Hīnayāna (Sanskrit: , ), literally meaning "Small Vehicle" or "Lesser Vehicle", is an umbrella term for the early Buddhist schools, at one time used by the Mahāyāna school to refer to the pre-Mahāyāna Buddhist paths to liberation. Specifically, it encompasses the Śrāvakayāna ("Listeners Vehicle") and Pratyekabuddhayāna ("Solitary-Realizers Vehicle") paths. Modern Buddhist scholarship has deprecated the term Hinayana as derogatory and polemical, meaning "little", "poor", "inferior", "abandoned", "deficient", "defective"; and the noun yāna (Devanagari: यान): "vehicle", where "vehicle" or "path" refers to "a way of life that leads to enlightenment". The Pali Text Society's Pāli-English Dictionary (1921–1925) defines hīna in even stronger terms, with a semantic field that includes "poor, miserable; vile, base, abject, contemptible", and "despicable".

The term Hīnayāna was translated by Kumārajīva and others into Classical Chinese as "small vehicle" (小 meaning "small", 乘 meaning "vehicle"), although earlier and more accurate translations of the term also exist. In Mongolian (Baga Holgon) the term for Hīnayāna also means "small" or "lesser" vehicle or better called path, while in Classical Tibetan there are at least two words to designate the term: theg chung, meaning "small vehicle", and theg dman, meaning "inferior vehicle" or "inferior spiritual approach".

According to Tibetan Buddhist monk and Kagyu master Thrangu Rinpoche, the term Hīnayāna is in no way implying that the Śrāvakayāna ("Listeners Vehicle") and Pratyekabuddhayāna ("Solitary-realizers Vehicle") are somehow "inferior" Buddhist paths to liberation in comparison to the later two vehicles (i.e., Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna). In his translation and commentary of Asaṅga's Distinguishing Dharmā from Dharmāta, he writes: "all three traditions of Hīnayāna, Mahāyāna, and Vajrayāna were practiced in Tibet, and the Hīnayāna, which literally means "lesser vehicle", is in no way inferior to the Mahāyāna".

Origins

According to Jan Nattier, it is most likely that the term Hīnayāna postdates the term Mahāyāna and was only added at a later date due to antagonism and conflict between proponents of the Bodhisattva and Arhat ideals within the Saṃgha. The sequence of terms then began with the term Bodhisattvayāna ("Bodhisattva Vehicle"), which was given the epithet Mahāyāna ("Great Vehicle"). It was only later, after attitudes toward the Bodhisattva ideal had become more critical, that the term Hīnayāna ("Small Vehicle" or "Lesser Vehicle") was created as a back-formation, Explaining their doctrinal affiliations, he then writes, "Which of the four schools should be grouped with the Mahāyāna or with the Hīnayāna is not determined." That is to say, there was no simple correspondence between a Buddhist school and whether its members learn "Hīnayāna" or "Mahāyāna" teachings.

To identify entire schools as "Hīnayāna" that contained not only śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas but also Mahāyāna bodhisattvas would be attacking the schools of their fellow Mahāyānists as well as their own. Instead, what is demonstrated in the definition of Hīnayāna given by Yijing is that the term referred to individuals based on doctrinal differences.

Hīnayāna as Śrāvakayāna

Scholar Isabelle Onians asserts that although "the Mahāyāna ... very occasionally referred to earlier Buddhism as the Hinayāna, the Inferior Way, [...] the preponderance of this name in the secondary literature is far out of proportion to occurrences in the Indian texts." She notes that the term Śrāvakayāna was "the more politically correct and much more usual" term used by Mahāyānists. Jonathan Silk has argued that the term "Hinayana" was used to refer to whomever one wanted to criticize on any given occasion, and did not refer to any definite grouping of Buddhists.

Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna

Views of Chinese pilgrims

The Chinese monk Yijing, who visited India in the 7th century, distinguished Mahāyāna from Hīnayāna as follows:

In the 7th century, the Chinese Buddhist monk Xuanzang describes the concurrent existence of the Mahāvihara and the Abhayagiri vihāra in Sri Lanka. He refers to the monks of the Mahāvihara as the "Hīnayāna Sthaviras" and the monks of Abhayagiri vihāra as the "Mahāyāna Sthaviras". Xuanzang further writes, "The Mahāvihāravāsins reject the Mahāyāna and practice the Hīnayāna, while the Abhayagirivihāravāsins study both Hīnayāna and Mahāyāna teachings and propagate the Tripiṭaka."

Philosophical differences

Mahayanists were primarily in philosophical dialectic with the Vaibhāṣika school of Sarvāstivāda, which had by far the most "comprehensive edifice of doctrinal systematics" of the nikāya schools. With this in mind it is sometimes argued that the Theravada would not have been considered a "Hinayana" school by Mahayanists because, unlike the now-extinct Sarvastivada school, the primary object of Mahayana criticism, the Theravada school does not claim the existence of independent dharmas; in this it maintains the attitude of early Buddhism. Additionally, the concept of the bodhisattva as one who puts off enlightenment rather than reaching awakening as soon as possible, has no roots in Theravada—or Sarvastivada—textual or cultural contexts. Aside from the Theravada schools being geographically distant from the Mahayana, the Hinayana distinction is used in reference to certain views and practices that had become found within the Mahayana tradition itself. Theravada, as well as Mahayana schools stress the urgency of one's own awakening in order to end suffering. Some contemporary Theravadin figures have thus indicated a sympathetic stance toward the Mahayana philosophy found in the Heart Sutra and the Mūlamadhyamakakārikā.

The Mahayanists were bothered by the substantialist thought of the Sarvāstivādins and Sautrāntikins, and in emphasizing the doctrine of śūnyatā, David Kalupahana holds that they endeavored to preserve the early teaching. The Theravadins too refuted the Sarvāstivādins and Sautrāntikins (and followers of other schools) on the grounds that their theories were in conflict with the non-substantialism of the canon. The Theravada arguments are preserved in the Kathavatthu.

Opinions of scholars

Some western scholars still regard the Theravada school to be one of the Hinayana schools referred to in Mahayana literature, or regard Hinayana as a synonym for Theravada. These scholars understand the term to refer to schools of Buddhism that did not accept the teachings of the Mahāyāna sūtras as authentic teachings of the Buddha. At the same time, scholars have objected to the pejorative connotation of the term Hinayana and some scholars do not use it for any school.

Robert Thurman writes, "'Nikaya Buddhism' is a coinage of Professor Masatoshi Nagatomi of Harvard University, who suggested it to me as a usage for the eighteen schools of Indian Buddhism to avoid the term 'Hinayana Buddhism,' which is found offensive by some members of the Theravada tradition." Thurman explains his own use of the term when he writes:

Within Mahayana Buddhism, there were a variety of interpretations as to whom or to what the term Hinayana referred. Kalu Rinpoche stated the "lesser" or "greater" designation "did not refer to economic or social status, but concerned the spiritual capacities of the practitioner". Rinpoche states:

Notes

Sources

  • "Theravada - Mahayana Buddhism" Dr. W. Rahula's article
  • Mahayana - Hinayana - Theravada introduced by Binh Hanson, webmaster of "BuddhaSasana" (www.budsas.org)