Welcome home! Please contact lincoln@icrontic.com if you have any difficulty logging in or using the site. New registrations must be manually approved which may take several days. Can't log in? Try clearing your browser's cookies.
The Origins of Mahayana Buddhism - Interview with Professor Charles Willemen
jll
Veteran
The Origins of Mahayana Buddhism - Interview with Professor Charles Willemen
any comments?
0
Comments
I am asking you the same question, @jll - before throwing it out to others, please give your views.
Writing a one-line sub-title is insufficient.
Thanks.
VERY interesting history of the development of Mahayana! It developed out of divergent groups in NW India, now Pakistan (the Swat Valley) and Afghanistan, and then traveled through the desert oasis towns of the Tarim Basin (now Western China/southern Xinjiang), where we see spectacular cave paintings and sculptures in places like Dunhuang, to (then) China proper, and eventually Japan. But traditions like the Pure Land had already fully formed in Afghanistan, around 200 BC. Who knew?
The one potentially controversial thing was that he says the group that became "Hinayana" had at one time identified as Mahayana, along with the others. For awhile, Mahayana was the bandwagon everyone joined, but then one group eventually split off and went south, and developed its own path.
I was awaiting more input from the OP.
Insufficient commentary.
The origins of mahayana. Are everywhere... 'nuff said as @Citta would say
One of the main points I got out of it was that the split between northern and southern schools had more to do with a divergence about the vinaya rather than over ideology since they all borrowed heavily from one another in the past.
We had a thread on the schism (or schisms) in Buddhism before. True, it was about issues relating to the vinaya.