Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

Waddell.

Let us state one more case of misrepresentation by Western scholars of the Mahâyâna Buddhism. Waddell, author of Buddhism in Tibet, referring to the point of divergence between the so-called Northern Buddhism and the Southern, says (pp. 10-11): “It was the theistic Mahâyâna doctrine which substituted, for the agnostic idealism and simple morality of Buddha, a speculative theistic system with a mysticism of sophistic nihilism in the background.”

And again: “This Mahâyâna [meaning Nâgârjuna’s Mâdhyamika school] was essentially a sophistic nihilism, or rather Parinirvana, while ceasing to be extinction of life, was converted a mystic state which admitted of no definition.”

It may not be wrong to call Mahâyânism a speculative theistic system in a wide sense, but it must be asked on what ground Waddell thinks that it has in its background “a mysticism of sophistic nihilism”. Could a religious system be called sophistry when it makes a close inquiry into the science of dialectics, in order to show how futile it is to seek salvation through the intellect alone? Could a religious system be called a nihilism when it endeavors to reach the highest reality which transcends the phenomenality of concrete individual existences? Could a doctrine be called nihilistic when it defines the absolute as neither void (çûnya) nor not-void (açûnya)?

I could cull some more passages from other Buddhist scholars of the West and show how far Mahâyânism has been made by them a subject of misrepresentation. But since this work is not a polemic, but devoted to a positive exposition of its basic doctrines, I refrain from so doing. Suffice it to state that one of the main causes of the injustice done to Buddhism by the Christian critics comes from their preconceptions, of which they may not be aware, but which all the more vitiate their “impartial” judgments.

4. THE SIGNIFICANCE OF RELIGION.

Those misconceptions about Buddhism as above stated induce me to digress in this introductory part and to say a few words concerning the distinction between the form and the spirit of religion. A clear knowledge of this distinction will greatly facilitate the formation of a correct notion about Mahâyânism and will also help us duly to appreciate its significance as a living religious faith.

By the spirit of religion I mean that element in religion which remains unchanged throughout its successive stages of development and transformation: while the form of it is the external shell which is subject to any modification required by circumstances.

No Revealed Religion.

It admits of no doubt that religion, as everything else under the sun, is subject to the laws of evolution, and that, therefore, there is no such thing as a revealed religion, whose teachings are supposed to have been delivered to us direct from the hands of an anthropomorphic or anthropopsychic supernatural being, and which, like an inorganic substance, remains forever the same, without changing, without growing, without modifying itself in accord with the surrounding conditions. Unless people are so blinded by a belief in this kind of religion as to insist that its dogmas have suffered absolutely no change whatever since its “revelation,” they must recognise like every clear-headed person the fact that there are some ephemeral elements in every religion, which must carefully be distinguished from its quintessence which remains eternally the same.