Category: History - Religious
Âtman.--Buddha’s First Line of Inquiry.--The Skandha.--King Milinda and Nâgasena.--Ananda’s Attempts to Locate the Soul.--Âtman and the “Old Man.”--The Vedântic Conception.--Nâgârjuna on the Soul.--Non-âtman-ness of Things.--Svabhâva.--The Real Significance of Emptiness.
Âtman.--Buddha’s First Line of Inquiry.--The Skandha.--King Milinda and Nâgasena.--Ananda’s Attempts to Locate the Soul.--Âtman and the “Old Man.”--The Vedântic Conception.--Nâg...
8. Chapter VIII. Karma.9. Chapter IX. The Dharmakâya.God.--Dharmakâya.--Dharmakâya as Religious Object.--More Detailed Characterisation.--The Dharmakâya and Individual Beings.--The Dharmakâya as Love.--Later Mahâyânists’ View of t...
10. Chapter X. The Doctrine of Trikâya.The Human and the Super-human Buddha.--An Historical View.--Who was Buddha?--The Trikâya as Explained in the _Suvarna-Prabhâ_.--Revelation in All Stages of Culture.--The Sambhog...
11. Chapter XI. The Bodhisattva.The Three Yânas.--Strict Individualism.--The Doctrine of Parivarta.--Bodhisattva in “Primitive” Buddhism.--We are all Bodhisattvas.--The Buddha’s Life.--The Bodhisattva and Love...
12. Chapter XII. Ten Stages of Bodhisattvahood.13. Chapter XIII. Nirvâna.Nihilistic Nirvâna not the First Object.--Nirvâna is Positive.--The Mahâyânistic Conception of Nirvâna.--Nirvâna as the Dharmakâya.--Nirvâna in its Fourth Sense.--Nirvâna and Sa...
14. CHAPTER I./Buddhism/ is considered by some to be a religion without a God and without a soul. The statement is true and untrue according to what meaning we give to those terms.
15. CHAPTER II./We/ are now in a position to enter into a specific exposition of the Mahâyâna doctrine. But, before doing so, it will be well for us first to consider the views that were held...
16. CHAPTER III./Mahâyânism/ perhaps can best be treated in two main divisions, as it has distinctly two principal features in its doctrinal development. I may call one the speculative phase of...
17. CHAPTER IV./Mahâyânism/ generally distinguishes two or three forms of knowledge. This classification is a sort of epistemology, inasmuch as it proposes to ascertain the extent and nature o...
18. CHAPTER V./From/ the ontological point of view, Paramârtha-satya or Pariniṣpanna (transcendental truth) is called Bhûtatathâtâ, which literally means “suchness of existence.” As Buddhism...
19. CHAPTER VI./Suchness/ (_Bhûtatathâtâ_), the ultimate principle of existence, is known by so many different names, as it is viewed in so many different phases of its manifestation. Suchness...
20. CHAPTER VII.These four tenets, as it were, are so closely interrelated that, stand or fall, they all inevitably share one and the same fate together. Whatever different views the various sc...
21. CHAPTER VIII./Karma/, or Sanskâra which is sometimes used as its synonym,--though the latter gives a slightly different shade of meaning,--comes from the Sanskrit root _kṛ_, “to do,” “to mak...
22. CHAPTER IX./We/ have considered the doctrine of Suchness (_Bhûtatathâtâ_) under “Speculative Buddhism,” where it appeared altogether too abstract to be of any practical use to our earthly...
23. CHAPTER X./One/ of the most remarkable differences between the Pâli and the Sanskrit, that is, between the Hînayâna and the Mahâyâna Buddhist literature, is in the manner of introducing t...
24. CHAPTER XI./Next/ to the conception of Buddha, what is important in Mahâyâna Buddhism is that of Bodhisattva (intelligence-being) and of that which constitutes its essence, Bodhicitta, int...
25. CHAPTER XII./Theoretically/ speaking, as we have seen above, the Bodhi or Bodhicitta is in every sentient being, and in this sense he is a Bodhisattva. In profane hearts it may be found env...
26. CHAPTER XIII./Nirvâna/, according to Mahâyâna Buddhism, is not understood in its nihilistic sense. Even with the Çrâvakas or Hînayânists, Nirvâna in this sense is not so much the object of t...
27. CHAPTER I NOTES.[12] Guyau, a French sociologist, refers to the Buddhist conception of Nirvâna in his _Non-Religion of the Future_. I take his interpretation as typical of those non-Buddhist cr...
28. CHAPTER II NOTES.[20] His date is not known, but judging from the contents of his works, of which we have at present two or three among the Chinese Tripitaka, it seems that he lived later than A...
29. CHAPTER III NOTES.[36] No efforts have yet been made systematically to trace the history of the development of the Mahâyâna thoughts in India as well as in China and Japan. We have enough materia...
30. CHAPTER IV NOTES.[38] For detailed exposition of the three forms of knowledge, the reader is requested to peruse Asanga’s _Comprehensive Treatise on Mahâyânism_ (Nanjo’s Catalogue, No. 1183), Va...
31. CHAPTER V NOTES.[46] This is the famous phrase in the _Brhadaranyaka Upanisad_ occurring in several places (II, 3, 6; III, 9, 26; IV, 2, 4; IV, 4, 22; IV, 5, 5). The Atman or Brahman, it says,...
32. Chapter 5.[53] Deussen relates, in his address delivered before the Bombay Branch of the Royal Asiatic Society, 1893, a similar attitude of a Vedantist mystic in regard to the highest Bra...
33. CHAPTER VI NOTES.[59] Cf. the _Bhagavadgîtâ_ (_S. B. E._ Vol. VIII, chap. XIV, p. 107): “The Brahman is a womb for me, in which I cast the seed. From that, O descendant of Bharata! is the birth...
34. CHAPTER VII NOTES.[65] _Pudgala_ or _pudgalasamjña_ is sometimes used by Mahâyânists as a synonym of âtman. The Buddhist âtman in the sense of ego-substratum may be considered to correspond to th...
35. CHAPTER VIII NOTES.[84] The Twelve Nidânas are: (1) Ignorance (_avidyâ_), (2) action (_sanskâra_), (3) Consciousness (_vijñâna_), (4) Name-and-form (_nâmarûpa_), (5) Six Sense-organs (_âyatana_),...
36. CHAPTER IX NOTES.[95] This should be understood in the sense that “God maketh his sun to rise on the evil and on the good, and sendeth rain on the just and on the unjust.” The Dharmakâya is univ...
37. CHAPTER X NOTES.[107] Âçrava literally means “oozing,” or “flowing out,” and the Chinese translators rendered it by _lou_, dripping, or leaking. Roughly speaking, it is a general name for evils...
38. CHAPTER XI NOTES.[120] It should be noted here that the idea of universal salvation was lacking altogether in the followers of Hînayânism. But what distinguished it so markedly from Mahâyânism i...
39. CHAPTER XII NOTES.[129] The distinction between the five indriyas and the five balas seems to be rather redundant. But the Hindu philosophers usually distinguish actor from action, agent from fun...
40. CHAPTER XIII NOTES.[140] The gâthâs supposed to be the first utterance of the Buddha after his enlightenment, according to Rockhill’s _Life of the Buddha_ (p. 33) compiled from Tibetan sources, gi...