Early Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism I: Recent Scholarship

Early Indian Mah�ay�ana Buddhism I: Recent Scholarship

David Drewes*University of Manitoba

Abstract

A good deal of important scholarship on early Indian Mah�ay�ana Buddhism has been done inrecent years. Well established theories, such as the theory that the Mah�ay�ana arose as a lay reactionto the arhat ideal and the theory that it arose from the Mah�as�a

_mghika monastic lineage, have been

rejected, and a number of new theories, perhaps most notably theories linking Mah�ay�ana to forestascetics and to a ‘cult of the book,’ have been put forward. Part 1 of this article surveys andevaluates these recent developments. Part 2 will present a number of new perspectives for futurescholarship.

In recent years, early Indian Mah�ay�ana has been an active area in Buddhist studies. Viewsthat were widely accepted for most of the 20th century have been left behind andnew ones have risen to take their place. Part 1 of this article surveys and evaluates someof the most important recent developments in the field. Part 2 will present some newperspectives.

For most of the 20th century, the two leading theories on early Mah�ay�ana were that itwas a movement developed by lay people and that it developed from the Mah�as�a

_mghika

nik�aya, or monastic lineage. Both theories have their roots in 19th century speculation.The idea that Mah�ay�ana was more open to lay participation than earlier forms ofBuddhism was first suggested by V. P. Vasil’ev in 1857 (Vassilief 1865) and grew popularover the following decades. Also important was the idea that the Mah�ay�ana arose as analtruistic reaction to the arhat ideal in favor of the putatively more compassionate ideal ofthe bodhisattva, which was first presented by T.W. Rhys Davids in 1881 and quicklybegan to ricochet around the field. The first scholar to present an actual lay origin theorywas Jean Przyluski, who argued that the Mah�ay�ana arose as a lay reaction to the ‘haughtyspirit,’ ‘atheistic nihilism,’ and ‘sterile perfection’ of Buddhist monastics and their arhatideal. Unlike monastics, who retreated from the world to seek their own private salva-tion, Mah�ay�anists became bodhisattvas ‘for the good of other beings, even if one mustremain long in the whirl of reincarnations’ (1926, 1932, 1934). Przyluski’s theory was atroot a simple combination of the ideas initially presented by Vasil’ev and Rhys Davids.Building on Rhys Davids’ idea that the Mah�ay�ana began as an altruistic reaction to thearhat ideal, Przyluski linked this reaction to the laity by tying the arhat ideal to Buddhistmonastics. Przyluski never cited any evidence to support his hybrid theory, but manyscholars, including Etienne Lamotte (1944–1980, vol. 3, 1954, 1984) and Edward Conze(1951, 1960), found it plausible and it became the dominant theory on the origin ofMah�ay�ana in the West for several decades. In recent scholarship Przyluski’s theory hasgenerally been linked to Lamotte, its original authorship apparently having been forgot-ten. In the 1950s, the Japanese scholar Akira Hirakawa (1963, 1990) developed a differentlay origin theory, according to which the Mah�ay�ana developed among groups of lay

Religion Compass 4/2 (2010): 55–65, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00195.x

ª 2009 The AuthorJournal Compilation ª 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

people that coalesced primarily around st�upa sites. While this theory found little supportin the West, it became highly influential in Japan.

The Mah�as�a_mghika origin theory also has its roots in the 19th century. It can be found

in the work of Hendrik Kern (1896, 1901–1903), L.A. Waddell (1895), and T.W. RhysDavids (1896). The Chinese monk Fa-hsien stated that he found a copy of theMah�as�a

_mghika Vinaya in a Mah�ay�ana monastery in his fourth and fifth century travels in

India and the Mah�as�a_mghikas advocated a docetic Buddhology similar to that found in

many Mah�ay�ana texts. These facts, probably combined with the fact that both namesbegin with ‘Mah�a-,’ led many scholars to see a historical link. Scholars who advocatedthis theory often presented it together with a theory of lay orientation or lay origin.

For most of the 20th century, scholars treating early Mah�ay�ana did little more thanrecycle these two theories, singly or together, often with an admixture of various specu-lations, e.g., on the importance of N�ag�arjuna and Asvaghos.a, the place where Mah�ay�anadeveloped (the most popular suggestions being the �Andhra region and the Northwest),and the possibility of foreign, especially Persian, influence. A vast number of explana-tions conforming to this pattern were put forth over several decades. No significantconceptual development occurred in Western scholarship in the field from the late1920s to the 1970s.

New winds began to blow in the 1970s and 1980s. In his 1975 article ‘‘The Phrase‘sa pr@thiv�ıpradesas caityabh�uto bhavet’ in the Vajracchedik�a: Notes on the Cult of the Book inMah�ay�ana,’’ Gregory Schopen argued, contra Hirakawa, that rather than coalescing pri-marily around st�upa sites, early Mah�ay�ana groups rejected st�upa worship and developednew cult sites where they enshrined and worshiped Mah�ay�ana s�utras. He argued thatthese sites served as institutional bases for various Mah�ay�ana groups. This theory quicklybecame influential and remains so today. Building on Schopen’s ideas, other scholarsargued that the Mah�ay�ana’s use of written texts was necessary for its survival and thatit enabled the development of some of its new ideas and imagery (Gombrich 1988;McMahan 2002; Norman 1997).

Perhaps the single most influential publication in the field in recent decades has beenPaul Harrison’s 1987 ‘Who Gets to Ride in the Great Vehicle? Self-image and IdentityAmong the Followers of Early Mah�ay�ana.’ In it Harrison presented preliminary results ofhis study of the first Mah�ay�ana s�utras translated into Chinese, a group of 11 s�utras trans-lated during the second century CE, most of which are attributed to the translatorLokak

_sema, which at the time were the oldest datable Mah�ay�ana texts. Harrison pointed

out that while these texts do refer to lay bodhisattvas, they place higher value on monas-tic practice and sometimes advocate that laypeople become monastics or adopt rigorousreligious practices. He also pointed out that these texts provide little support for whatwere at the time several other commonly held ideas about the Mah�ay�ana. Although theMah�ay�ana was long depicted as splitting off and forming a new school, or sect, of Bud-dhism distinct from the various, so-called ‘Hınay�ana,’ nik�ayas, Harrison pointed out thathis texts ‘provide no strong support for this view,’ and that they show little desire toestablish a new sectarian identity. Although the Mah�ay�ana was long imagined to havebegun with the rejection of arhatship, Harrison pointed out that some of the early transla-tions in fact acknowledge the legitimacy of arhatship as a religious goal and even depicttheir own teachings as resulting in arhatship or other attainments leading up to it.Although the worship of so-called celestial bodhisattvas such as Avalokitesvara andManjusrı was long depicted as one of the Mah�ay�ana’s central features, Harrison observedthat none of his texts recommend devotion to such bodhisattvas. Harrison also arguedthat although scholars have sometimes claimed that Mah�ay�ana had a more positive

56 David Drewes

ª 2009 The Author Religion Compass 4/2 (2010): 55–65, 10.1111/j.1749-8171.2009.00195.xJournal Compilation ª 2009 Blackwell Publishing Ltd

attitude toward women’s religious practice than earlier forms of Buddhism, his texts showa generally negative attitude toward them. As he memorably put it, from the perspectiveof his texts, although ‘both men and women can ride in the Great Vehicle, only men areallowed to drive it.’

The publication of this article spelled the end of the lay origin theory in the West.Harrison did not make an elaborate argument against it, but did not need to. The oldtheory was no more than an assertion propped up by repetition. As soon as Harrisonquestioned it, it immediately collapsed. So far as I can recall, only one attempt was madeto defend the theory and this was not influential (Vetter 1994).

Although it was never influential in the West, several Western scholars have presentedarguments against Hirakawa’s theory, pointing out that it is based on a number of faultypresuppositions and is not supported by the available evidence. Several have pointed outthat it projects aspects of contemporary Japanese Buddhism, which is oriented primarilytoward lay practice, has a married clergy, and does not preserve a lineage of full monasticordination (upasa

_mpad�a), onto ancient India (Harrison 1995; Nattier 2003; Silk 1994b;

Williams 1989). Hubert Durt (1991) has made the parallel observation that the Westernlay origin theory depicts the Mah�ay�ana as originating in the same manner as Protestantismin the West and that it likely involves a projection of French secularism (laıcite).

The Mah�as�a_mghika origin theory died a somewhat quieter death. Scholars began tak-

ing bites out of it long ago, arguing that other nik�ayas also had a clear influence onMah�ay�ana thought (e.g., Dutt 1930; Hirakawa 1963; Thomas 1933). More significantly,scholars in recent years have advocated a new basic perspective on the relationshipbetween Mah�ay�ana and the various nik�ayas. For most of the 20th century, scholarsdepicted the various nik�ayas, the Mah�as�a

_mghika, Sarv�astiv�ada, etc., as collectively repre-

senting what Mah�ay�ana texts derisively call the Hınay�ana, or inferior vehicle. Mah�ay�anawas generally presented as splitting off from the nik�ayas and forming an altogether distinctform, or school, of Buddhism. Beginning in the 1960s, and throughout his career, HeinzBechert insisted that Indian Mah�ay�ana was not distinct from the nik�ayas and thatMah�ay�ana monastics continued to take ordination in them (e.g., 1973). As we saw above,Harrison stated similarly in 1987 that the early Chinese translations of Mah�ay�ana s�utrasprovide little support for the idea of a distinct Mah�ay�ana sect. In a chapter in his widelycited 1994 doctoral dissertation, revised and published as an article in 2002, Jonathan Silkfocused attention on this issue, arguing forcefully that in Indian Buddhism ‘there is noevidence that there was any kind of Buddhist monk other than one associated with aSectarian [i.e., nik�aya] ordination lineage.’ He also drew attention to the fact that the ideathat Mah�ay�ana was not institutionally distinct from the nik�ayas had already beenadvocated by several leading scholars of the late 19th and early 20th centuries, includingJunjir�o Takakusu, Auguste Barth, Louis de La Vallee Poussin, and Jean Przyluski.

Over the past roughly 15 years, the idea that Mah�ay�ana was not separate from thenik�ayas has become widely accepted and most scholars active in the field have expressedthis view. The only notable holdout is Gregory Schopen, who has argued that while ‘someearly Mah�ay�ana groups were marginalized, embattled segments still institutionally imbed-ded in the dominant mainstream monastic orders’ others ‘may have been marginal in yetanother way: they may have been small, isolated groups living in the forest at odds withand not necessarily welcomed by the mainstream monastic orders’ (2000). Schopen’s beliefthat some Mah�ay�anists were ‘at odds with’ the nik�ayas seems to be based on his belief thatMah�ay�anists developed institutionally distinct book shrines (Drewes 2007). He does notcite any other evidence for such Mah�ay�anists and there does not seem to be any. As far as Iam aware, no other Western scholar of Indian Mah�ay�ana continues to assert the existence

Early Indian Mah�ay�ana Buddhism I 57


of Indian Mah�ay�ana groups distinct from the nik�ayas. In a similar vein, several scholars haverecently drawn attention to the fact that both Chinese pilgrims and Indian Mah�ay�ana textsthemselves make reference to Mah�ay�anists living together in the same monasteries as non-Mah�ay�anists (e.g., Cox 2003; Nattier 2003; Schopen 2000).

Along with this general shift in opinion, scholars have ceased depicting the Mah�ay�anaas having a special connection to the Mah�as�a

_mghika. In principle, one could accept that

the Mah�ay�ana was not separate from the nik�ayas and still argue that the Mah�as�a_mghikas

played an especially significant role in its formation. Louis de La Vallee Poussin (1930) infact once did this. Contemporary scholars, however, have not adopted this approach,probably because it has become clear that there is little evidence of a special linkage. PaulHarrison expresses the current general consensus very well in his 1995 article ‘Searchingfor the Origins of Mah�ay�ana: What Are We Looking For?’:

One of the things we cannot do…is determine the sectarian affiliation of the early Mah�ay�ana. Iused to think that this was possible, but now believe it to be hopeless, since it has becomeaccepted that the Mah�ay�ana was a pan-Buddhist movement – or, better, a loose set ofmovements – rather like Pentecostalism or Charismatic Christianity, running across sectarianboundaries.

In 1979 and 1987, Schopen published two articles that drew attention to the importantfact that few of the many known Indian Buddhist inscriptions can be linked to theMah�ay�ana. He pointed out that the oldest epigraph that can be linked to the Mah�ay�ana isan inscription on a pedestal which identifies the statue that was associated with it, nowlost except for its feet, as Amit�abha Buddha, and which dates to about 153 CE. Apartfrom this, the oldest clearly Mah�ay�ana epigraph he was able to identify dated from thefourth or fifth century. Summarizing his findings, he commented, ‘after its initial appear-ance in the public domain in the second century [the Mah�ay�ana] appears to haveremained an extremely limited minority movement – if it remained at all – that attractedabsolutely no documented public or popular support for at least two more centuries’ andconcluded:

All of this of course accords badly with the accepted…view…that the movement we call ‘theMah�ay�ana’ appeared on the scene somehow fully formed…at the beginning of the CommonEra…. Indian epigraphy makes it very clear that ‘the Mah�ay�ana’ as a public movement began –to invert an old line of T. S. Eliot’s – ‘not with a bang, but a whimper.’ It suggests that,although there was – as we know from Chinese translations – a large and early Mah�ay�ana litera-ture, there was no early organized, independent, publicly supported movement that it couldhave belonged to. (1987).

Although a third century inscription from Central Asia discovered after the publication ofthis article seems to make reference to a king who had ‘set out on the Mah�ay�ana’ and athird century letter, also from Central Asia, makes reference to a magistrate who haddone the same (Salomon 1999; Walser 2005), Schopen’s observations remain essentiallyvalid. Apart from inscriptions, several scholars have claimed or argued that certain sculp-tures dating to the first centuries of the common era depict well-known Mah�ay�ana fig-ures, especially Amit�abha and Avalokitesvara, but other scholars have rejected all of theseidentifications as incorrect or dubious (Boucher 2008b; Ducor 2004; Fussman 1999; Salo-mon & Schopen 2002).

Another idea which has become popular in recent decades is that the Mah�ay�anawas not a single movement and that there were many distinct Mah�ay�ana groups, eachassociated with a particular s�utra. The locus classicus for this view is the final sentence of

58 David Drewes


Schopen’s 1975 ‘‘The Phrase ‘sa pr@thiv�ıpradesas caityabh�uto bhavet’’’, ‘Since each text placeditself at the center of its own cult, early Mah�ay�ana (from a sociological point of view),rather than being an identifiable single group, was in the beginning a loose federation ofa number of distinct though related cults, all of the same pattern, but each associated withits specific text.’ Following Schopen, Paul Williams (1989) comments that there was a‘series of cults, probably based on different s�utras and their attendant practices,’ and that‘it is likely that [these cults] had little or no direct and regular connection with eachother’. Jan Nattier (2003) similarly comments that ‘‘there is no doubt that…the commu-nities that formed around [Mah�ay�ana s�utras] were multiple, for as Schopen rightly con-tends ‘each text placed itself at the center of its own cult.’’’ Several other scholars haveexpressed similar views (e.g., Boucher 2008a; Harrison 1995; Nakamura 1987; Ray 1994;Silk 2002).

Most of the significant new conclusions on early Mah�ay�ana have been negative innature: Mah�ay�ana was not a distinct sect. It did not involve the worship of bodhisatt-vas. It was not developed by laypeople. It was not an offshoot of the Mah�as�a

_mghikas.

It was not a single religious movement. With so many new things that the Mah�ay�anawas not, what are we to conclude that it was? The leading theory to arise in recentyears is what Paul Harrison calls the ‘forest hypothesis,’ and defines as the thesis that‘the Mah�ay�ana…was the work of hard-core ascetics, members of the forest dwelling(ara

_nyav�asin) wing of the Buddhist Order’ (Harrison 2003). The theory was first pre-

sented separately by Harrison himself and Reginald Ray in the early 1990s. In his 1995‘Searching for the Origins of Mah�ay�ana’, originally presented at a conference in 1992,Harrison asserted that the Mah�ay�ana s�utras translated into Chinese by Lokak

_sema in the

second century ‘display a strong and positive emphasis on the dhuta-gu_nas (extra ascetic

practices) and ara_nya-v�asa (dwelling in the forest or jungle).’ Reginald Ray argued in

his 1994 Buddhist Saints in India that ‘forest renunciants’ have been the primary innova-tors in the history of Buddhism and that they were responsible for the initial develop-ment of Buddhism, the rise of the Mah�ay�ana, and the development of Vajray�ana. In her2003 A Few Good Men, Jan Nattier argued that the Ugraparipr@cch�a S�utra represents theearliest or most primitive form of Mah�ay�ana that we have access to and that it presentsthe bodhisattva path as a ‘supremely difficult enterprise’ adopted primarily by ascetic,male monastics who typically practiced forest dwelling. Several other scholars have alsoargued that forest dwelling was an important early Mah�ay�ana practice (e.g., Boucher2001, 2008a; Deleanu 2000; Schopen 1995, 1999, 2000, 2003; Williams 2000).

The scholarship of recent decades has advanced our understanding of earlyMah�ay�ana significantly. Most important of the new developments, I believe, are Har-rison’s more-or-less single-handed disposal of the old lay origin theory; the clarifica-tion by Silk, Bechert, and others that the Mah�ay�ana was not institutionally distinctfrom the nik�ayas; the attention drawn to the related fact that Mah�ay�anists and non-Mah�ay�anists often shared the same monasteries; and the attention drawn primarily bySchopen to the fact that there is virtually no archeological, epigraphal, or art historicalevidence for the early Mah�ay�ana. Harrison’s suggestion that early Mah�ay�ana s�utras donot advocate the worship of celestial bodhisattvas, that they often approve of or advo-cate the pursuit of arhatship, and that they are generally subordinative of women nowalso seem to have become established and seem destined to stand the test of time.The other main ideas that have been put forward, the idea of a Mah�ay�ana cult ofthe book and the related idea that the Mah�ay�ana was dependent on the use writtentexts, the idea that there were multiple Mah�ay�anas, and the forest hypothesis, are eachproblematic.



The argument that Schopen makes for the existence of Mah�ay�ana book shrines is basedsolely on a few enigmatic passages from a few Mah�ay�ana s�utras that say that places wherepeople use these texts in various ways, memorizing them, reciting them, copying them,etc., will become ‘caityabh�uta.’ Previous scholars typically took this compound to mean ‘likea caitya’ or ‘like a st�upa or shrine,’ but Schopen argues that it in fact means ‘a true shrine,’or even ‘a great shrine,’ and that the passages refer to special cult sites where early Mah�ay�a-nists venerated s�utras. He argues additionally that various passages that assert that moremerit can be made from the use of s�utras than from the veneration of st�upas and relics indi-cate that the new Mah�ay�ana cult sites were set up in competition with the st�upa cult.Recent research suggests that the caityabh�uta passages that serve as the basis of Schopen’sargument do in fact merely compare places to shrines and do not make reference to actualcult sites. In addition, it seems that when read contextually, the passages that Schopeninterprets as indicative of competition between s�utra and st�upa worship actually reflect apositive attitude toward st�upa worship. Although there were long thought to be a few casesin which Mah�ay�ana s�utra manuscripts were discovered in South Asian st�upas, it has recentlybecome clear that there have not been any (Drewes 2007). Most notably, it now appearsthat the Gilgit manuscripts, which were long believed to have been found in a st�upa, werein fact found in the ruins of a sort of house (Fussman 2004). Interestingly, however, thereare a very large number of cases in which non-Mah�ay�ana textual material has been foundin st�upas. Overall, no evidence now suggests the existence of Mah�ay�ana s�utra shrines and itcan be safely concluded that they never existed. Although Mah�ay�anists certainly veneratedtexts in written form, the practice seems unlikely to have played an especially importantrole in the movement. Rather than being distinctly or even originally Mah�ay�ana, thepractice seems to have been pan-Buddhist, or even pan-Indian, from an early date.

The idea that the survival of the Mah�ay�ana was made possible by its use of written textsand the idea that it was distinct in being a ‘written tradition’ are also problematic. The onlyevidence that has been cited for either is passages advocating worshiping and copying s�utras.The scholars involved generally ignore the facts that Mah�ay�ana s�utras advocate mne-mic ⁄oral ⁄ aural practices more frequently than they do written ones, make reference to peoplewho have memorized or are in the process of memorizing them, and consistently attachhigher prestige to mnemic ⁄oral practices than to ones involving written texts. Study of differ-ences in various versions of s�utras translated into Chinese has directly shown that these textswere often transmitted orally (e.g., Nattier 2003). It is thus highly unlikely that writing wasnecessary for the preservation of Mah�ay�ana s�utras during the movement’s formative centuries.There is no evidence that Mah�ay�ana s�utras were initially composed in written form. Therecent discovery of a non-Mah�ay�ana Buddhist avad�ana manuscript radiocarbon dated to a 2rrange of 184–46* BCE (Falk 2008) and a non-Mah�ay�ana s�utra manuscript radiocarbon datedto a 2r range of 206 BCE–59* CE (Salomon & Allon forthcoming) makes it seem all butcertain that written texts were in use before the development of the Mah�ay�ana. If the datingof these manuscripts holds up, presuming that Buddhist texts were written down for sometime before them, it is conceivable that Buddhist manuscripts could have been copied as earlyas the third century, even in the time of Asoka, before which it is unclear that many Buddhisttexts even existed. Overall, there is no evidence that Mah�ay�ana textual practices were everdistinct from those of non-Mah�ay�anists. Generally speaking, the categories of ‘written’ and‘oral’ traditions fit Indian religions very poorly. A category like the ‘literate orality’ proposedby Velcheru Narayana Rao (1993) is necessary to make proper sense of them.

*Correction added on 25 October after first publication online on 18 December 2009. Errors in the years had beenintroduced during the typesetting process and have been corrected in this version of the article.

60 David Drewes


The idea that separate Mah�ay�ana communities formed around individual Mah�ay�anas�utras also seems incorrect. First, as we have seen, several scholars have drawn attentionto the fact that there is no textual or archeological evidence that early Mah�ay�anistsformed distinct communities at all, which makes it hard to imagine many, even perhapshundreds, of distinct communities coalescing around individual s�utras. The one signifi-cant fact cited for the existence of multiple Mah�ay�ana groups is that Mah�ay�ana s�utrastend to advocate divergent doctrinal or philosophical views, but it is not clear why thisshould be taken as evidence for separate communities. Mah�ay�anists accept the authentic-ity of s�utras with a wide spectrum of divergent perspectives today and clearly did sofrom the earliest periods for which we have evidence. We have s�utra anthologies whichcite literally dozens of Mah�ay�ana s�utras with divergent perspectives, the earliest of whichmay have been composed in some form as early as the second or third century.Mah�ay�ana s�astra authors often cite multiple s�utras as proof texts. Translators of Mah�ay�anas�utras from Lokak

_sema in the second century CE on down usually translated multiple

s�utras with divergent perspectives. Finally, many apparently early Mah�ay�ana s�utras them-selves, including the A

_s_tas�ahasrik�a Prajn�ap�aramit�a (or Perfection of Wisdom in 8,000 Lines),

the s�utra for which we have the oldest firmly datable evidence, advocate the use ofother, unnamed, Mah�ay�ana s�utras besides themselves. Rather than representing the estab-lished doctrines and practices of distinct communities, various Mah�ay�ana s�utras seemmore likely simply to represent the views and imaginations of different Mah�ay�anaauthors. Instead of distinct communities, the varying perspectives of Mah�ay�ana s�utras canbetter be taken as evidence that the movement encouraged innovation and made roomfor theoretical diversity.

The forest hypothesis provides a picture of the Mah�ay�ana that threads the needle ofsome of the other recent findings in the field. Both Harrison and Schopen have pointedout that a forest location for the early Mah�ay�ana could help to explain the near totallack of early Mah�ay�ana inscriptions. It also makes it possible to imagine Mah�ay�ana as adistinct form or forms of Buddhism not rigidly distinct from the nik�ayas. Despite havingordinations in various nik�ayas, being isolated in forests could have led monastics to formnew groups. Western thinkers have also long tended to identify forest meditation astrue, original Buddhism. It was thus perhaps natural for those interested in the Mah�ay�anato imagine it as an intensification of this tendency or as a sort of revival movement.The main problem with the forest hypothesis is that Mah�ay�ana s�utras, the final court forany theory of the early Mah�ay�ana, provide little support for it. Harrison claims thatLokak

_sema’s texts place a strong emphasis on forest dwelling, but he does not cite actual

passages or texts as evidence. So far as I have been able to determine, only two of thedozen or so texts now linked to Lokak

_sema, the Pratyutpanna and K�asyapaparivarta,

actually advocate forest dwelling. The others either do not mention it, depict is asunnecessary for the pursuit of Buddhahood, or explicitly attempt to discourage it. TheAk

_sobhyav�uha and larger Sukh�avat�ıvy�uha s�utras, for instance, each present very easy prac-

tices, such as merely listening to the s�utra, or thinking of particular Buddhas, that theyclaim can enable one to be reborn in special, luxurious ‘pure lands’ where one will beable to make easy and rapid progress on the bodhisattva path and attain Buddhahoodafter as little as one lifetime. In the A

_s_tas�ahasrik�a, the Buddha explicitly says that he does

not recommend forest dwelling and explains that it is a dangerous practice recom-mended by M�ara. In another passage, the A

_s_tas�ahasrik�a depicts the great bodhisattva

Dharmodgata as having ‘skillful means’ that enable him to maintain his moral purityeven though he lives in a palace in the middle of a city and has sex with 6,800,000



women. The S�ura_mgamasam�adhi S�utra also repeatedly makes the point that avoidance of

sensual pleasures is not important for bodhisattvas.Reginald Ray and Nattier’s versions of the theory are equally problematic. Ray is not

an early Mah�ay�ana specialist and his argument in support of the Mah�ay�ana portion of histheory is based on only four texts that he cites only in Western language translation, onlyone of which seems likely to be early (though another is a late anthology that quotes pas-sages from some apparently early texts). He excludes from his study the large majority ofeven the dozens of Mah�ay�ana s�utras that have been translated into Western languages,many of which are clearly older than most of his texts, and few of which would lend anysupport to his views. In addition, as Nattier (2003) has already suggested, not all of thetexts Ray cites in fact support his views. Although Ray claims that the Ratnagu

_nas-

amcayag�ath�a, the one text he cites that seems likely to be early, advocates forest dwelling,for example, the very passages he cites from this text to support his claim explicitly dis-courage it.

Nattier’s version of the theory is based on a single text, the Ugraparipr@cch�a S�utra, whichshe depicts as containing the oldest or most primitive known evidence for the Mah�ay�ana(Nattier 2003). Other recent scholars, however, have not seen the text as necessarily beingespecially early (Dantinne 1991; Pagel 2006) and there are good reasons to conclude thatit was written after some of the other texts translated into Chinese around the same time,e.g., the A

_s_tas�ahasrik�a. In addition, the Ugra advocates forest dwelling and monasticism

inconsistently. In one passage, the Buddha says that lay people should not criticize monkswho violate the precepts, in another he defines forest dwelling metaphorically as dwelling‘without relying on anything,’ and in another he permits forest dwelling only to peoplewho have many delusions. In one unusual passage, the householder Ugra is asked why hehas decided to remain a layperson and he replies that he has done so to benefit others.The Buddha then applauds him and states that it would not be possible to find Ugra’sgood qualities in a thousand renunciant bodhisattvas. Before Nattier, several scholars in facttook the Ugra as evidence for active lay participation in the Mah�ay�ana. Indeed, though thishas long been forgotten, it was Vasil’ev’s reading of the Ugra that led him to make the firsthistorical suggestion that the Mah�ay�ana was open to increased lay participation (Vassilief1865), which can clearly be shown to be the conceptual progenitor of the whole lay origintheory. In another publication Nattier (2000) argues that the Ak

_sobhyavy�uha also provides

evidence of the importance of harsh and ascetic practice in early Mah�ay�ana. She arguesthat with the exception of a passage that states that one may attain rebirth in Ak

_sobhya’s

pure land, Abhirati, by memorizing and reciting the Ak_sobhyavy�uha itself, which she

regards as anomalous, the text presents rebirth in Abhirati as requiring a significant amountof rigorous training. Nattier, however, overlooks the main passage in the text thatdescribes how to be reborn in Abhirati, which presents no less than twelve distinct meth-ods, most of which are very easy (e.g., forming a desire to be born there, hearing thenames of bodhisattvas in Abhirati, practicing mindfulness of the Buddha ⁄ s). As Naomi Sato(2005) makes clear, most of these easy methods are found already in the oldest Chinesetranslation of the text. Nattier’s general idea that earlier forms of Mah�ay�ana advocated dif-ficult, j�ataka-like practices and that easy means of practice were developed only later hasno obvious evidentiary support.

Overall, while the scholarship of recent decades has clarified a great deal, a number ofkey problems remain. Part 2 of this article will present new perspectives on some ofthem.

62 David Drewes


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.

Short Biography

David Drewes is an assistant professor in the Department of Religion at the University ofManitoba. He received his PhD from the University of Virginia in 2006. His research isfocused primarily on early Mah�ay�ana and early Buddhism.

Note

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

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Documents

Early Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism I: Recent Scholarship