The Buddhist Religion: A Historical Introduction

120 CHAPTER SIX

that the yoga should be visualized rather than physically practiced, and identi-
fying the more scandalous parts of the ritual as code symbols for standard
Madhyamika doctrines. Meditation retreats were built as adjuncts to the uni-
versities so that scholar-monks could practice their visualizations in an ortho-
dox monastic setting. Lay practitioners, however, continued their physical
practice of Unexcelled Yoga, denouncing the monastics for being bound to
small-minded rules. The monastics, in turn, called the lay practitioners fools
for ignoring the doctrine of karma.
Despite their differences, the lay and monastic practitioners together cre-
ated a radically new development in the Buddhist tradition that took on the
status of a separate vehicle, as different from the Mahayana as the Mahayana
was from the Hinayana. The new vehicle acquired several names. Most promi-
nent among them was Vajrayiina, the Adamantine Vehicle, named after Va-
jradhiitu (the Adamantine Realm), the new vehicle's term for the ground of
Buddhahood. In adopting the symbolism of the vajra (diamond/ thunderbolt),
the new vehicle was laying claim to a tradition with deep roots in Indian reli-
gion, as the vajra was the weapon wielded by the Vedic storm god Indra (see
Section 1.4.2). As both a diamond and a thunderbolt, the vajra stands for two
aspects of supreme power: total invincibility and unfettered spontaneity. An-
other term for the new vehicle was Mantrayiina, the Incantation Vehicle, de-
rived from its extensive use of mantras. The new vehicle took an essentially
Saivite view of the religious life-in which sexual union is the paradigm for
the highest religious state, and the coalescing of all dualities in an adamantine
union of light, emptiness, and bliss is the practitioner's goal-and gave it a
Buddhist expression. Scholars will probably never agree as to whether this
final chapter in the development of Indian Buddhism should be viewed as a
sign of creative strength, in"that Buddhists were able to recast their doctrines
in imaginative ways to meet the Saivite challenge, or as a sign of weakness in
their being unable to resist the passionate intensity of their rivals. Because sur-
vival is typically a matter ofboth appropriating from and adapting to one's en-
vironment, both interpretations probably contain their measure of truth.

6.2 BUDDHIST DIALECTICS AND THE

MONASTIC UNIVERSITIES

A Pali Sutta (Sn.IV.S-9) quotes the Buddha as warning his followers against

becoming involved in the public debates, descended from Vedic ritual con-

tests, that by his time had become one of the hallmarks of Indian intellectual

life. According to the Buddha, the debates served no purpose aside from fos-

tering such mental defilements as pride and dejection. In the early years after

his Parinirvai.J.a, however, scholars engaged in the development of Abhidharma

found it necessary to defend their views against those of their opponents, both

Buddhist and non-Buddhist, in the public arena. This resulted in Abhidharma

texts designed to function as handbooks for debaters, offering advice on the

precise definition of terms, the proper use of negation, and other issues in di-