2. Historical Development.
In the latter half of the
third century B.C., Buddhism spread rapidly
during the
reign in India of King Aśoka, who supported the Bud-
dhist order and sought to extend the
teaching of the
Buddha throughout his empire. He sent missionaries
to
the various countries known at that time, such as
Ceylon, Burma, Macedonia,
and Egypt. A bilingual
edict by Aśoka in Greek and Aramaic has
been found
in Afghanistan. Since that time Buddhism has become
a world
religion, with Ceylon as the center for the
spread of Southern Buddhism.
Meanwhile, in India the
Buddhist order came to be divided into two
schools,
Conservative (Theravāda) and
Liberal (Mahāsaṅghika),
finally
subdividing into about eighteen schools in the
second century B.C. Some of
these schools showed
liberal tendencies in thought and discipline
towards
reform, and towards adaptating themselves to social
changes.
The most important of these schools is the
Sarvāstivādins.
The social movements of liberal Buddhists in India,
coupled with new ideas
and practices, developed grad-
ually, and
found their culmination in the creation of
a new Buddhism called the
Mahāyāna (“Great Vehi-
cle”) in contrast with the traditional, conservative Bud-
dhism, which was depreciated as the
Hīnayāna (“Les-
ser Vehicle”). The rise of the Mahāyāna
system is proba-
bly to be placed in about the
first and second centuries
A.D. The new, reforming sects called themselves
Mahā-
yāna because they
thought of their system as (1) large
and vast, (2) one which can save many living beings,
and (3) a system which is superior. Mahāyāna believes
that
the teachings of Buddhism will vary according to
the different climatic and
cultural situations in which
it finds itself, that they will change and
develop
through the years, and that even at the outset not all
of the
Buddha's teachings were included in the canon.
Mahāyāna
advocated salvation by grace of Buddhas
and Bodhisattvas (aspirants to
Buddhahood), who were
ardently worshipped and invoked. Among the
followers
of Mahāyāna there were many merchants and
traders,
some of whom had become very rich due to their trade
with the
Hellenistic world or with the Roman empire.
The unit of Indian gold coins,
i.e., dīnāras, was exactly
the same as that in Rome,
i.e., denarius, in terms of
appellation and weight. The prestige of some
traders
almost surpassed that of kings. Until the tenth century
Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna thrived side by
side in India.
Huge temples and monasteries with luxurious halls and
elaborate carvings were built by rich lay believers to
accommodate monks and nuns. The images of Buddhas
and
Bodhisattvas were made. A great number of philo-
sophical treatises, hymns, religious stories, etc., were
composed.
There were two philosophical schools of Mahāyāna;
the
Mādhyamika school founded by Nāgārjuna (ca.
A.D.
150-250) and the Yogācāra school founded by Maitreya-
nātha (ca. A.D. 270-350) or
Asaṅga (ca. A.D. 310-90).
The Mādhyamika school
advocated the philosophy of
Voidness (śūnyatā); that everything is devoid of
abid-
ing substance and that Voidness gives
the basis for
ethical and religious practice. The
Yogācāra (or
Vijñānavāda)
school advocated a sort of idealism, say-
ing
that everything manifests itself as the manifestation
of Store
Consciousness (ālaya-vijñāna), the funda-
mental principle of representation of all
phenomena.
Its philosophy is identified with the
“Representation
Only” or “Ideation
Only” theory (vijñaptimātratā).
Buddhism could not completely eradicate the popu-
lar beliefs of Hinduism current among common people.
These tended to
become predominant from the fourth
century on, with the decline of the
trader class due
to the suspension of commercial interchange with the
West, so that from the eighth century on Buddhism
was greatly influenced by
Hindu popular beliefs. Some
Buddhists came to practice esoteric, mysterious
rites.
This form of Buddhism was called “Esoteric
Buddhism”
(Vajrayāna, “Diamond
Vehicle”).
The Muhammedan conquest of North India (1193-
1203) caused the downfall of Buddhism, which was
finally uprooted in
India. While Hinduism, which had
taken to its grassroots, could not be
easily destroyed,
Buddhism, which had been supported by many kings,
merchants, and landowners, was extirpated at one blow
by the Muhammedan
army. Temples and monasteries
were destroyed; monks and nuns were killed.
Buddhism
did not revive again on the soil of India until it was
re-introduced from Buddhist countries in the twentieth
century.
Owing to the efforts of Buddhist missionaries, Bud-
dhism was introduced, in about the first century A.D.,
to
Persia, Afghanistan, and Central Asia (Kuccha, Kho-
tan, etc.), and then to China. It was then introduced
to Korea in
the latter half of the fourth century, and
to Japan in the sixth century,
first via Korea, and later
directly from China. Buddhism, especially in the
form
of Esoteric Buddhism, came to Tibet in the seventh
century;
Tibetan Buddhism is called Lamaism by for-
eigners. (“Lama” means a spiritual leader.)
In China and Japan thirteen major sects came into
existence, of which Zen is
one. Zen is the Japanese
equivalent of ch'an in
Chinese, and of dhyāna (“medi-
tation”) in Sanskrit. Zen
Buddhism is a sect, which,
while having its roots in Indian dhyāna, gradually
moved away from the quiet and imaginative Indian
contemplation
to a specifically Chinese religious prac-
tice,
and became highly influential in Japanese culture.
Another noteworthy sect
in China was the Pure Land
(Ching-t'u) sect which stressed the worship of
Amitābha
Buddha (Amida in Japanese, “the Buddha of
Infinite
Life and Splendor”) who was supposed to be located
in the Pure Land (or “the Extremely Pleasant Land”)
in the western direction from this earthly world.
Among present-day Chinese
Zen and Pure Land Bud-
dhism have been
amalgamated into one. In Japan the
latter has been the most popularly
influential sect,
whereas Zen Buddhism was influential among the
upper
classes such as samurai and landowners.
