THE RISE AND DEVELOPMENT OF MAHAYANA BUDDHISM 83

routes in central Asia at the same time that Buddhist missionaries were active in
these areas. No one knows for sure how and why Buddhism picked up cultic
and doctrinal elements from these external sources. Buddhists may have been
reacting to external criticisms that they had been orphaned by a dead god who
was no longer in a position to offer salvation. They may have also been re-
sponding to pressures within their own ranks as the rise of written culture
weakened their sense of corporate cohesion and encouraged greater individual-
ism, causing the laity and junior monastics to regard themselves as competent
and free to combine elements from various traditions as they saw fit.
At any rate, because Buddhist monastics were wandering the length and
breadth of India, the anti-Abhidharma partisans eventually joined forces with
the new Buddhist savior cults and other like-minded factions to grow into a
widespread movement calling itself the Mahayana (the Great Course or Great
Vehicle-yana: a going, a course, a journey; a vehicle). This was in contrast to
the Hinayana (the Inferior Course), the new movement's pejorative term for
those conservatives who did not accept the new doctrines as truly Buddhist.
Because the conservatives answered the Mahayana propaganda largely with si-
lence, they did not adopt any name for themselves as compared with
Mahayana. Consequently, modern scholars have given them the name their
adversaries gave them, Hinayana, although without implying any deprecation.
Modern Theravadins do not like being called Hinayanists-who would?-but
there is no other current term that designates the whole set of schools that
arose between the first and the fourth centuries after the Parinirval).a and con-
tinued after the rise of Mahayana. The term Nikaya Buddhism, for instance,
accurately applies to these schools before the rise of Mahayana, but not after,
as Mahayana formed a subgroup within each of them. Continued usage of the
name Hinayana may expunge all. derogatory connotations of the term. Quaker,
Mormon, and even Christian similarly started out as labels sarcastically attached
by outsiders.
It should be noted that Hinayana and Mahayana groups lived side-by-side
;petween the second and seventh centuries c.E., and that the Hinayanists re-
fniained in the majority throughout most of India. Although differences be-
~een the early schools remained, no new Vinaya was created for Mahayana
[W.onastics. The Chinese pilgrim I-ching in the seventh century numbered the
ltrajor sects at that time as four-Mahasanghika, Sthavira, Sarvastivada, and
~a111matiya-and noted that each sect contained both Mahayanists and
finayanists, often living in the same monasteries. Despite differences in doc-
fine, there were only minor distinctions between Hinayana and Mahayana

l

·f·a····ctice (at least until the s~ve~th century C.E. in India), the main difference

~mg one of expressed mot1Vat1on.

Mahayana, the Great Course, claimed its adherents, leads to Buddhahood

~~preme, perfect Awakening), whereas the Inferior Course leads only to

l

'ha .. n .. tship. All the earl~ schools ~ec~gnized three possible goals for Bu~dhist

cttce: to become a sravaka (dtsctple) arhant, a pratyeka Buddha (pnvate,

~teaching Buddha), or a fully Awakened Buddha. All three figures were

ihants equally, differing mainly in their ability to attain the goal with or