns and in privatehomes. In their preaching they are depicted as taking questions from audiences, respond-ing to hostile objections, and making an effort to speak in a dynamic, inspiring manner.They are often identified specifically as monks, but some passages obliquely suggest thatthey may sometimes have been nuns or laypeople. In scenarios predicting that Mah�ay�anas�utras will be revealed five hundred years after the Buddha’s death, the future revealers of

4 David Drewes


s�utras are often identified as dharmabh�a_nakas, suggesting that they were often, perhaps typ-

ically, the authors of these texts. Dharmabh�a_nakas are commonly depicted as choosing to

be reborn in this world out of compassion for beings. Mah�ay�ana s�utras typically attributethe status of irreversible bodhisattvas to them, and the D�asabh�umika S�utra, Bodhisatt-vabh�umi, and Ratnagotravibh�aga each state that bodhisattvas become dharmabh�a

_nakas on the

ninth bodhisattva bh�umi. Many s�utras contain j�atakas and avad�anas that depict well knownBuddhas and bodhisattvas, including S�akyamuni, Dıpa

_mkara, Ak

_sobhya, Amit�ayus, and

Manjusrı, as having been powerful dharmabh�a_nakas in former lives. Very frequently,

Mah�ay�ana s�utras enjoin slavish devotion to dharmabh�a_nakas. The A

_s_tas�ahasrik�a, for instance,

enjoins its listeners to follow dharmabh�a_nakas, treat them as if they were Buddhas, and give

them all of their property. The Pratyutpanna recommends following dharmabh�a_nakas for a

period of up to 10 years, or even an entire lifetime, treating them as if they were Buddhas,giving them all of one’s property, obeying them, and serving them ‘as a slave serves hislord.’ Several s�utras even recommend making offerings to dharmabh�a

_nakas of one’s own

flesh, blood, and life. Material of this sort occurs widely in Mah�ay�ana s�utra literature. Apartfrom Buddhas and ‘celestial bodhisattvas,’ Mah�ay�ana s�utras do not glorify any other figuresin this way. Overall, this material strongly suggests that dharmabh�a

_nakas were the primary

agents of the Mah�ay�ana movement.Finally, it should be noted that Mah�ay�ana s�astra authors indentify the Mah�ay�ana very

closely with Mah�ay�ana s�utras. From studies that have been done on s�astric apologetics forthe Mah�ay�ana, it seems that when Mah�ay�ana s�astra authors attempt to establish the legiti-macy of the Mah�ay�ana all they are concerned to defend is the authenticity of Mah�ay�anas�utras in general qua buddhavacana, or ‘word of the Buddha.’ Significantly, the legitimacyof the bodhisattva path seems never to be an issue. Non-Mah�ay�ana opponents are in facttypically depicted as accepting this path and claiming that it is taught in non-Mah�ay�anatexts (Cabezon 1992; Davidson 1990; Fujita 2009; Jaini 2002).

Attempting to draw all of this into a roughly coherent picture, it seems that the vener-able enterprise of trying to link the rise of the Mah�ay�ana to powerful tensions inherent inBuddhist communities or the pursuit of a particular lifestyle or doctrinal agenda by a par-ticular group or groups of people has been misguided. What seems more likely is thatearly Indian Mah�ay�ana was, at root, a textual movement that developed in Buddhistpreaching circles and centered on the production and use of Mah�ay�ana s�utras. At somepoint, drawing on a range of ideas and theoretical perspectives that had been developingfor some time, and also developing many new ideas of their own, certain preachers beganto compose a new type of text – s�utras containing profound teachings intended for bo-dhisattvas – which came to be commonly depicted as belonging to a new revelation thatthe Buddha arranged to take place five hundred years after his death. Who these preach-ers were is not fully clear, but a fair guess would be that the first of them may havebegun as preachers of more traditional texts. Mah�ay�ana preachers gave their imaginationsfree rein to expand the old Buddhist world and locate it within an infinitely more vastand glorious Buddhist universe with new religious possibilities for all. They attributedgreat power to their texts and preached that they could enable people not only to quicklyattain arhatship, but Buddhahood as well. In time, the new movement came to identifyitself exclusively with the pursuit of Buddhahood and denigrate the pursuit of lower reli-gious goals. Although the new preachers faced frequent criticism and rejection, theyclearly were able to find audiences for their texts. Along with dharmabh�a

_nakas and their

students, we can consider the more regular or committed members of these audiences tobe early Mah�ay�anists. At some point the movement gathered steam, leading to an explo-sion of Mah�ay�ana s�utras in the first centuries CE.



The nature of early Mah�ay�ana ritual practice is not clear. Fairly certainly Mah�ay�anistswould have continued to participate in many non-Mah�ay�ana rituals, including monasticrituals, upo

_sadha observances, offerings to monastics, festivals, and the veneration of st�upas,

relics, and images. Some of the main distinctly Mah�ay�ana rituals mentioned in Mah�ay�anas�utras, such as the veneration of dharmabh�a

_nakas, dharmabh�a

_nakas’ preaching thrones, and

written copies of s�utras, were likely typically performed in the context of preaching ritu-als. Mah�ay�ana texts also mention the practice of enshrining written copies of s�utras inone’s home, or reciting them or having others do so, for protective purposes. The prac-tice of anumodan�a, mentioned above, may have been done privately or in group contexts.Organized devotion to distinctly Mah�ay�ana Buddhas or bodhisattvas seems unlikely tohave existed in the early period, but there are admonitions to call on, listen to the namesof, think of, or venerate certain Buddhas or bodhisattvas in order to obtain certain bene-fits, such as various sorts of protection or future rebirth in a pure land.

It is fairly clear that everyone involved in the movement continued to live and movewithin the established Buddhist world of their day. There in fact seems to be no reason tobelieve that the Mah�ay�ana was a reaction against anything. Rather than reactionaries, wemay perhaps imagine early Mah�ay�anists as people who were simply continuing the exten-sion of Buddhist narrative in much the same manner as other Buddhist authors, but in away, or to a point, that certain Buddhists felt that they had crossed a line. The firsthistorical reaction was thus likely against the Mah�ay�ana, rather than the other way around.A few Mah�ay�ana authors do criticize others for moral laxity, but this is unusual and in allcases of which I am aware they explicitly direct their attacks at least partially against otherMah�ay�anists, making it clear that this was not a Mah�ay�ana versus non-Mah�ay�ana issue.

In time, different people got involved and began to compose erudite Mah�ay�ana s�astrasand other texts in Sanskrit, instead of the vernacular or vehicular languages in whichMah�ay�ana s�utras were originally composed. The precise relationship between these newMah�ay�ana authors and early and later Mah�ay�ana dharmabh�a

_nakas is something that requires

additional study, but it seems unlikely that it was very close. There is no known case inwhich a s�astra author refers to himself, or is referred to by anyone else, as adharmabh�a

_naka. In a recent publication, Florin Deleanu (2006) argues that the Bodhisatt-

vabh�umi, a central early Yog�ac�ara s�astra, represents the work of authors from an originallynon-Mah�ay�ana background who accepted the legitimacy of Mah�ay�ana s�utras, but rejectedor aggressively reinterpreted many of their perspectives in favor of their own predeter-mined views. Although my own familiarity with s�astra literature is limited, it seems fairlyclear that the religious world of Madhyamaka and Yog�ac�ara s�astras has little in commonwith that of Mah�ay�ana s�utras.

As time went on, Mah�ay�ana became more influential and by the late fourth and earlyfifth century Fa-hsien was able to report the existence of certain monasteries in which allof the inmates accepted Mah�ay�ana teachings. Others rejected Mah�ay�ana teachings or,apparently, had both Mah�ay�ana and non-Mah�ay�ana inmates. Even the existence ofMah�ay�ana monasteries, however, does not indicate that the Mah�ay�ana had become insti-tutionally distinct. Such monasteries were likely simply places where Mah�ay�ana texts andpractices were accepted and anti-Mah�ay�ana polemic was unwelcome. The Mah�ay�ana infact seems never to have taken on a distinct institutional identity in India. The idea thatthere was a distinct ‘Mah�ay�ana Buddhism’ over and above Mah�ay�ana texts, ideas, andpractices probably would not have made sense to ancient Indian Buddhists of any period.

Very recently, scholars have announced the discovery of two important, surprisinglyearly, Mah�ay�ana s�utra manuscripts, a s�utra similar to the Ak

_sobhyavy�uha, dated

paleographically to the first or second century CE, and portions of two chapters of an

6 David Drewes


early version of the A_s_tas�ahasrik�a, radiocarbon dated to the first century CE (Falk 2008;

Strauch 2007). Fragments of the Mah�ay�ana *Sucitti S�utra, dated linguistically and paleo-graphically to the first two centuries CE or before, have also been discovered (Salomon& Allon forthcoming). These discoveries are especially interesting because recent scholarshave tended to date the beginning of the Mah�ay�ana to the first century CE, estimating acentury or so of development to have preceded the first Chinese translations. Applyingthe same reasoning to the one or more first century texts we now possess would suggestthat the Mah�ay�ana developed in the first century BCE. Although this is of course guess-work, it nevertheless suggests that the Mah�ay�ana was in existence for two centuries beforethe second century Chinese translations, a fact that makes it less clear that we can regarda text’s inclusion in this corpus as evidence for its being especially early. The publicationof the recently discovered manuscripts is eagerly awaited.

Appendix – Taxonomic Terms for Indian Buddhism

Over the years, a range of terms has been used to distinguish Mah�ay�ana from the remain-der of Buddhism. In the past, and still sometimes now in textbooks and other generaltreatments, authors commonly depicted Indian Buddhism as being divisible intoMah�ay�ana and Hınay�ana or Mah�ay�ana and Therav�ada. Both of these schemes are nowseen as untenable. Dividing Buddhism into Therav�ada and Mah�ay�ana makes sense onlywhen discussing Buddhism after the disappearance of Buddhism in India. Sri Lankan andSouth East Asian Buddhists currently identify as Therav�adins and East Asian and TibetanBuddhists currently identify as Mah�ay�anists. The Therav�ada nik�aya, or more properlygroup of nik�ayas, seems first to have come into existence as a self-conscious group in SriLanka around the second or third century CE, claiming, like all Buddhist nik�ayas, tofaithfully transmit the original traditions of Buddhism. The Mah�ay�ana came into existencebefore this. It seems that early Therav�adins accepted Mah�ay�ana teachings and that it wasnot until the tenth century that a reform movement led the lineage to become fixedlyanti-Mah�ay�ana (Cousins 2001; Walters 1997). Many people during this period were thussimultaneously Mah�ay�anists and Therav�adins. In addition, before the disappearance ofBuddhism in India, there were several nik�ayas other than the Therav�ada, many membersof which rejected Mah�ay�ana texts. Until this point there were thus monastics who wereneither Therav�adins nor Mah�ay�anists.

The Mah�ay�ana ⁄ Hınay�ana division was popular when scholars understood the termHınay�ana to refer collectively to the various nik�ayas. Scholars who adopted this basic tax-onomy often used it with the disclaimer that Hınay�ana is a pejorative term developed byMah�ay�anists. In order to avoid using a pejorative term, some scholars used terms such asNik�aya Buddhism or Sectarian Buddhism. Since it is now clear that Mah�ay�anists did notuse the term Hınay�ana to refer to the nik�ayas, and were not against the nik�ayas per se,none of these terms are now considered appropriate designations for non-Mah�ay�ana.

Since the publication of Harrison’s ‘Searching for the Origins of Mah�ay�ana’ in 1995,the term ‘Mainstream Buddhism’ has become popular. The term seems originally to havebeen coined by Eric Cheetham in the 1980s to refer to ‘a collection of the earliestBuddhist teachings on which the substance of Indian Buddhism is based’ or to the ‘wholespectrum of early (i.e., pre-Mah�ay�ana) Buddhism in India and Sri Lanka’ (Cheetham1994). Harrison (1995) uses the term to refer to non-Mah�ay�ana, writing that ‘‘the termNik�aya or Sectarian Buddhism (Japanese: buha bukky�o) seems to me less than apt for non-Mah�ay�ana, since it must surely be the case that the Mah�ay�ana was ‘pervaded’ by so-calledNik�aya Buddhism.’’ Other scholars, however, have used the term to refer to the nik�ayas,



or to Buddhist communities in general. Schopen (2000), for instance, refers to the ‘main-stream monastic orders’ that he believes certain early Mah�ay�anists were at odds with andNattier (2003) refers to the ‘Mainstream Buddhist community’ comprised of non-Mah�ay�anists and early Mah�ay�anists. Daniel Boucher (2008) uses the term to refer to Bud-dhists who did not pursue the bodhisattva path and also refers to the ‘Mainstream monas-tic establishment.’ As the term has come to be used in so many different ways, it is nowhighly ambiguous. For the sake of clarity it should probably no longer be used.

When applied to people, the term Mah�ay�ana should be used to refer to any person orgroup that accepted or accepts the authenticity of Mah�ay�ana s�utras. Although the termmay in principle be used to refer to people who identify as bodhisattvas, doing so quicklyleads to confusion. Within a few centuries of their emergence it seems that virtuallyeveryone who accepted the legitimacy of Mah�ay�ana s�utras self-identified as a bodhisattva,but many people who rejected them also did so. Even today, many people in Therav�adacountries think of themselves or others as bodhisattvas but reject Mah�ay�ana texts andwould bristle at being called Mah�ay�anists. The application of the term Mah�ay�ana to textsor ideas is a more complicated issue, though one that is infrequently problematic in prac-tice. Silk (2002) suggests ‘as a starting point’ that texts can be considered Mah�ay�an�a ifthey are ‘identified by tradition, for instance in the Tibetan and Chinese canonical collec-tions, as Mah�ay�ana,’ and this is surely right. There are cases in which there is room fordispute, but the issues involved are too complicated to enter into here.

The clearest term for people or groups who did not accept Mah�ay�ana s�utras in ancientSouth Asian Buddhism is probably simply ‘non-Mah�ay�ana.’ If a more positive term isdesired, something like ‘traditional’ can be used, though it should be kept in mind that itis unclear that such a term is applicable to anything about these people or groups besidestheir rejection of Mah�ay�ana s�utras. At the time the Mah�ay�ana developed all Buddhisttraditions had undergone processes of development and all accepted late texts as buddhava-cana. Buddhism before the development of Mah�ay�ana can be called ‘pre-Mah�ay�ana’, orsomething more neutral, such as ‘early Buddhism,’ though some scholars will prefer torestrict this term to pre-canonical Buddhism, or Buddhism before the formation of thefirst nik�ayas.

From time to time scholars suggest using the terms Northern and Southern todistinguish Mah�ay�ana and non-Mah�ay�ana. This basic division was first used by GeorgeTurnour (1837) and was adopted and popularized by Burnouf (1844). It is thus signifi-cantly older than the Hınay�ana ⁄Mah�ay�ana division. Turnour and Burnouf used the termsprimarily to refer to two groups of texts, Northern Nepalese Sanskrit texts and SouthernP�ali texts. Burnouf and other early scholars saw the splitting off of the Mah�ay�ana ‘school’as a development distinct from this basically linguistic split. As Mah�ay�ana is now knownto have been active for centuries as far south as Sri Lanka, using these terms to distinguishMah�ay�ana and non-Mah�ay�ana is only applicable to recent centuries. If one wishes to usegeographical terms to speak of divisions in contemporary Asian Buddhism, it would makebetter sense to speak of Tibetan, East Asian, and South ⁄Southeast Asian Buddhism asthree main types.

Acknowledgements

I would like to thank Peter Skilling and Jonathan Silk for making valuable suggestions ona draft of this paper and Richard Salomon for very kindly permitting me to cite one ofhis forthcoming articles.

8 David Drewes


Short Biography

David Drewes is an Assistant Professor in the Department of Religion at the Universityof Manitoba. He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2006. His researchis focused primarily on early Mah�ay�ana and early Buddhism.

Note

* Correspondence address: David Drewes, 328 Fletcher Argue Bldg., Department of Religion, University of Mani-toba, Winnipeg, MB, Canada R3T5V5. E-mail: [email protected].

Works Cited

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Documents

Drewes, D. Early Indian Mahayana Buddhism II_ New Perspectives