The Encyclopedia of World Religions

Mahayana Buddhism S 273

Mahavira lived in roughly the same place and time as the B UDDHA —northeast India in the sixth century B . C . E . Like the Buddha, he was part of a movement that rejected the RITUALS of SACRIFICE described in the sacred books known as the V EDA . At the age of 30, he asked his brother—his par ents had died—for permission to renounce ordi nary life. Receiving it, he adopted the lifestyle of a wandering beggar. Instead of shaving his head, he pulled out his hair. Either immediately or after 13 months—traditions vary—he gave up every last possession, including the wearing of clothes. As a beggar Mahavira strictly observed AHIMSA , that is, noninjury. He practiced severe austerities and suffered vile abuse from others. Roughly 12 years after his renunciation he achieved complete insight. He is said to have then reformed the teach ings of an earlier tirthankara, Parsva. He also reor ganized the institutions that Parsva had established. In doing so he created Jainism as we know it. At the age of 72 Mahavira entered the ultimate NIRVANA . Mahayana Buddhism The form of B UDDHISM prevalent in China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. It differs from T HERAVADA B UDDHISM in significant ways. Mahayana means the “Great Vehicle,” that is, a large and commodious vessel for carrying aspirants from ordinary life to enlightenment. It arose gradually in the early centuries of Buddhism over the issue of whether laypersons as well as monks could follow Buddhist practices fully and become enlightened. The party that in time became Mahayanists took the more liberal view. Soon they also advo cated the reconciling of popular religious rites with Buddhism and taught that the B UDDHA was really a transcendent being who came into our world as a teacher. As a liberal and innovative movement, Mahayana accepted new doctrines and revelations attributed to the Buddha. Its canon of scripture con tains numerous books outside the Theravada Tripi taka. These are often said to be teachings of the Enlightened One that were hidden until the world was ready for them. They include such famous

Prajnaparamita, the virtue of wisdom or insight, is expressed in the Prajnaparamita Sutras, important philosophical texts in Mahayana, or “Great Vehicle” Buddhism. Wood, sheet copper, and silk cloth. (Erich Lessing/Art Resource N.Y.)

Buddhist texts as the L OTUS S UTRA , the Heart Sutra, the Diamond Sutra, and the Garland Sutra. By the first century C . E . Mahayana had con solidated into a distinctive Buddhist party with its own scriptures, teachers, and practices. The great est Mahayana philosopher, Nagarjuna ( c. 150– c. 250 C . E .) taught two basic principles: that SAMSARA (the “wheel of existence”—our ordinary life) and NIRVANA (its opposite, and the ultimate goal of Bud dhist realization) are really one and the same, and that the best metaphor to describe this kind of universe is to call it Emptiness or Void. In other words, Nirvana is not some place to which we “go” in the AFTERLIFE . It is here and now, a state of mind rather than a place, and the universe as perceived by that state of mind can be called Void, not because there is nothing in it but because it offers nothing to grasp hold of by mind or hand, any more than one could grasp a flowing river. The world is fluid, continually changing, and continu ally blissful to those who know how to swim with its flow. These insights lead to or interpret several distinctive features of religious Mahayana: