Outlines of Mahayana Buddhism

by Daisetz Teitaro Suzuki

To give our readers a glimpse of the state of things that were taking place in those early days of Buddhism in India, I will quote some passages from Vasumitra’s Discourse on the Points of Controversy by the Different Schools of Buddhism,—the work once referred to in the beginning of this book. The two principal schools that arose soon after the Nirvâna of the Buddha were, as is well known, the Elders and the Great Council, and though they were further divided into a number of smaller sections and their views became so complex and intermixed that some of the Elders shared similar views with the Great Council School and vice versa, yet we can fairly distinguish one from the other and describe the essential peculiarities of each school. These points of difference, generally speaking, are as follows, confining ourselves to their conceptions about the Buddha:

(1) According to the School of the Great Council, the Buddha’s personality is transcendental (lokottara), and all the Tathâgatas are free from the defilements that might come from the material existence (bhâva-âçrava).^[107] For in the Buddha all evil passions hereditary and acquired were eternally uprooted, and his presence on earth was absolutely spotless. (The Vibhaṣa, CLXXIII.) Contending this view, the Elders held that the Buddha’s personality was not free from Bhâvâçrava, though his mind was fully enlightened. His corporeal existence was the product of blind love veiled with ignorance and tangled with attachment. If this were not so, the Buddha’s feature would not have awakened an impure affection in the heart of a maiden, an ill-will in the heart of a highwayman, stupidity in the mind of an ascetic, and arrogance in that of a haughty Brahman. These incidents which happened during the life of the Buddha evince that his corporeal presence was apt to agitate others’ hearts, and to that extent it was contaminated by Bhâvâçrava.

(2) The Great Council School insists that every word uttered by a Tathâgata has a religious, spiritual meaning and purports to the edification of his fellow-beings; that his one utterance is variously interpreted by his audience each according to his own disposition, but all to his spiritual welfare; that every instruction given out by the Buddha is rational and perfect. Against these views the Elders think that the Buddha occasionally uttered things which had nothing to do with the enlightenment of others; that even with the Buddha something was out of his attainment, for instance, he could not make every one of his hearers perfectly understand his preachings; that though the Buddha never taught anything irrational and heretical, yet all his speeches were not perfect, he said some things which had no concern with rationality or orthodoxy.

(3) The corporeal body (rûpakâya) of the Buddha has no limits (koṭi); his majestic power has no limits; every Buddha’s life is unlimited; a Buddha knows no fatigue, knows not when to rest, always occupying himself with the enlightenment of all sentient beings and with the awakening in their hearts of pure faith. Against these tendencies of the Great Council School to deify the historical Buddha, the Elders generally insist on the humanity of Buddhahood. Though the Elders agree with the Great Council in that the body assumed by the Buddha as the result of his untiring accumulation of good karma through eons of his successive existences possesses a wonderful power, spiritual and material, they do not conceive it to be beyond all limitations.

(4) The Great Council School says that with the Buddha sleep is not necessary and he has no dreams. The Elders admit that the Buddha never dreams, but denies that he does not need any sleep.

(5) As the Buddha is always in the state of a deep, exalted spiritual meditation, it is not necessary for him to think what to say when requested to answer certain questions. Though he might appear to the inquirers as if he thoroughly cogitates over the problems presented to him for solution, the Buddha’s response is in fact immediate and without any efforts. The Elders, on the other hand, presume the Buddha’s mental calculation as to how to express his ideas as best suited to the understanding of the audience. Indeed, he does not cogitate over the problem itself, for with him everything is transparent, but he thinks over the best method of presenting his ideas before his pupils.^[108]

Now to return to the doctrine of Dharmakâya and Trikâya. When we consider these controversies as above stated, it is apparent that among many other questions which arose soon after the demise of the Buddha Çâkyamuni, there was one, which in all probability most agitated the minds of his disciples. I mean the question of the personality of Buddha. Was he merely a human being like ourselves? Then, how could he reach such a height of moral perfection? Or was he a divine being? But Buddha himself did not communicate anything to his disciples concerning his divinity, nor did he tell them to accept the Dharma on account of his divine personality, but solely for the sake of truth. But for all that how could the disciples ever eradicate from their hearts the feeling of sacred reverence for their teacher, which was so indelibly engraved there? Whenever they recalled the sermons, anecdotes, or gâthâs of their master, the truth and spirit embodied in them and the author must have become so closely associated that they could not but ask themselves: “What in the Buddha caused him to perceive and declare these solemn profound truths? What was it that formed in him such a noble majestic character? What was there in the mind of Buddha that raised him to such a perfection of intellectual and religious life? How was it possible that, possessed of such exalted moral and spiritual virtues, Buddha too had to succumb to the law of birth and death that is the lot of common mortals?” Some such questions must have been repeatedly asked before they could answer them by the doctrines of Dharmakâya and Trikâya.

Who was the Buddha?

The evidence that these questions were constantly disturbing the minds of the disciples ever since the Master’s entrance into Parinirvâna, is scatteringly revealed throughout the Buddhist texts both Southern and Northern. The regret of the immediate followers that they did not ask the Buddha to prolong his earthly life, while the Buddha told them that he could do so if he wished, and their lamentation over the remains of the Blessed One, “How soon the Light of the World has passed away!”^[109]—these utterances may be considered the first drops foreboding the showers of doubt and speculation as to his personality.

According to the Suvarna Prabhâ Sûtra,^[110] a Bodhisattva, by the name of Ruciraketu, was greatly annoyed by the doubt why Çâkyamuni Tathâgata had such a short life terminating only at eighty. He taught the disciples that those who did not injure any living beings, and those who generously practised charity, in their former lives, could enjoy a considerably long life on earth; why then was the life of the Blessed One himself cut so short, who practised those virtues from time immemorial? The sûtra now records that this doubt was dispelled by the declaration of four Tathâgatas who mysteriously appeared to the sceptic and told him that “Every drop of water in the vast ocean can be counted, but the age of Çâkyamuni none can measure. Crush the mount Sumeru into particles as fine as mustard seeds and we can count them, but the age of Çâkyamuni none can measure..... the Buddha never entered into Parinirvana; the Good Dharma will never perish. He showed an earthly death merely for the benefits of sentient beings.”.....