Mahayana Buddhism

Overview

Recall questions on the emergence of Mahayana, its expanded idea of a buddha, the trikaya and buddha-nature, images and stupas, its schools in their national settings, and Basham and the 14th Dalai Lama on Mahayana.

What you need to know

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Questions from this subtopic

Each one with the model answer underneath.

1. 1

   When and how did Mahayana emerge?

   Model answer

   It took shape in India over roughly the first century BCE to the first century CE, not as a breakaway sect with its own ordination but as a movement of new texts, new devotional practices and a new emphasis on the bodhisattva vocation, whose adherents often lived in the same monasteries as those who did not share it.

2. 2

   What conditions encouraged the rise of Mahayana?

   Model answer

   Historians point to the appearance of new sutras claiming to be the Buddha's word, growing lay devotion focused on stupas, the influence of the perfection-of-wisdom literature, and contact with the wider trading world of the north-west. Mahayana Buddhists themselves explain the new material as teachings that were preserved until people were ready for them.

3. 3

   How does Mahayana extend the idea of a buddha?

   Model answer

   Beyond the single historical teacher. Mahayana speaks of countless buddhas in countless world systems, of buddhahood as the goal for everyone rather than for one figure per age, and of a buddha as accessible and active rather than simply gone. Devotion to figures such as Amitabha and to great bodhisattvas follows from this.

4. 4

   Explain the trikaya.

   Model answer

   Three bodies of a buddha. The dharmakaya is buddhahood as ultimate reality itself, beyond form. The sambhogakaya is a glorified form appearing in the buddha-fields to advanced practitioners. The nirmanakaya is a manifestation in the ordinary world, of which Gautama was one. The scheme lets Mahayana affirm both a historical teacher and an ultimate, ever-present buddhahood.

5. 5

   Why does the trikaya matter for Mahayana practice?

   Model answer

   Because it makes devotion coherent: if buddhahood is not exhausted by one man who died, then relating to a buddha now is possible, and visualisation, chanting and reliance on Amitabha make sense. It also identifies what a practitioner is heading for with reality itself rather than with an achievement of one individual.

6. 6

   What is buddha-nature, and what does it imply?

   Model answer

   The teaching that awakening is not something foreign to be imported but is present in all beings, obscured rather than absent. It implies that no one is excluded from buddhahood, that practice uncovers rather than manufactures, and that others are to be treated as buddhas in the making. Mahayana thinkers insist this is not a self reintroduced under another name, though the point has been debated within Mahayana itself.

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