Lands of Asia layouts (Eng) 26.11.21

3.2
In addition to the various schools of Buddhism that exist, there are two main
directions of thought – the Hinayana and the Mahayana. The Hinayana, or the ‘Small
Vehicle’, is the ‘narrow path of salvation’, and is associated with the complete renunciation
of worldly life. It was popular in early Buddhism and played a major role in the kingdom of
Magadha. In Hinayana Buddhism, the role of the bodhisattvas is relatively insignificant;
they are not objects of veneration and play no role in the salvation of human beings.
A person’s salvation depended on themselves, and on following the path shown
by the Buddha.
Mahayana, the ‘Great Vehicle’, became the most widespread school of Buddhism
after the Fourth Buddhist Council convened by King Kanishka in Kashmir.
Unlike in Hinayana Buddhism, in Mahayana Buddhism the bodhisattvas are
supernatural and celestial beings, who are different incarnations of the Buddha
himself. They have voluntarily given up their right to enter nirvana so that they
can help people. They are characterised by love and compassion for people and are
therefore highly revered in the Mahayana tradition.
The pantheons of bodhisattvas were constantly being extended with more
deities, especially with those taken from Shaivite and Vaishnavite traditions, but also
included deities of peoples who had fully or partially embraced Buddhism. These
deities, according to A.N. Kochetov, ‘were not particularly mythologised, and were
mostly reduced to stories about their conversion to Buddhism’.
During the reign of the Emperor Ashoka (273–236 BC) Buddhism became the
official religion of the vast Indian kingdom of the Mauryas (322–184 BC) and from
here it spread to Bactria, Sogdia, Serindia (Xinjiang) and China.
According to B.A. Litvinsky Buddhist missionaries appeared in what is now
Afghanistan and then in Central Asia in the middle to end of the Graeco-Bactrian
period (i.e. in the middle of 2nd century BC – E.R.). Then, local adherents of the
Buddha’s teaching appeared, and in the Kushan period (1st to 2nd century AD)
Buddhist influence intensified further. P.C. Bagchi proposed an even earlier date for
the penetration of Buddhism into Bactria, namely the Ashoka period (273–236 BC).
Е. Zürcher dated the arrival of Buddhism in southern Central Asia to the 1st
century BC. T.K. Mkrtychev and other scholars share a similar view. According
to A. Foucher, Buddhism could not have existed in Bactria before the end of the
1st/beginning of the 2nd century AD. B.Y. Stavisky believes Buddhism appeared
in Central Asia and only in Northern Bactria or Tokharistan during the 2nd and
3rd centuries AD. According to G.A. Pugachenkova and Z.I. Usmanova, Buddhist
communities appeared in Merv (Margiana) in the 4th century AD and the first
Buddhist monument here dates, in their opinion, from the 3rd–4th centuries AD,
although G.A. Koshelenko dated it to the first centuries AD.
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