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VI. The Mahayana system does not exclude laymen from Nirvana; it admits every one, layman as well as priest, to the condition of a supreme Buddha, and applies this name to all who have attained Nirvana. With regard to the nature of the Buddhas, their definition is materially altered: they are no longer entirely deprived of every personality, and are believed to have a body with certain qualities, and to possess various faculties. By the Mahāyānas they have three different kinds of bodies ascribed to them, and, on leaving the world to return to the higher regions, are supposed to strip off only the last and least sublime of these earthly encumbrances, called the Nirmanakaya. These bodies are

styled:

1. Nirmanakaya (Tib. Prulpai ku), which is the Nirvāna with the remains, or body in which the Bodhisattva appears upon earth in order to teach man, after entering by the six Pāramitās, the path, or career of the Buddhas.

2. Sambhogakaya (Tib. Longchod dzogpai ku), or the body of bliss and the reward of fulfilling the three conditions of perfection.

3. Dharmakaya (Tib. Chos ku), or the Nirvana without any remains. This ideal body (the most sublime one) is obtained by the Buddha who abandons the world for ever, and leaves behind everything that has any connexion with it.1

1 Schott, "Buddhaismus," p. 9; Csoma, "Notices" in Journ. As. Soc. Beng., Vol. VII., p. 142; Schmidt, "Grundlehren," in Mémoires de l'Académie de St. Petersbourg, Vol. I., pp. 224 et seq. For the Tibetan terms, see A. Schiefner, "Buddhistische Triglotte," leaf 4.

THE YOGACHARYA SYSTEM.

39

The Contemplative Mahayana (Yogacharya) system.

The contemplative system is described in those works which, in viewing the doctrine of the Paramitās, have started from the consideration that the three worlds exist only in imagination (Tib. Semtsamo). Such works are the Ghanavyuha (the Gandavyuha of Burnouf), the Mahāsamaya, and certain others. The saints Nanda (Tib. Gavo), Utarasena (Tib. Dampai de), and Samyaksatya (Tib. Yangdag den), are probably among the number teaching in this sense previous to Aryasanga; the latter, however, must be considered as the real founder of the system.1

Like the preceding, the present system also requires abstinence from every kind of reflection, as interfering with clear comprehension; but the most important dogma established by this theory is decidedly the personification of the voidness, by supposing that a soul, Alaya (Tib. Tsang, also Nyingpo), is the basis of every thing. This soul exists from time immemorial, and in every object; "it reflects itself in every thing, like the moon in clear and tranquil water." It was the loss of its original purity that caused it to wander about in the various spheres of existence. The restoration of the soul to its purity can be attained by the same means as in the preceding system; but now the motive and the success become evident; ignorance is annihilated and the illusion that anything can be real is dissipated; man understands at

1 Wassiljew, 1. c., pp. 143 et seq.; 161, 171, 331-17.

length clearly, that the three worlds are but ideal; he gets rid of impurity, and returns to his original nature, and it is thus that he becomes emancipated from metempsychosis. Of course, as with everything belonging to the world, this nature also is only ideal; but the dogma once established that an absolute pure nature exists, Buddhism soon proceeded in the mystical school further to endow it with the character of an all-embracing deity.' A material modification of its original character was thus established.

This idea of the soul, Alaya, is the chief dogma of the Yogacharya system, which is so called because "he who is strong in the Yoga (meditation) is able to introduce his soul by means of the Yoga into the true nature of existence." There occur, however, amongst the Tibetans, several explanations of this term, as well as other titles given to this school; but this name is the most common, and the line of arguments already instanced is ascribed to Aryasanga. To the importance which, from the very first, this school has attributed to meditation, may be traced the germs which subsequently led to its losing itself in mysticism.

Aryasanga and his successors managed to endow their doctrines with such splendour, that the Nagarjuna school with the principles taught by it (which had been adopted by the Madhyamikas, Tib. Bumapa) had sunk almost entirely into oblivion for many centuries. It revived, however,

1 Japanese Buddhism also speaks of a supreme Buddha, who sits throned in the diamond world and has created all the Buddhas. See Hoffmann, "Buddha Pantheon von Nippon," in v. Siebold's "Beschreibung von Japan," Vol. II., p. 57.

THE PRASANGA-MADHYAMIKA SCHOOL.

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in the seventh century under the name of the Prasanga branch; and this still remains to be treated before concluding our notices of the Mahāyāna systems.

The Prasanga-Madhyamika school.

This school, in Tibetan probably called Thal gyurva, was founded by Buddhapalita, and soon succeeded in superseding all other schools of the Mahāyāna system, notwithstanding the attacks made upon it by Bhavya, the originator of the Svatantra-Madhyamika school. The success attained by the Prasanga school is due, in a great measure, to the excellent commentaries and introductory works written in the eighth and ninth centuries by Chandrakirti (Tib. Dava Dagpa) and other learned men. These events coinciding with a numerous immigration of Indian priests into Tíbet, caused the Prasanga school to be at present considered by the Tibetan Lamas as that which alone taught and gave the true explanation of the faith revealed by the Buddha.

The Prasanga school obtained its name from the peculiar mode which it adopted, of deducing the absurdity and erroneousness of every esoteric opinion. "The Prasangas say that the two truths, Samvriti and Paramartha, cannot be maintained as either identical or different; if they were identical, we should strip off the Paramartha together with Samvriti, and if they were different, we should not be able to become delivered from Samvriti.

Wassiljew, "Der Buddhismus," pp. 327; 357-67. Compare Csomas Notices, in Journ. As. Soc. Beng., Vol. VII., p. 144.

In understanding by the term Non-ego all objects which are compound, or exist in Samvriti, we attribute to it a character identical with being existent and uncompounded (Paramartha); but if this is already the character of Samvriti, it denotes that the objects have already a perfect existence; hence they have already arrived at salvation (Tib. Dolzin). From such and similar hair-splitting considerations the Prasangas deduce that both truths have 'one and the same nature' (Tib. Ngovo chig), but two distinct meanings (Tib. Togpa nyi). These speculations are called Prasanga.'

The Prasanga school maintains that the doctrines of the Buddha establish two paths-one leading to the highest regions of the universe, to the heaven, Sukhavatī,' where man enjoys perfect happiness but connected with personal existence; the other conducting to entire emancipation from the world, viz. to Nirvana. The former path is attained by the practice of virtues, the latter by the highest perfection of intelligence. They reckon eight (according to some writers even eleven) peculiarities by which their system distinguishes itself from all the others; out of these eleven peculiarities, as given by the Tibetan Jam yang shadpa, I select the following as the most characteristic, the others being but a repetition of general Mahāyāna principles, or deductions contained in their own.

1. The principal dogma is the negation of existence as well as of non-existence; they admit neither selfexistence (absolute existence), Paramartha, nor existence 1 See for particulars Chapter IX.

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