Literary History of Sanskrit Buddhism

Two Schools of Buddhism – 14
The ancient Buddhism denied the Ego and saw in the knowledge of
the non-Ego a path to Nirvāṇa, to extinction of the Ego. The
Mahāyāna schools went still further and taught that not only there
was no Ego, but that there was nothing at all – only a blank, sārvam
śūnyam. They professed a complete negativism or śūnyavāda which
denied both Being and non-Being at the same time or believed in
idealistic negativism or Vijñānavāda which at least recognises a
Being comprised in consciousness. As Max Wallaser [6] has put it,
negativism is a better characterisation of the Mahāyāna philosophy
than nihilism.
The Sanskrit literature in Buddhism, however, is by no means
exclusively Mahāyānist. Before all the widely spread sect of the
Sarvāstivādis, which belonged to the Hīnayāna and which is
indicated by its designation of positivists, possessed a canon of its
own and a rich literature in Sanskrit. Literally the doctrine of
Sarvāstivāda means the doctrine of All-Exists. [7]