The Origin of the Mahayana Buddhism

The origin of the Mahayana Buddhism is one of the hot topics in the international circle of Buddhist studies.Hiragawa akasi's viewthat the Mahayana Buddhism originated in the stupa worship has been the most influential and has almost become a consensus among Japanese scholars of Buddhist studies.Recently,Simoda masahiro challenges this viewin his work entitled A Study of the Mahaparinirvana-sutra:On the methodology of research of the Mahayana sutra.One of the main reasons of his objection is as follows:the Stupa Worship has already appeared in the primitive stage in the development of Buddhism,and was widely shared by both kulapatis and monks.There does not exist a so-called kulapatis Stupa Worship group independent of monks.According to Simoda masahiro,the Mahayana Buddhism originated with the group of forest Shugenja.On the basis of their own way of life,value system and ultimateobjective,they produced in writing countless Mahayana sutra including the Mahaparinirvana-sutra,which is different from Buddhist oral tradition.They also initiated the badnisattva-yana,which takes benefiting others as the highest pursuit,and is definitely distinct from the saravaka-yana,which aims at self-liberation.In terms of methodology,Simoda masahiro does not stop at textual interpretation and laying bare the internallogic of sutra,but rather relating the latter with the external logic as reflected in the society and history,and tries to discover the problem as well as the clues to solving the problem at this interface.This is a break-through from traditional philological methodology.