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The Collaborative International Dictionary
Mahayana

Mahayana \Mahayana\ n.

  1. a major school of Buddhism teaching social concern and universal salvation, found in China; Japan; Tibet; Nepal; Korea; and Mongolia.

  2. one of two great schools of Buddhist doctrine emphasizing a common search for universal salvation esp through faith alone; chiefly in China; Tibet; Japan.

Douglas Harper's Etymology Dictionary
Mahayana

type of Buddhism practiced in northern Asia, 1868, from Sanskrit, from maha "great," from PIE root *meg- "great" (see magnate) + yana "vehicle," from PIE root *ei- "to go" (see ion).

Wikipedia
Mahayana

Mahāyāna ( Sanskrit for "Great Vehicle") is one of two (or three, under some classifications) main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice. The Buddhist tradition of Vajrayana is sometimes classified as a part of Mahayana Buddhism, but some scholars may consider it as a different branch altogether.

According to the teachings of Mahāyāna traditions, "Mahāyāna" also refers to the path of the Bodhisattva seeking complete enlightenment for the benefit of all sentient beings, also called "Bodhisattvayāna", or the "Bodhisattva Vehicle". A bodhisattva who has accomplished this goal is called a samyaksaṃbuddha, or "fully enlightened Buddha". A samyaksaṃbuddha can establish the Dharma and lead disciples to enlightenment. Mahayana Buddhists teach that enlightenment can be attained in a single lifetime, and this can be accomplished even by a layperson.

The Mahāyāna tradition is the largest major tradition of Buddhism existing today, with 53.2% of practitioners, compared to 35.8% for Theravada and 5.7% for Vajrayana in 2010.

In the course of its history, Mahāyāna Buddhism spread from India to various other South, East and Southeast Asian countries such as Bangladesh, Nepal, Bhutan, China, Taiwan, Mongolia, Korea, Japan, Vietnam, Indonesia, Malaysia and Singapore. Major traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism today include Chan Buddhism, Korean Seon, Japanese Zen, Pure Land Buddhism, and Nichiren Buddhism. It may also include the Vajrayana traditions of Tiantai, Tendai, Shingon Buddhism, and Tibetan Buddhism, which add esoteric teachings to the Mahāyāna tradition.

Usage examples of "mahayana".

Mahayana preached universal love, through the ideal of the bodhisattva, for all beings, animal as well as human.

Mahayana was accompanied both by a tendency to regard the Buddha as a transcendent, rather than earthly, being and by adulation for the bodhisattva, or buddha-to-be, who would assist others on the path to buddhahood.

The career of the bodhisattva represents it in the classical Mahayana.

Their specifically Buddhist application was linked to the quest for illumination and salvation by the rapid path as distinct from that of the earlier Mahayana, which offered the slow path of the bodhisattva with the ripening of the necessary perfections over numerous lives.

During the same reign a controversy developed between Chinese Buddhist adherents of the rapid path of Buddhahood and Indian defenders of the classical Mahayana or bodhisattva progression by stages.

Those whose faith in reason is relatively poor, and whose ego correspondingly strong, will take the Hinayana path, but may take to the Mahayana path at a later time.

The stages of the Hinayana and Mahayana are similar only in the sense that both lead to a direct understanding of Reality, or God.

Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhist scriptures, and any number of others-and these he would scan rapidly.

In China, it had already proliferated into a number of abstruse metaphysical sects, within bodi the Hinayana and Mahayana schools, that could scarcely have appealed to the Japanese beyond a small circle of intellectuals at court.

Confucianism, Taoism, various Hinayana and quasi-Mahayana sects, fully developed Mahayana and, finally, to the ultimate religious consciousness of Shingon itself.

Then he read the Bible, the Koran, and other major religious works: he covered Islam, Zoroastrianism, Mazdaism, Zarathustrianism, Dharma, Brahmanism, Hinduism, Vedanta, Jainism, Buddhism, Hinayana, Mahayana, Sikhism, Shintoism, Taoism and Confucianism.

Just as the Christian Religion has a whole horde of different branches from the Plymouth Brethren to the Roman Catholic faith, so does the Buddhist school branch into two-they are The Hinayana, which means the Narrow Way, and The Mahayana, which means the Great Way.

In other words, whereas Hinayana Buddhism remained a broad philosophical system, Mahayana Buddhism, which was exported to China, was much more a conventional religion.

This doctrine was a development of the Yogacara philosophy of the Indian Mahayana.

These two contemplatives, who were brothers, are among the most authoritative proponents of the school of Mahayana Buddhism, which remains today a living tradition among Tibetans and other Asian societies.