It should be observed, too, that an important addition to the Mahā-yāna doctrine was made in certain Northern countries about the tenth century of our era.
A particular sect of Buddhists in Nepāl, calling themselves Aiṡvarikas, propounded a theory of a Supreme Being (Īṡvara), to whom they gave the name of a ‘primordial Buddha’ (Ādi-Buddha), and who was declared to be the source and originator of all things, and the original Evolver of the Dhyāni-Buddhas, or Buddhas of contemplation, while they again were supposed to evolve their corresponding Dhyāni-Bodhi-sattvas.
It is clear, of course, that this addition was a mere adaptation of Buddhism to Brāhmanism, and that the Ādi-Buddha was invented to serve as a counterpart of the One Universal Spirit Brahmă—the one eternally existing spiritual Essence, from which all existing things are mere emanations.
Sometimes, however, this Ādi-Buddha is said to have produced all things through union with Prajñā (mentioned before, [p. 202]), in which case he is rather to be identified with the personal Creator Brahmā.
Observe, moreover, that even in early times one of the Dhyāni-Buddhas—the one called Amitābha, ‘diffusing infinite light,’—lost his purely abstract character, and was worshipped by Northern Buddhists as a personal God. He is in the present day held by them to be an eternal Being, the ideal of all that is beautiful and good, who receives his worshippers into a heaven called Sukhāvati, ‘paradise of pleasures’ (see [p. 183]).
But it must also be noted that neither Ādi-Buddha nor Amitābha, when regarded as personal gods, were held to be Creators of the World in the Christian sense. They were merely Supreme rulers outside and above it; for Northern Buddhists agree with Southern in thinking that the world exists of itself, and that its only Creator is the force of its own acts.
We pass on now to consider how far and with what modifications the mythology of Brāhmanism and Hindūism was incorporated into Buddhism.
I have already pointed out that although the Buddha changed the character of much of the existing mythology, he never prohibited his lay-followers from continuing their old forms of worship, or bowing down before the deities honoured by their fathers and grandfathers.
Apart indeed from the shrewd policy of not assuming an attitude of hostility to popular creeds and usages, the tolerant tendency and universality of the Buddha’s teaching obliged him, in common consistency, to recognize, and as far as possible appropriate, the various religious elements existing around him, and to subordinate them to his own purposes.
In fact, according to the theory of true Buddhism, as has been well pointed out by other writers, there was only one system of doctrine and only one Law—that Law (Dharma) which Gautama Buddha came to renovate for the benefit of the world in the present age.