Talk:Hinayana/Original Article Sandbox

Hinayana (Sanskrit lit. low vehicle) is a term often used to identify Early Buddhist Schools that are now mostly extinct. There are various views on the use and meaning of the term Hinayana.

What Hinayana represents

According to the Mahayana tradition, which coined the term, Hinayana represents two of the three paths and three classes of liberation. The three classes of liberation are all identified as freedom from samsara. These are:

Shravakayana: The Hearer vehicle; practitioners are liberated as Shravaka Buddhas (Arhats).
Pratyekayana: The Solitary vehicle; practitioners are liberated as Pratyeka Buddhas.
Bodhisattvayana: The Buddha-mind vehicle; practitioners are liberated as Bodhisattva Buddhas.

The Mahayana schools group the first two paths together, as the result is a state of Arhat. Whereas the last path is identified as distinct, because the result is a state of Buddha. Note that a Buddha is also an Arhat, but not all Arhats are Buddhas!

The usage of 'Hina-' as a prefix therefore covers those paths that do not result in Buddhahood, so the reason why the paths were called 'inferior' was that Buddhahood was not a result.

As these paths are distinguished by goal, and goal is achieved according to motivation, 'Hinayana' represents those practitioners whose spiritual motive is to achieve enlightenment (or Nirvana) for themselves alone.

However, both historically, and according to modern Mahayana buddhists, the term 'Hinayana' is also often used to indicate those schools or traditions that traditionally reject the Mahayana sutras, the most active of which are the Theravadins; though in this sense, the term should be qualified, as in "Hinayana tradition". Regardless, a decision was made by The World Fellowship of Buddhists in Colombo, 1950 that the term Hinayana should not be applied to the current Theravadin tradition. The reasoning was as follows:

"We must not confuse Hinayana with Theravada because the terms are not synonymous. Theravada Buddhism went to Sri Lanka during the 3rd Century B.C. when there was no Mahayana at all. Hinayana sects developed in India and had an existence independent from the form of Buddhism existing in Sri Lanka. Today there is no Hinayana sect in existence anywhere in the world. Therefore, in 1950 the World Fellowship of Buddhists inaugurated in Colombo unanimously decided that the term Hinayana should be dropped when referring to Buddhism existing today in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Burma, Cambodia, Laos, etc." Dr. Rahula, Gems of Buddhist Wisdom

The term Hinayana is still in current use by some Mahayana traditions. However, it is common for Buddhist schools today to replace the word with terms such as "Nikaya school" or "Shravakayana tradition" when referring to the Theravada and other schools of the past, since Hinayana has recently been seen to be either offensive, or merely inaccurate by the World Fellowship of Buddhists.

The Mahayana attitude towards Hinayana

There remains a dispute among scholars over the initial development of the Mahayana concerning a schism (see Mahayana Origins).

However in the Lotus Sutra, which appeared around the 1st Century CE, in chapter 14, there is the injunction: A bodhisattva [...] does not hold other Buddhists in contempt, not even those who follow the Hinayana path, nor does he cause them to have doubts or regrets by criticizing their way of practice or making discouraging remarks.

By the 3rd Century CE, in the ethics chapter of Asanga's Bodhisattvabhumi, we find an explicit injunction not to criticise or reject the Hinayana texts or traditions, under the subtitle 'Eight Mulapattis of Entering into the Mahayana',

Trainee Bodhisattvas are instructed not to:

'Disparage the Hinayana, or over-encourage others to learn Mahayana'

The very fact that this is made explicit in the early Mahayana tradition suggests that:

Some trainee Bodhisattvas were mistakenly deprecating the Hinayana early on in the development of the Mahayana tradition
Such an attitude was seen as misinterpretation of the training and development of the trainee Bodhisattva, both by the authors of the Lotus sutra, and during the development of the Mahayana through to the time of Asanga.

The injunction in the Lotus was in a section concerned with the practice of peaceful thoughts. However, Asanga's rule was considered to be relavant to the development of Wisdom - the basis being that a supremist attitude depends upon the concept of an objective framework that would provide the basis for objective distinctions; such an attitude is contrary to the Mahayana views of both the Yogacarya of Asanga, as well as the Madhyamaka of Nagarjuna, so would it be an error to suggest that Asanga's text demonstrated a shift of opinion within the Mahayana movement at the time.

The 18,000 verse perfection of wisdom sutra (a Madhyamaka Mahayana sutra) states:

"Bodhisattvas should practice all paths - whatever is a path of a sravaka, a pratyeka or a Buddha - and should know all paths."

Regardless, many Buddhists now prefer to use the term 'Nikaya', as it cannot be interpreted as having a pejorative connotation, which has plagued the more traditional term 'Hinayana' in recent years.

Theravadan reaction to the term Hinayana

The word "hina" in Sanskrit means "left, forsaken; excluded or shut out from, fallen short of, devoid or bereft of, free from, without, inferior, less, low, base, mean, incomplete, deficient, wanting." Theravadans assert that at best 'Hinayana' should be translated as inferior vehicle, while understanding the nuances of the definition. Therefore, Theravadans consider the word 'Hinayana' as slanderous.

Theravadans claim that Mahayana texts, such as the Lotus Sutra, and the Vimalakirti Nirdesha contain deliberate polemics against formalism and disputed doctrines which are directed at those groups of Buddhists for which they coined the term Hinayana. When the term "Shravakayana" or "Hearer" is used within the Mahayana texts, it is more within a context of categorising people or things into 'inferior', 'middling', and 'superior' groups. Hinayana, on the other hand, is used to identify a path which ought to be avoided. Theravadans also point out the existence of the word "Cuula" which simply means 'small', and go on to argue that those who coined the term 'Hinayana' over 'Cuulayana' could not be ignorant of pejorative implication as 'hina' is a common sanskrit/pali word.

Theravadans argue that the term was coined by the Mahayana schools as a way to differentiate themselves from the schools with which they were in doctrinal dispute, and was chosen to be deliberately pejorative.

Mahayana Responses to the Theravadan reaction

Mahayanists argue that the word "Cuula" does not mean 'inferior' in a classificatory sense, whereas Nikaya sutras repeatedly use the prefix 'hina-' in a classificatory sense, and Theravadans have no problem with that, and do not consider it to be nuanced as 'forsaken', etc.

The accusation against the Mahayana of deliberate polemics against the Nikaya schools, as suggested by Mahayana sutras such as the Lotus appears to be an example of a fundamental attribution error, on two counts:

All the commentaries of the early Indian Mahayana teachers such as Asanga and Candragomin explicitly prohibit the Mahayana practitioner (trainee Bodhisattva) from denigrating or rejecting the Nikaya sutras and paths, as cited above, yet they did not deny the authenticity of the cited sutras; they failed to identify with the supposed polemics that Theravadans find.
If the term 'yana' represents a 'vehicle', or 'path' as cited above, then the term 'Hinayana' does not refer to a school, or group of schools, but to a methodology (or praxis) which is considered inferior by Mahayanists. This is what Mahayanists claim: that the motivation of a practitioner to become a Buddha is a superior motivation than the motivation of a practitioner to find personal liberation.