and it, fecundated by the receptacle consciousness, develops the conception of like and dislike, associating it with other matters as cause and effect, &c. Then come the five forms of consciousness corresponding to the sense organs, visual, oral, nasal, taste, and touch consciousness, which, fecundated by the receptacle con. sciousness, give the presentation of the world of experience. The interaction of the whole body of these factors is necessary for the knowledge of the world; without, for instance, sight consciousness there could be no vision of colour, but mind is necessary for the discrimination of phenomena; without the infected mind one could not discriminate form or size, and without the receptacle consciousness neither the individual nor the world would exist. Or, in the terminology of causation, mind is the cause proper (hetu), infected mind and the receptacle consciousness the conditions (pratyaya), and the experienced world the fruit. The ordinary mind sees in the infected mind the final reality; Bodhisattvas recognize beneath it the receptacle consciousness as its prius.

3. Nirvana as the Absolute

With the development of the positive side of the Mahāyāna there appears inevitably a certain change in the sense attributed to Nirvana. In the Vijñānamātraçāstra four forms of Nirvāņa are distinguished. The first aspect is that in which Nirvāņa is equivalent to the body of the law (dharmakāya); it is thus possible to view it in two aspects; in the one it is the absolute wholly simple, above all determinations of any empirical kind; in the other it is the reality which underlies the whole of existence, and in this sense, as a commentator on the Castra says, it is present in every man in whatever stage of mental development. The second form is Nirvana with residue (upadhi-çesa) which denotes the state achieved in life by the man who achieves complete enlightenment, but who still continues to work out his accumu lated action. On death the result is Nirvana without residue (anupadhi-çeṣa). The fourth form of Nirvana is that without

1 See Suzuki, MB. ch. xiii.

2 MSA. iii. 4; MKV., p. 519 (xxv. 1).

basis or stay (apratisthita),' which is the state superior to that of the Çravakas and the solitary Buddhas; in it the adept rises superior to the ideas of transmigration (saṁsāra) and Nirvāņa itself. He lays aside the idea of contenting himself with the Nirvana of the Çravaka and determines to deliver his fellow creatures from all misery and bring them to final emancipation and supreme bliss. There are in fact in the Mahayana two strains of thought regarding Nirvāņa. The negativism of Nagarjuna asserts that it is not created, not liable to destruction, not eternal, not passing away, not acquired, not wanting, and leaves it therefore in the same condition of negativism as anything else, so that it can be asserted to be the same as Samsara, since both are purely negative in character, and two negations can be identified. But the doctrine can be given a positive aspect, and this is clearly seen in the Vimalakirti Sūtra,2 in which insight is said to grow amid the defilement of passion and sin, even as the lotus grows in the watery mire, as the seed springs up in muddy soil, not in the air. Passion is intelligence; Nirvana is Samsara; the two are vitally connected, and the attainment of Nirvāņa must be in and through life, not in annihilation or abstention from its activities. Hence in Asanga's Mahāyānasaṁparigrahaçāstra we have the character of a Buddha including superiority to attachment and defilement and yet connected with the passions of mankind, since depraved souls are to be rescued by the compassion of the Buddha. It is wrong, Vasubandhu explains, to see either the transitoriness of existence alone or the eternity of Nirvaņa; from the standpoint of suchness the implications of both are essentially connected.

The advantage of this metaphysical conception of existence and release as inseparably connected is that it affords a moderately sound foundation on which to base the importance both of intuition and compassion in the process of attainment of the end. Intuition destroys egoistic thought, compassion encourages altruism; intuition destroys the attachments to self inherent in ordinary minds, compassion uproots the intellectual attachment of the Çravakas and solitary Buddhas which lead to seeking annihilation

1 Lévi, MSA. ii. *21, 27, n. 4.

2 Cf. Ç., pp. 325 f. (as courtesans); Ratnolkadhāraṇī, Ç., pp. 330 ff.

in Nirvana; by virtue of intuition Nirvāņa in its transcendental sense is not rejected, by virtue of compassion existence with its round is not rejected; by virtue of insight the truth of Buddhism is attained, by virtue of compassion other beings are made ripe for its attainment also. It is not difficult hence to rise to a more complete conception of Nirvana as the absolute and to insist on the importance of compassion as bringing about the realization of that absolute which is the true Nirvana.

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4. The Pre-eminence of the Mahāyāna

It is now possible to understand the claims of pre-eminence over the Hinayana insisted upon for the Mahayana by both Asañga and and Vasubandhu. In the Mahāyānasaṁparigrahaçāstra Asañga enumerates seven points in which his school surpasses the Çravakas. The Mahayana is comprehensive; whatever has been taught by Buddhas, not by Çakyamuni in one life alone is accepted; nay more, as we have seen, whatever is well said is to be deemed the word of a Buddha. Secondly, the Mahāyāna aims at general salvation, not at individual release, thus excelling in love for all created things. Thirdly, the Mahayana is intellectually wider in range than the Hinayana; the latter denies the reality of the self, the former goes so far as to deny all phenomenal reality whatever. Fourthly, the Mahayana inculcates spiritual energy; to seek swift release for oneself is not its aim as it is that of the Çrāvaka. Fifthly, the Mahāyāna is skilled in the manifold means (upāya)2 to lead men to salvation; it is unwearied in their varied application. Moreover, it leads to a far higher ideal; the adept aims to become, not a mere saint, but a Buddha in his complete perfection. Lastly, when an adept becomes a Buddha, he has the infinite power of manifesting himself throughout the universe in a body of bliss.

A different presentation of the important aspects of Mahāyānism is given in another treatise which is specially concerned with the aspect of the Mahāyāna represented by Asanga and his brother.

1 See Suzuki, MB. ch. ii.

The Upayakauçalya Sutra is cited in Ç., pp. 66, 165, 167, 168 on committing even sin to save beings.

Ten points here are given. The first is the conception of the receptacle consciousness and its relation to the mind as defiled by ignorance. The second is the threefold classification of knowledge and degrees of reality. Thirdly, comes the idealistic conception of the world, underlying which is the further recognition of even this as the product of ignorance and illusion. Fourthly, the school inculcates the practice of the six perfections of generosity, not clinging to worldly goods; of non-violation of moral precepts; of not feeling dejected in the face of evils (kṣanti); of not being indolent in well doing (virya); of practising meditation and concentration (samadhi); and of intuition (prajñā), recognizing only the existence of an ideal world. Fifthly, the school has the scheme of ten stages of spiritual progression. Sixthly, it practises a morality which is spiritual, not merely physical or literal; the Çrāvaka follows the letter, not the spirit, and for a selfish end; the Bodhisattva will violate the letter to save the souls of others. Seventhly, the Bodhisattva aims at conformity with the essence of suchness and the body of the law.' Eighthly, his insight is free from non-particularism (anānārtha); he is not deceived either by Samsara or Nirvāņa, but reaches the absolute, as the abode of nonparticularization. Ninthly, he realizes that Nirvāņa which is without stay; that is, he does not end his existence, but takes part in the life of the world, without, however, even being defiled by that life. Lastly, the school has the sublime doctrine of the body of the law as well as of the other two bodies of the Buddha.

5. Vedānta and Mahāyāna

The appearance of a tendency to recognize an absolute in the Mahāyānaçraddhotpāda has been naturally enough attributed, on the theory that the author of that treatise is Açvaghosa, to the Brahmanical training of that accomplished poet. In any case the parallel between Vedantic absolutism and Mahāyāna tenets is striking and undeniable. In the Vijñānavāda we have definitely the conception of void intellect as the final reality, and, though the Vedantic absolute is being, thought, and bliss, we are aware

A different account seems to be given in Muséon, v. (1904) 872 where Samadhi is the excellence.

that thought here has no object and is therefore, if intelligible in any sense, nothing essentially different from the void intellect of the Vijñānavāda. The bliss of such a void intellect is too mysterious a matter to inquire into, and its existence is clearly on a par with the existence of the void intellect of the Vijñānavāda.

The similarity of result, however, does not necessarily mean borrowing on either side, for parallel developments of different initial conceptions, one of absolute reality, one of absolute nothing. ness, might lead to results not dissimilar, and it is, of course, true that there is a vital difference between the two doctrines. The truth of convention or appearance (vaiyavahārika) of Çankara is certainly false from the point of view of absolute truth, but it rests on a reality, for illusion (maya) is, and the magician who causes it is a Lord, while Nagarjuna's truth of obscurity is utterly unreal, like the horn of a hare or the son of a barren woman.1

It is, however, of importance that the later supporters of the doctrine of duality, adherents of the Samkhya as well as of Viçiṣṭādvaita Vedanta, do not hesitate to pronounce judgement against the monist Vedanta by accusing it of being nothing but Vijñānavāda Buddhism concealed; in this Puranic evidence concurs with Vijñānabhikṣu, and the earlier testimony of Yamunācārya, spiritual grandfather of Ramanuja, so that the accusation was evidently current shortly after Çankara had established the orthodoxy of the Mayavada. On the other hand, it is obvious that the Buddhists themselves were aware of the approximation of the Vijñānavāda in some of its aspects to the Vedanta; we have in the Lankavatāra a direct challenge of the similarity of the doctrine of the Tathāgatagarbha and the Vedanta self, though the Buddha repudiates the charge of plagiarism by insisting that his teaching is merely ad populum. Again in the Çuklavidarçanābhūmi♦ it is shown that a famous Buddha's utterance: This threefold world is only thought', is equivalent to the doctrine of the Upanisads: Verily all this universe is Brahman.' Similarly,

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1 See Poussin, JRAS, 1910, pp. 129 ff.; Jacobi, JAOS. xxxiii. 51 ff.; Sukhtankar, VOJ. xxii. 136 ft.

2 Sāṁkhyapravacanabhāṣya, i. 22; Padma Purāņa, Bodl. Cat. i. 14; Siddhitraya, p. 19; Gribhāṣya, ii. 27.

3

pp. 80 f.

JRAS. 1908, p. 889; Chandogya Upaniṣad, iii. 14.