Note 20 — Chapter II · HISTORICAL CHARACTERISATION OF MAHÂYÂNISM.

Sthiramati[20] in his Introduction to Mahâyânism states that Mahâyânism is a special doctrine for the Bodhisattvas, who are to be distinguished from the other two classes, viz, the Çrâvakas and the Pratyekabuddhas. The essential difference of the doctrine consists in the belief that objects of the senses are merely phenomenal and have no absolute reality, that the indestructible Dharmakâya which is all-pervading constitutes the norm of existence, that all Bodhisattvas[21] are incarnations of the Dharmakâya, who not by their evil karma previously accumulated, but by their boundless love for all mankind, assume corporeal existences, and that persons who thus appear in the flesh, as avatars of the Buddha supreme, associate themselves with the masses in all possible social relations, in order that they might thus lead them to a state of enlightenment.