The Differences between Hinayana and Mahayana

Main Text

There is no hard and fast distinction between Hinayana, or lesser vehicle, and Mahayana, or great vehicle. An object measuring an inch we call “small” when we compare it with one measuring a foot; a man measuring six or seven feet we call “large” when we compare him to a man measuring five feet.

Background

THERE is no hard and fast distinction between Hinayana, or lesser vehicle, and Mahayana, or great vehicle. An object measuring an inch we call “small” when we compare it with one measuring a foot; a man measuring six or seven feet we call “large” when we compare him to a man measuring five feet. Thus all the Buddhist teachings of both the lesser vehicle and the great vehicle are called Mahayana, or the great vehicle, when compared with the non-Buddhist doctrines. This is why [Chang-an said], “The great teaching moved gradually eastward,”1 and [Miao-lo explained that] “the words ‘great teaching’ refer to the Buddhist teachings in general.”2

With regard to the Buddhist teachings themselves, all the various Hinayana sutras such as the four Āgama sutras preached in the twelve years of the Buddha’s stay in Deer Park, when compared with the various Mahayana sutras, are referred to as Hinayana, or lesser vehicle. Furthermore, among the various Mahayana sutras, those that contain relatively inferior teachings are referred to as lesser vehicle. This is what the Flower Garland Sutra means when it speaks of “those others who delight in a lesser teaching.” The Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai in his commentary explains that the term “lesser teaching” here does not refer only, as is usually the case, to the Hinayana sutras. It means that, in contrast to the “great teaching” of the ten stages of development, the “great teaching” of the ten stages of security, the ten stages of practice, and the ten stages of devotion is referred to as a “lesser teaching.”

Again, the “Expedient Means” chapter in the first volume of the Lotus Sutra says, “If I used a lesser vehicle to convert even one person [I would be guilty of stinginess and greed].” T’ien-t’ai and Miao-lo made clear that, in passages such as this, the term “lesser vehicle” does not refer merely to the Āgama sutras. Certain of the Mahayana teachings such as the specific teaching of the Flower Garland Sutra and the connecting teaching and specific teaching of the Correct and Equal sutras and Wisdom sutras are also included in the term “lesser vehicle.”

Again, in volume one of The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra we find the passage “To open the Hinayana teachings and merge them with the Mahayana teachings—this is to blend and merge together the gradual and the sudden teaching.” The Great Teacher Chishō interprets the terms “gradual teaching” and “sudden teaching” to refer to all the Mahayana sutras from the Flower Garland Sutra to the Wisdom sutras that set forth the provisional teachings such as the four teachings and the eight teachings. And he interprets the words “to blend and merge together” to mean that the eight teachings are opened and merged with the one great perfect teaching.

Then there is the passage in the “Life Span” chapter of the Lotus Sutra in which the Buddha speaks of “those who delight in lesser teachings, meager in virtue and heavy with defilement.” The Great Teacher T’ien-t’ai interprets the term “lesser teachings” to mean neither the Hinayana sutras nor the Mahayana sutras. He takes “lesser teachings” to refer to the perfect teaching of the Flower Garland Sutra and the perfect teaching of the Correct and Equal and the Wisdom sutras and the great teaching of perfect and immediate enlightenment in the first fourteen chapters, or the theoretical teaching, of the Lotus Sutra, all of which say nothing about the Buddha who attained enlightenment in the inconceivably remote past; all of these teachings are regarded as the lesser vehicle. And he also interprets the Buddhas of the Dharma body and the reward body, the lords of teachings of the Flower Garland Sutra and the other Mahayana sutras such as Vairochana Buddha or the Thus Come One Mahāvairochana, to be what he calls “lesser Buddhas.”

If we follow this interpretation, then we must say that the Nirvana Sutra, the Mahāvairochana Sutra, and the other sutras with their various Mahayana and Hinayana, provisional and true, exoteric and esoteric teachings, are all to be termed Hinayana, or lesser vehicle, sutras, and that of the eight schools, not only the explicitly Hinayana schools such as the Dharma Analysis Treasury, Establishment of Truth, and Precepts schools, but the Mahayana schools such as the Flower Garland, Dharma Characteristics, Three Treatises, and True Word, are also to be termed Hinayana schools. Only one school, the Tendai, deserves to be called a true Mahayana, or great vehicle, school.

In the sutras upon which the various Mahayana schools are based, one can nowhere find mention of the most important of all doctrines, the fact that persons of the two vehicles are capable of achieving Buddhahood and the fact that the Buddha attained enlightenment in the inconceivably remote past. These sutras are like a person who can lift a stone that is one foot or two feet in size—such a person can certainly not be called a prodigy of strength. Only someone who can lift a stone ten or twenty feet across deserves to be called a prodigy of strength.

The principle of the perfect interfusion of all things of the phenomenal world and the forty-one stages of bodhisattva practice3 set forth in the Flower Garland Sutra; the doctrine of mutual identification and nonduality, the eighteen kinds of non-substantiality, and the ten stages beginning with the desiccated wisdom stage4 set forth in the Wisdom sutras; the fifty-two stages of bodhisattva practice of the Jeweled Necklace Sutra; the fifty-one stages of the Benevolent Kings Sutra; the twelve great vows set forth in the Medicine Master Sutra; the forty-eight vows of the Two-Volumed Sutra; and the mantras and mudras of the Mahāvairochana Sutra—all these, when compared with the teachings of the Hinayana sutras, are great doctrines and secret doctrines. But in comparison to the Lotus Sutra teachings on the attainment of Buddhahood by persons of the two vehicles and the Buddha’s attainment of enlightenment in the inconceivably remote past, they are no more than Hinayana doctrines. They are like the stone one or two feet in size in comparison to the stone ten or twenty feet in size.

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It is like the case of a daughter of a commoner who has become pregnant with the seed of a king, or a daughter of a family of officials who has become pregnant by a king. Others are unaware of the truth and suppose that the sons born to these women are the offspring of a commoner or a man of the official class, but when the king looks at them, he knows that they are all in fact the offspring of a king. Similarly, some persons appear to have gained release from the threefold world through the sutras preached prior to the Lotus, but seen from the point of view of the Lotus Sutra, they have in all cases in fact gained the way through the Lotus Sutra.

Again, among those who received the seeds of the Lotus Sutra in the past, there are some persons of dull capacity who were not able, like those mentioned above, to advance in their understanding through the sutras preached prior to the Lotus, but were able to gain the way when they heard Shakyamuni preach the Lotus Sutra. In such cases, the sutras that preceded the Lotus were to them like the wet nurses who help to bring up the crown prince or the other royal sons of the king’s consort.

Or again, although the situation was not the same as when Shakyamuni Buddha was present in the world, there were persons in the thousand years of the Former Day of the Law who, having received the seeds of the Lotus Sutra in the past, were at that time able to gain enlightenment through the Lotus and Nirvana sutras. And there were many others at that time who had received the seeds of the Lotus Sutra from Shakyamuni Buddha when he was in the world.

In addition, although the Buddha was no longer in the world, the Lotus Sutra remained in existence, and there were countless persons who were able for that reason to convert from the doctrines of the non-Buddhists to the teachings of the Hinayana sutras, from the Hinayana sutras to the provisional Mahayana teachings, or from the provisional Mahayana teachings to the Lotus Sutra. Bodhisattva Nāgārjuna, Bodhisattva Asanga, the scholar Vasubandhu, and others were examples of this.

During the thousand years of the Middle Day of the Law, although their number was not as great as in the Former Day of the Law, there were still some persons who had received the seeds of the Lotus Sutra in the distant past or later, in Shakyamuni’s time. But as the power of the Buddha’s teachings waned and grew increasingly weaker, the various schools became firmer than rocks in the fixity of their one-sided interpretations, loftier than mountains in their arrogance. By the end of the Middle Day of the Law, contention and dispute over the Buddhist teachings had broken out on every side, battles over questions of doctrine never ceased, and the number of persons who fell into the hell of incessant suffering because of misinterpretations of the Buddhist teachings surpassed that of those who did so because of worldly offenses.

Now, moreover, we are two hundred or more years into the Latter Day of the Law, and persons who have received the seeds of the Lotus Sutra in the distant past or in Shakyamuni’s time have with time become fewer and fewer. In addition, though there appear to be a small number of persons who have received the seeds of the Lotus, there are countless others who commit great evil in the secular world or slander the Law in the religious world, such persons veritably filling the whole land. Those who do good have become as rare as water in the midst of a great fire, fire in the midst of a great body of water, fresh water in the midst of the ocean, or gold in the midst of the earth. Evil deeds abound, and there is no trace of good deeds done in the past or evidence of good deeds done now.

Some persons use the practice of reciting the name of Amida Buddha to mislead others and persuade them to abandon the Lotus Sutra, committing the error of turning their backs on what is superior and following what is inferior. Others propound the principles of the Zen school, calling them a special transmission “outside the sutras”　and claiming that the so-called Buddhist teachings are not the true Law, disparaging the teachings in this way and displaying an attitude of great arrogance. Still others advocate the doctrines of the Dharma Characteristics, Three Treatises, or Flower Garland schools and relegate the Lotus Sutra to an inferior position, or proclaim themselves adherents of the True Word, or Mahāvairochana, school, asserting that the Lotus Sutra embodies only the exoteric teachings of the Thus Come One Shakyamuni and cannot compare to the doctrines upheld by the True Word school.

In this way, some persons go astray in doctrinal matters of their own accord, others do so because of the teachers they rely upon. Some propound mistaken doctrines handed down from the founder of the school or its scholars and teachers, propagating them over the long years and claiming that these are the true doctrine. Others, possessed by evil spirits or by the heavenly devil, spread evil doctrines, believing them to be the correct teaching. Some, having become familiar with some petty doctrine of Hinayana, arrogantly claim that the doctrines practiced by Mahayana believers are in error, and in their eagerness to spread their little doctrine attempt to suppress or take over the mountain temples where great doctrines and secret doctrines are taught. Then there are those other fellows who, having become possessed by a devil called the devil of compassion,21 don their three robes, take up their one alms bowl,22 and practice the one teaching of Hinayana, with their little doctrine confronting the temples of Mount Hiei, which are the rafters and roof beam of the entire nation, and Mount Hiei’s leaders, who are paragons of wisdom, and because the doctrines taught by these leaders are at variance with their own, presuming to call them men of erroneous views and men of evil.

With evil opinions such as this, these men proceed to deceive the rulers of the nation, leading them woefully astray and causing them to lose faith in the correct teaching. Such men do nothing but bring about the destruction of the nation and the destruction of Buddhism.

[In ancient China] the royal consorts Mo Hsi, Ta Chi, and Pao Ssu were charming in manner and excelled all others in beauty. But because the rulers in their foolishness became infatuated with them, these women brought about the downfall of the nation. And now Zen priests, Precepts priests, and Nembutsu advocates of our own time such as Shōichi, Dōryū, Ryōkan, Dōami, Nen’ami, and other teachers of their kind are like domestic pigeons that peck at filth, or like the beautiful Hsi-shih who deceived the king of Wu. They adhere to their Hinayana precepts, which are like stinking waste or donkey’s milk, . . .

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    1. Main Text
  1. Background
  2. Notes

Background

This letter is addressed to Toki Jōnin, a leading lay believer in Shimōsa Province. Nichiren Daishonin wrote it at Ichinosawa, on Sado Island, during his exile there in 1273. Because the final portion of the letter has been lost, the text ends abruptly. The topic, as is clear from the title The Differences between Hinayana and Mahayana, is a comparison of the Buddhist teachings known as Hinayana, or the lesser vehicle, with those classified as Mahayana, the great vehicle.

Historically, Hinayana (lesser vehicle) was a term employed by the early Mahayana (great vehicle) movement in India. It was applied to the established, monastic Buddhist schools. In this writing, however, the Daishonin redefines these terms in a broader sense than the historical one, asserting that they are relative in nature. “There is no hard and fast distinction between” these two categories, he begins. What is large or great is only considered so in contrast with what is small or lesser. The Daishonin outlines five ways of applying the terms “lesser vehicle” and “great vehicle,” or Hinayana and Mahayana, to the Buddhist teachings.

First, all the Buddhist teachings are considered a great vehicle, or Mahayana, when compared with non-Buddhist teachings. Second, within Buddhism, those teachings which, according to T’ien-t’ai, the Buddha preached in Deer Park during his initial years of preaching, or what are known as the Āgama sutras, are called lesser vehicle, or Hinayana, in contrast with those teachings the Buddha preached later, or the traditional Mahayana sutras.

Third, among the various sutras commonly defined as Mahayana, those that consist of relatively inferior teachings are called lesser vehicle, or Hinayana, in contrast with the others.

Fourth, once the theoretical teaching of the Lotus Sutra, the first fourteen chapters of the sutra, had been expounded, all other sutras taught by the Buddha in the preceding forty-two years came to be called lesser vehicle, or Hinayana. Fifth, with the expounding of the essential teaching, or latter fourteen chapters, of the Lotus Sutra, and its revelation that the Buddha in fact attained enlightenment countless kalpas in the past, all teachings that do not recognize this fact—the pre-Lotus sutras and the theoretical teaching of the Lotus Sutra—came to be classified as lesser vehicle, or Hinayana.

Next the Daishonin makes clear that only in the Lotus Sutra are found the doctrines that persons of the two vehicles—voice-hearers and cause-awakened ones—are capable of attaining Buddhahood; that the Buddha actually attained enlightenment in the remote past; and the doctrine of three thousand realms in a single moment of life. These teachings reveal the way to actualize the Buddhahood innate in each person. The Lotus Sutra therefore is to be considered the true Mahayana sutra, and all the other sutras are to be viewed as Hinayana, or lesser vehicle, incapable of providing the way to Buddhahood.

He then explains that cases can be cited of persons who appear to have attained enlightenment through other sutras, but that they are individuals who formed a connection with the Lotus Sutra in the past. Their exposure to those other sutras nurtured their capacity, so that the seeds of Buddhahood already planted by the Lotus Sutra could blossom. Therefore, these are not cases in which Buddhahood was attained through the power of the other sutras. Failing to understand this principle, however, people disparage and slander the Lotus Sutra, thus forming the karmic cause that destines them to hell. He strictly rebukes such slander, which, he explains, will lead to the destruction of the nation and the destruction of Buddhism.

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Notes

1. Chang-an’s statement in his preface to T’ien-t’ai’s Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra.

2. The Annotations on “The Profound Meaning of the Lotus Sutra.”

3. The ten stages of security, ten stages of practice, ten stages of devotion, ten stages of development, and stage of Buddhahood.

4. The stage of desiccated wisdom, or wisdom unnourished by the water of the truth.

21. A devil who uses people’s sense of compassion to mislead them.

22. See three robes and one begging bowl in Glossary.

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