84 CHAPTER FOURwithout an established body of doctrine to follow, in their ability to teach oth-
ers, and in the supramundane powers that did or did not accompany their
Awakening. Because the Buddha's teachings were still extant, early schools ad-
vocated the sravaka Path as the most practical and taught it in the greatest de-
tail. The Mahayana also recognized the same three goals but advanced the
belief that only the third was truly worthwhile, in that it enabled one to do
the most good for the sentient realm as a whole. Rejecting the opportunity to
gain Awakening as a sravaka here and now, one would develop more extensive
virtues-helping a more extensive circle of living beings-so as to realize
supreme Buddhahood aeons hence.
Apparently the Mahayana originated within the Mahasanghika sects,
which from the first had disparaged the ai:hant, advocated doctrinal innova-
tions, and championed teachings later typical of the Mahayana, such as the
claims that the historical Buddha is a mere apparition of the true Buddha,
who is transmundane (Strong EB, sec. 3.6.3). The Mahayana innovation was
to advocate the bodhisattva course for all Buddhists; to lay out a detailed Path
for aspiring bodhisattvas; and to create a new pantheon and cult of superhu-
man bodhisattvas and cosmic Buddhas who respond to the pleas of devotees
in need.
The hallmark of Mahayana is its expanded Sutra literature rather than any
one doctrine or practice. Like its parent Mahasanghika schools, the movement
found its unity in the freedom it gave its followers to be diverse. Written in
Sanskrit rather than the Prakrit of the early sch<'ols, the new Sutras claimed to
report dialogues of the Buddha. Because they were the product of a written
rather than an oral culture, they were much longer and more luxuriant in style
than the short, spare discourses of the early schools. In fact, their style is a
major defining characteristic of the movement. Their surrealistic locales, mea-
sured in mind-boggling dimensions and filled with dazzling apparitions; their
immense, all-star casts of characters; and the sheer extravagance of their lan-
guage all serve to reassert the primacy of the visionary, shamanic side of Bud-
dhism that had been generally neglected by the Abhidharmists. Here, the
seeming reality of everyday perception is viewed as a partial, limited way of
experiencing a universe filled with multivalent levels so varied and complex
that what seems real on one level dissolves into maya (illusion) on another.
This has the effect ofblurring the line between the real and the illusory, mak-
ing language seem totally inadequate for describing the truth. In this sense,
the style of the expanded Sutras makes a graphic case for an assumption that
underlies the Mahayana enterprise: Given the complexity of reality and the
limitations of language, teachings can serve, at best, only as skillful means to
effect a transformation in the mind of the listener/reader caught in the partial-
ity of a particular view. Once the view has been discarded, the teachings de-
signed to cure it should be discarded as well, to be replaced by other, perhaps
seemingly contradictory, teachings appropriate for whatever new view the in-
dividual becomes attached to on the next level of practice (see Section 2.3.1).
This view of language is so dominant in the Mahayana teachings that some
texts even assert that the bodhisattva doctrine itself is simply a skillful means.