Buddhistic Idealism—Continued

In the previous chapter we have seen what ideas were being slowly formed and developed in the Hīnayāna schools out of primitive Buddhism. The idea of śūnyatā, the ideal of Buddhahood and Bodhisattvahood, the doctrine of the Dharmakāya, and the differentiation between the absolute and the relative truths, are common to all the Mahāyāna schools, and each of the schools unites them in its own way. The two impulses for the development of the Mahāyāna, says Dr. E. J. Thomas, lay in “the religious enthusiasm for the bodhisattva ideal” and “in the new treatment of the ontological doctrines latent in the dogmas of the impermanence and the non-existence of the self.” ¹ The ideal of śūnyatā, the doctrine of the Dharmakāya, and the distinction between the two kinds of truth are metaphysical. Indeed, the doctrine of Buddhahood and that of the Dharmakāya can be identified in the sense that, as the real nature of Buddha’s body is Dharma or Law, to become Buddha is to become his Dharmakāya. The Bodhisattva is the Buddha at just a little lower stage of development. He is sometimes called the son of Buddha, and becomes Buddha a little later.