Hinayana and Mahayana: Comparison
| 🤓 Admin Zone 🛠️ hidden to non-admins | |
Description
The terms Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle or Modest Vehicle) and Mahayana (Greater Vehicle or Vast Vehicle) originated in The Prajnaparamita Sutras (The Sutras on Far-Reaching Discriminating Awareness, The Perfection of Wisdom Sutras). They are a rather derogatory pair of words, aggrandizing Mahayana and putting down Hinayana. Alternative terms for them, however, have many other shortcomings, and so therefore I shall use these more standard terms for them here.
Hinayana encompasses eighteen schools. The most important for our purposes are Sarvastivada and Theravada. Theravada is the one extant today in Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia. Sarvastivada was widespread in Northern India when the Tibetans started to travel there and Buddhism began to be transplanted to Tibet.
There were two main divisions of Sarvastivada based on philosophical differences: Vaibhashika and Sautrantika. Hinayana tenet systems studied at the Indian monastic universities such as Nalanda, and later by the Tibetan Mahayanists, are from these two schools. The lineage of monastic vows followed in Tibet is from another Sarvastivada subdivision, Mulasarvastivada.
Buddhas and Arhats
There is quite a significant difference between the Hinayana and Mahayana presentations of arhats and Buddhas. Both agree that arhats, or liberated beings, are more limited than Buddhas, or enlightened beings, are. Mahayana formulates this difference in terms of two sets of obscurations: the emotional ones, which prevent liberation, and the cognitive ones, which prevent omniscience. Arhats are free of only the former, whereas Buddhas are free of both. This division is not found in Hinayana. It is purely a Mahayana formulation.
To gain liberation or enlightenment, both Hinayana and Mahayana assert that one needs nonconceptual cognition of the lack of an impossible "soul.” Such a lack is often called "selflessness,” anatman in Sanskrit, the main Indian scriptural language of Sarvastivada and Mahayana; anatta in Pali, the scriptural language of Theravada. The Hinayana schools assert this lack of an impossible "soul” with respect only to persons, not all phenomena. Persons lack a "soul,” an atman, that is unaffected by anything, partless, and separable from a body and a mind, and which can be cognized on its own. Such a "soul” is impossible. With just the understanding that there is no such thing as this type of "soul” with respect to persons, one can become either an arhat or a Buddha. The difference depends on how much positive force or so-called "merit” one builds up. Because of their development of the enlightening aim of bodhichitta, Buddhas have built up far more positive force than arhats have.
Mahayana asserts that Buddhas understand the lack of an impossible "soul" with respect to all phenomena as well as with respect to persons. They call this lack "voidness." The various Indian schools of Mahayana differ regarding whether or not arhats also understand the voidness of phenomena. Within Mahayana, Prasangika-Madhyamaka asserts that they do. However, the four Tibetan traditions explain this point differently regarding the Prasangika assertion. Some say that the voidness of phenomena understood by arhats is different from that understood by Buddhas; some assert the two voidnesses are the same. Some say that the scope of phenomena to which the voidness of phenomena applies is more limited for arhats than it is for Buddhas; some assert it is the same. There is no need to go into all the details here.
Further Points Concerning Buddhas and Arhats
The assertions of Hinayana and Mahayana concerning arhats and Buddhas differ in many other ways. Theravada, for instance, asserts that one of the differences between a shravaka or "listener" striving toward the liberation of an arhat and a bodhisattva striving toward the enlightenment of a Buddha is that shravakas study with Buddhist teachers, while bodhisattvas do not. The historical Buddha, Shakyamuni, for instance, did not study with another Buddha. He studied only with non-Buddhist teachers, whose methods he ultimately rejected. In the fact that Buddha’s understanding and attainment did not arise from reliance on a Buddhist teacher, Theravada asserts that a Buddha’s wisdom surpasses that of an arhat.
In addition, bodhisattvas work to become universal Buddhist teachers; shravakas do not, although as arhats they certainly teach disciples. According to Theravada, however, Buddhas excel arhats in being more skillful in methods for leading others to liberation and in the breadth of their conduct of teaching. Buddhas also excel arhats in their omniscience. Buddhas are able to know anything by paying attention to the relevant matter as they wish. But regarding knowing the future there are some limits as the Buddha did not accept a fixed future, and regarding the past Buddhas recollect through the perspective of their own past.
According to the Vaibhashika school of Hinayana, Buddhas are fully omniscient of the past, present and future, but still only know one thing at a time. According to Mahayana, omniscience means knowing everything simultaneously. This follows from its view that everything is interconnected and interdependent; we cannot speak of just one piece of information, totally unrelated to the rest.
Hinayana says that the historical Buddha achieved enlightenment in his lifetime and, like an arhat, when he died, his mental continuum came to an end. Therefore, according to Hinayana, Buddhas teach only for the rest of the lifetime in which they achieve enlightenment. They do not emanate to countless world systems and go on teaching forever, as Mahayana asserts. Only Mahayana asserts that the historical Buddha became enlightened in a previous lifetime many eons ago, by studying with Buddhist teachers. He was just demonstrating enlightenment under the bodhi tree as one of the twelve enlightening deeds of a Buddha. The precursor of this description of a Buddha is found in the Mahasanghika School of Hinayana, another of the eighteen Hinayana schools, but is not found in either Sarvastivada or Theravada.
Concerning Buddhas, another major difference is that only Mahayana asserts the three corpuses or bodies of a Buddha – Nirmanakaya, Sambhogakaya, and Dharmakaya. Hinayana does not assert them. Thus, the concept of a Buddha is significantly different in Hinayana and Mahayana.
Continue reading here.
Notes
