Mahayana: Encyclopedia II - Mahayana - Origins

Mahayana - Origins

Scholars believe that Mahayana as a distinct movement began around the 1st century BCE in the North-western Indian subcontinent (in what is now the country of Pakistan) estimating a formative period of about three centuries before it was transmitted in a highly evolved form to China in the 2nd century CE. According to Williams (1989), the development of the Mahayana was a slow, gradual process. The Mahayana was not a rival school, and therefore it was not the consequence of a schism (sanghbheda). Mahayana and non-Mahayana monks could live without discord in the same monastery, so long as they held the same code.

Mahayana - Epigraphical evidence

One of the first known mentions of the Buddha using the word Bhagavat or Bhagavan ("Supreme Lord") is a dedication on a relic vase inserted in a stupa in Gandhara, written in kharoshthi by an Indo-Greek meridarch (civil governor of a province) named Theodorus in the 1st century BCE:

The earliest stone inscriptions containing recognizably Mahayana formulations and a mention of the Buddha Amitabha, were found in the Indian subcontinent in Mathura and dated to around 180 CE. Remains of a statue of a Buddha bear the Brahmi inscription:

Such inscriptions in Indian proper (Mathura) are rather late and few (the next known one is dated to the end of the 3rd century), in comparison to the multiplicity of Mahayana writings transiting from Central Asia to China at that time, and the involvement of Central Asian Buddhist monks, suggesting the focus of Mahayana development was probably in the northwest.

Mahayana - Scriptures

The first known Mahayana texts are translations made into Chinese by the Kushan monk Lokaksema in the Chinese capital of Luoyang, between 178 and 189 CE.

Lokaksema's work includes the translation of the Pratyutpanna Sutra, containing the first known mentions of the Buddha Amitabha and his Pure Land, said to be at the origin of Pure Land practice in China, and the first known translations of the Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra, a founding text of Mahayana Buddhism.

Mahayana - The 4th Buddhist Council

The formal rise of Mahayana Buddhism has been dated to around the middle of the 2nd century CE, when the Kushan emperor Kanishka convened the 4th Buddhist Council in Gandhara, which confirmed the formal scission of Mahayana Buddhism from the traditional Nikaya schools of Buddhism.

This was also the time and place of a rich cultural interaction between Buddhism and Hellenistic culture, which influenced the early representations of Buddhas, in what is known as Greco-Buddhist art.

Mahayana - Expansion 1st c.CE–10th c.CE

From the 1st century CE and in the space of a few centuries, Mahayana was to flourish and spread in the East from India to South-East Asia, and towards the north to Central Asia, China, Korea, and Japan, culminating with the introduction of Buddhism in Japan in 538 CE.

Mahayana disappeared from India during the 11th century, and consequently lost its influence in South-East Asia where it was replaced by Theravada Buddhism from Sri Lanka.

Mahayana remains however the most followeed of the Buddhist doctrines to this day in Eastern Asia and the world.

See also:

• Silk Road transmission of Buddhism
• History of Buddhism

Adapted from the Wikipedia article "Origins", under the G.N U Free Docmentation License. Please also see http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki