Search for Origins of Mahayana Buddhism

I think yana (or yan) in Sanskut means vehicle.
So mahayana and hinayana are just different vehicles,
higher vehicle and lower vehicle.

Re: # 20

"so why they were not destroyed then by those but-shikans then?"

Because there were plenty other things to destroy.
They probably did not have means to destroy such huge statues.

Re: # 22 welcome!

Thanks, this is fabulous.

Re: # 17http://www.spiritpathperu.com/west/ayahuaska/discipline/index.html read tis it shows the use of word of nihayana and read again the answer . the presence of hinayna was not denied and the stress is upon the basic difference of thought not on the nomenclature.

Re: # 16 word Hindu is anathema for bigoted and reactionaries of present modern age , in Muslim literature of Classic Persian and earlier Urdu it was used for a beautiful person , see the Sadi's writings.

the word hindu flows from Sapat Sandhu, the land of Seven Rivers and now of five rivers Punjab! this bias does not exist in any religion or peole it exists in followers of a religion , what happened to jews in WWII? what happened to Muslims in Gujerat? what happened to Protestant Christians in France in 1576 August?

Muslims were in Bamiyan in 7th century and reached upto the place called Bamiyan and it is also near Ghazni, the Empire of Mahmood Ghazanavi, so why they were not destroyed then by those but-shikans then?

Conduct of fanatic and stubborn Taliban on name of Islam can not be equated with act of all the Muslims , it was then bad , it is bad and it will remain bad to unwantonly destroy the religious icons of any person. because there si no compulsion in religion!

Re: # 18If you will study deeply the original sources of Budhism, not the Hinduised sources as you are referring; then you will know the basic difference, that in Hinayana /Nihayana and Mahayana was of the traditional and liberal differnce based upon the ability and approach to attain Nirvana or to get rid of all the suffering and pain. In Hinayana/ Nihayana there was only one person who atatined mukti ( in Hindu terms) and attainment of nirvana in Mahayana it was asserted , ratehr it was its basic tenet to believe that evry one can becoem Buddha by adotpng the Ten Basic percepts of Buddhism as enunicated by its major thinkers. And this difference becomes clearer and more elaborate when we see the traditions of Tibetan Lama Buddhism and mainstream Chinese Buddhism and theri related differences.

The Tripatakas and Trijatakas are not in Brahminic language of religious elite of ancient India , they are in Pali ( is it alive today!) and in China it was translated by xuan Zhuang and 52 other Chinese who traveleld to Xi Tian means Western Paradise ( present day Pakistan) and for India Xuan Zhuang uses word du shen ( Du is word for drugs and virus in chinese present use and shen is for body ( for this see the translated text of xuan Zhuang's journey to look for Buddhist literature. from India only 16 monks traveleld for literary pursuits. See Cultural Flow Between China and outside world throughout History Foreign language Press Beijing written by Shen Fuwei 1996.

And as to Samsara terminology, did you hear about Shambhala Concept of Buddhism in Tibetan Lama Buddhism?

Also to echo DM your interpretation of Nirvana or Hinayana is not quite correct.

Hinayana schools believed in achieving Nirvana which means liberation of the self from the samsara. The Buddha(Siddharta)never claimed to take anybody to Nirvana.

The Mahayana schools believe in effecting the spiritual liberation of all beings from the cycle of reincarnation and rebirth.

[Re: # 15Yea the most popular name is Hinayna, but it is also named as Nihayana, and it is also translated as smaller consciousness.]

So Nahayana is a typo.
It's interesting, Hina means left behind or abandoned or low, while Niha means loss or deprived.
In which text is the term Nihayana used?

Thanks for an informative article. I have often felt that it is time that Pakistanis reclaim their heritage and since the word Hindu is still an anathema, Buddhism is a good starting point.

This is for the first time that I have read the word Nahayana for Hineyana Buddhism. I am also not sure if your interpretation of Hineyana is quite correct. My understanding is that in both branches of Buddhism, the path to Nirvana is getting rid of one's desires - following someone to heaven is an Abrahmic concept, indic faiths place responsibility on one's karma.

I believe that the gandhara art is infulenced to a great extent by Greek art and the figures resemble Greek figures to a large extent.

The article also displays innate biases and ignorance of Pakistanis. Buddhism was not destroyed by zealot Hindus. In fact, Buddha never renunciated the religion of his birth - this was not necessary as the local culture allowed and encouraged plurality of thought. Buddha was never attacked or humiliated by his people and his was merely a 'panth' a dfferent path among many that flourished in that land at that time (I doubt if the word Hindu even existed at that time, at least in the sense of a religious faith). As for as which zealots destroyed the religion, it was the religion of the but-shikans and the evidence is there from Nalanda to Bamyan to the more recent destruction of the Buddhist icons in Pakistan. As for Hindus, they assimilated (not destroyed) Buddhism by making Buddha one of their avtars. Indeed many Buddhist temples were built by the Hindus, as is the most important one in Delhi next to Birla Mandir and built by the Hindu industrialist Birla. To the extent that Buddhists were "converted" (the concept is again alien in the Indic context) this was largely done by Shankaracharya in the tenth century by largely incorporating many aspects of Buddhism, such as vegetarainims, into Hinduism.

But one should not blame Pakistanis for believing that Hindu zealots destroyed by Hindu zealots. This "discovery" was made by India's establishment-sponsored JNU type "secular" historians to promote hindu-muslim same-same concept.

Re: # 1Yea the most popular name is Hinayna, but it is also named as Nihayana, and it is also translated as smaller consciousness.

The difference is of bases as mahayana is the origin of sculpture with figure of Buddhain Gandhara and it is the bases of mahayana religious schol in buddhist tradition.

Re: # 11

http://www.hindunet.com/forum/showflat.php?Cat=&Number=77813&Main= 77813

and / or

which carries it from


http://murugan.org/research/gopalapillai.htm

Re: # 6 This word indeed has origins in Buddha , and it originated from the present day Afghanistan and the Great Buddhas of Bamiyan were present there since ages and early Muslims did,nt destroy them. it was extremism and unfounded zeal of Taliban Government which resulted in their unwanton and reckless destruction.

As to b'ut being a word for Idol, it was not initially menat in the old Urdu and related Persian literature, it was used for beautiful and of splendid features.

Majumdar

there is no language called 'Muslim'... there are various laguages spoken by people who are Muslim by faith... In Urdu and most other South Asian languages the word for statue is Moorti... Buth Purust is the name given to the followers of Buddha (in Urdu) buth i presume came from budh...

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Re: # 9
"Indians are a peculiar race. India ignores and forgets."

On the other hand I would charge the Pakistanis to be "peculiar" who want to feign amnesia of the rich harappan, hinu, buddhist and jain past by talking about a "contrived" history that starts with Mohammad Ghouri!!!