The art and architecture of India - Buddhist, Hindu, Jain (Art Ebook)

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56 PREHISTORIC AND EPIC PERIODS
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salvation open to those who could undertake the
hard road to the entirely personal reward of
arhatship could be offered to the vast majority of
those who could not take up the monastic life.
This was only one of the reasons that led to a
change in the character of Buddhism. Such a
change was brought about through the gradual
intrusion of the idea of reward by worship, and
also by competition with other sects that offered
an easier way of salvation through devotion to
the person of an immanent deity. It should be
pointed out, too, that, whereas the Buddha was
regarded by his earliest followers as an ordinary
man who, by his intuitive perception of the
cause of evil and its eradication, attained Nirvana
or the extinction of rebirth, in later generations
the inevitable growth of devotion to the
person of the founder led to his being regarded
as a particular kind ofbeing, not an ordinary man,
but a god. Even as early as the time of Asoka
(272-232 B.C.), the worship of bodily relics of
the Buddha was an established practice complete
with ritual stemming from earlier Brahmanical
practice. We should add to the accumulation of
circumstances that led to the transformation of
Buddhism into a universal religion rather than
a moral code, the influence of the religions of
Iran and Greece, with the idea of the worship
of personal gods conceived of in anthropomorphic
shape. This revised form ofBuddhism,
which is of inestimable importance for both
the religion and art of all later periods of
Indian and Asiatic history, was designated by
its adherents as the Mahayana or Great Vehicle
(of salvation), as distinguished from the Hinayana
or Small Vehicle, the term applied, not
without contempt, to primitive Buddhism.
It can be stated with some assurance that
Mahayana Buddhism came into being under the
patronage of the Kushans in the early centuries
of the Christian era. A complete statement of the
doctrine is to be seen already in the Saddharma
Pundarika or Lotus Sutra, a text which has been
dated in the second century a.d. In Mahayana
Buddhism the Buddha is
teacher but a god, an absolute, like Brahma, who
has existed before all worlds and whose existence
is eternal. 11 His appearance on earth and Nirvana
are explained as a device for the comfort
and conversion of men. Whereas in primitive
Buddhism we have the ideal of the Arhat seeking
his own selfish Nirvana, with no obligations
beyond his own salvation, Mahayana Buddhism
presents the concept of the Bodhisattva, a being
who, although having attained Enlightenment,
has renounced the goal of Nirvana in order to
minister eternally to allaying the sufferings of all
creatures. The Bodhisattvas of the Mahayana
pantheon are like archangels who pass from the
remote heaven where the Buddha resides to the
world of men. These Bodhisattvas are entirely
mythical beings who, if they are not a reappearance
of the old Vedic gods, may be
regarded as personifications of the Buddha's
virtues and powers. The most popular in the
host of the Bodhisattvas, and most frequently
represented in Mahayana Buddhist art, is
Avalokitesvara, the Lord of Compassion. This
divinity is recognizable by the image in his
headdress representing the Buddha Amitabha,
regent of the Western Paradise. It is the idea of
the Bodhisattva and the possibility of universal
salvation for all beings that most clearly differentiate
Mahayana Buddhism from the primitive
doctrine. Mahayana Buddhism is entirely mythical
and un-historical. How much its mystical
theology is influenced by Mazdaean, Christian,
or Hindu ideas can never be exactly determined
the fact remains that the elevation of the Buddha
to the rank of a god is in part a development out
of a theistic current that had always been present
in early Buddhism. Even the representation of
the Buddha by such symbols as the footprints
and the empty throne in Hinayana art not only
implies a devotion to the person of the Teacher,
but strongly suggests that he was already regarded
as a supernatural personage. In Mahayana
Buddhism the mortal Buddha Sakyamuni