A family of schools
Mahāyāna includes Pure Land, Chan/Zen, Tiantai/Tendai, Nichiren, Huayan, and other schools. It became dominant across China, Korea, Japan, and Vietnam. It is not one institution, but a shared orientation expressed differently across many cultures.
The Mahāyāna sūtras
Mahāyāna accepts earlier Buddhist teachings while adding scriptures composed from roughly the 1st century BCE onward:
- Prajñāpāramitā sūtras, including the Heart and Diamond Sūtras.
- Lotus Sūtra, central to Tiantai, Tendai, and Nichiren.
- Pure Land sūtras, centered on Amitābha Buddha.
- Avataṃsaka Sūtra, or Flower Garland Sūtra.
Canons differ across Chinese, Tibetan, and other translations rather than forming one fixed collection shared by every school.
The bodhisattva ideal
The practitioner seeks full Buddhahood for the sake of liberating all beings. This aspiration is expressed in the bodhisattva vow.
Mahāyāna also develops śūnyatā (emptiness): all things lack a fixed, independent essence and arise interdependently. Nāgārjuna systematized this in the Madhyamaka school, while the Yogācāra school focused on the workings of consciousness.
Its wider cosmology includes countless Buddhas and bodhisattvas, among them Amitābha, Avalokiteśvara, and Mañjuśrī.
Many methods, one aspiration
- Chan/Zen emphasizes direct meditation and insight.
- Pure Land emphasizes devotion to Amitābha Buddha.
- Tiantai/Tendai and Huayan developed integrated systems of teaching.
- Nichiren centers on chanting devotion to the Lotus Sūtra.
- Compassion, bodhisattva precepts, and wisdom study connect the schools.
Across the Silk Road
Mahāyāna sūtras circulated in India alongside earlier schools. From around the 1st century CE, monks and traders carried them through Central Asia into China. From China, Mahāyāna reached Korea, Japan, and Vietnam, developing distinctive forms shaped by local philosophy, especially Daoism and Confucianism.