Of course it became difficult to fix on any living man, or any recently deceased saint worthy of the highest stage of Bodhi, to which a being about to become a perfect Buddha was supposed to attain.
The first to be so elevated (though apparently not by Gautama himself) was, as frequently mentioned before, the mythical individual Maitreya. He was, we repeat, for a long time the only Bodhi-sattva recognized by all Buddhists alike, whether adherents of the Hīna-yāna or Mahā-yāna. But he was not a historical personage, like Gautama or his immediate disciples. He was a mere mythological personification of that spirit of love—of that kindly and friendly disposition towards all living beings by force of which Buddhism hoped one day to conquer the world, and win it over to itself.
And in conformity with his mythical character, and probably to prevent the rivalry of pretenders among future ambitious heads of monasteries, he was not to appear for five thousand years, till the teaching of Gautama had lost its power.
Indeed, it was only to be expected that this rank should at first have been accorded to one person alone—just as in worldly affairs there could be only one Heir-apparent to the throne.
Such was the more simple doctrine of early Buddhism in regard to the relative position of the members of the Buddhist community.
How then did the teachers of the Mahā-yāna proceed to amplify this doctrine?
They taught that there were two methods of salvation or, so to speak, two ways or two vehicles—the Great and the Little (Mahā-yāna and Hīna-yāna)—and indeed two Bodhis or forms of true knowledge which these vehicles had to convey[90]. The former was for ordinary persons, the latter for beings of larger talents and higher spiritual powers. The ‘Little Way’ was the simple doctrine, which had many Arhats but only one Bodhi-sattva; the ‘Great Way,’ on the other hand, was the wider and broader, which had many Bodhi-sattvas as well as many Arhats. He who satisfied the usual requirements of Saintship received the rank of an Arhat in both systems. But in the wider system every one who aimed at unusual sanctity on the one hand, and knowledge (Bodhi) on the other, might walk on the Great road leading to Bodhi-sattvaship, and receive the title Bodhi-sattva.
We have seen ([p. 136]) that the Hīna-yāna, or ‘Little system,’ taught that there were only twenty-four Buddhas who had preceded Gautama. Three of these (viz. Kraku-ććhanda, Kanaka-muni, and Kāṡyapa), with Gautama as a fourth, had appeared in the present age, and only one Bodhi-sattva (Maitreya) was to come.
But according to the ‘Great System,’ it was a mistake to limit the acquisition of the highest Saintship in this manner. It maintained that there would be numberless supreme Buddhas (and, in addition to them, self-taught, solitary Buddhas, called Pratyeka-Buddhas), as well as numberless Bodhi-sattvas, even in the present age of the world. In other words, it propounded the doctrine that the practice of the six (or ten) transcendent virtues ([p. 128]), and especially the acquisition of transcendent wisdom (prajñā pāramitā), might qualify many saints for the attainment of Bodhi-sattvaship and Buddhaship. According to one theory, there were to be at least a thousand Bodhi-sattvas, followed by a thousand Buddhas, while, according to others, Buddhas and Bodhi-sattvas were to be reckoned by myriads.
But this theory of numberless Bodhi-sattvas involved an entirely new view of their nature and of the meaning of the term.