MAHAYANA

(Sanskrit: Greater Vehicle), one of the two major Buddhist traditions and the form most widely adhered to in China, Korea, Japan, and Tibet. Mahayana Buddhism emerged in about the 1st century AD from the ancient Buddhist schools as a more liberal and innovative interpretation of the Buddha's teachings. Mahayanists distinguished themselves from the more orthodox conservative schools, which they somewhat deprecatingly termed Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle). The Mahayana differ from the conservatives, represented in the modern world by the Theravadins of Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia, in their views of the nature of the Buddha and the ideal goal of a Buddhist. While Theravada Buddhists revere the historical Gautama Buddha as a teacher of the truth, Mahayanists attribute to the Buddha a supramundane quality and interpret the historical Buddha as an earthly manifestation of a transcendent celestial Buddha. The ideal goal toward which all Buddhists should strive is to become not, as in Theravada Buddhism, an arhat or perfected saint, which Mahayanists consider to be a limited selfish goal, but a bodhisattva (q.v.), or person who has attained to the state of Enlightenment but has postponed his Buddhahood in order to work toward the salvation of all others. Thus, compassion, the chief virtue associated with the bodhisattva, is accorded an equal place with wisdom, the virtue emphasized by the ancient schools. The merit accrued by a bodhisattva is considered transferable to others, a concept that led to such devotional movements as the Pure Land Buddhism of China and Japan. Other major schools of Mahayana Buddhism with a significant modern following are Zen Buddhism, Nichiren Buddhism, and Tendai. The Mahayana scriptures were composed mainly in Sanskrit, though in some cases they are known only in their Tibetan and Chinese versions, the original having been lost.