Махаянские сутры

Можно взглянуть http://ccbs.ntu.edu.tw/FULLTEXT/JR-EPT/mc.htm
Orality, writing and authority in South Asian Buddhism:visionary literature and the struggle for legitimacy in the Mahayana, David McMahan

Despite the inevitable obscurity to historical investigation of the intentions of these late sutra writers, many indications do exist as to how Mahayanists construed their creative reformulations of the Dharma and justified them to themselves and to outsiders once they were written. A number of explanations were offered for the emergence of these new sutras.
i) According to one ancient reconstruction of the Mahayana, the sravakas did not have the capacity to understand the advanced teachings of the Great Vehicle, so they were taught to otherworldly beings and hidden until teachers emerged who could understand them.(37)
ii) Another explanation was that the original hearers did not understand the content of these talks but transmitted them anyway for later generations better equipped to comprehend them.(38)
iii) The claim was prevalent that certain teachings were revealed only to a select few. Many Mahayana commentators went to great lengths to reconcile the teachings of the Hinayana with those of the Mahayana by a careful reworking of the story of the Buddha's life in which every teaching ever attributed to him was understood to be given to particular disciples on various levels of spiritual attainment. In these scenarios, less spiritually developed people were given teachings of the Hinayana, while bodhisattvas and other nearly enlightened being received the higher teachings of the Mahayana. ...
iv) The theme of secrecy was also an important factor in explaining novel texts and contradictory doctrines. The arising of additions to the Dharma and the discrepancies between sutras were sometimes explained by the claim that the Buddha communicated secret Mahayana teachings to certain people, at times even in the midst of giving a Hinayana teaching. ...
v) The most elaborate of such systems was that of the great Chinese thinker Chih-i. ...  Most interesting is Chih-i's notion of the secret methods by which the Buddha communicated all these divergent doctrines to different people, according to their level of understanding.
v.a) The "secret indeterminate" teachings were those in which the Buddha said the same thing in such a manner that different listeners, each unaware of the other, heard the teachings in a different way and thus came away remembering completely different discourses.
v.b) In other cases, the Buddha spoke secretly to separate individuals, each of whom thought that he alone was the exclusive recipient of the message; but, in fact, others were present, magically concealed from each other so that, again, they came away with contradictory teachings.  
v.c) In the "express indeterminate" teachings, Chih-i asserts that the Buddha said the same thing, but different people--this time all present and aware of each other--heard distinctly different sermons; thus, again, each came away with different doctrines.

The Gandavyuha makes these polemical strategies quite clear. Continuing with the passage presented at the beginning of this study, we find that after the extensive description of the transfigured Jeta Grove and the wonders attending the arrival of the otherworldy bodhisattvas, the narrator points out that the sravakas who were present, such as Sariputra, Mahakasyapa, Subhuti, and others who are the frequent interlocutors of the Buddha in the sutras, were completely oblivious to the entire miraculous scene.  The reason they did not see it is because, among other defects, they "lacked the roots of goodness conducive to the vision of the transfiguration of all buddhas ... and did not have the purity of the eye of knowledge."(40) Furthermore, they did not have the "power of vision" to see these things because they were of the vehicle of the sravakas, who had neither the "developed bodhisattva's range of vision" nor the "eyes of the bodhisattvas."

Recently SHIMODA Masahiro has published a mammoth work entitled “A study of the Mahaparinirvana-sutra, with a focus on the methodology of the study of Mahayana sutras” (1997), investigating how and why the term buddhadhatu, which originally referred to the relics (sariradhatu), came to be used in the Mahaparinirvana-sutra in place of the concept of tathagatagarbha. He concludes that the author (or authors) of the Mahaparinirvana-sutra were originally leaders and advocates of stupa worship. Wishing to reform their religious group into a more morally rigorous community, and armed with doctrine suitable to their purpose, they introduced or accepted the teaching of the Tathagatagarbha-sutra and reshaped the signifcance of dhatu worship from that of the physical relics of the Buddha to that of the inner Buddha as a principle of salvation.

Shimoda attempts to prove this process through an examination of the textual formation of the Mahaparinirvana-sutra. He shows that the early or basic sections are equivalent to the first Chinese translation in 6 volumes (T #376), translated by Fa chien in 418. He divides the text into two diachronic stages, the first stage including chapters 1–4, 6, and 7 of the sutra, and the second stage including chapters 5 and 8–18, the latter being divided again into chapters 8 and 9–18. Of these, the first expresses faith in the body of the Buddha as the eternal dharmakaya, instead of the physical body, while the second part expresses mainly the tathagatagarbha theory in which it is taught that the Buddha within the body of each sattva is the eternal atman. The first portion of the second part shows a transitional stage in teaching and in the formation of a new order. Shimoda characterizes this transition as a shift from the worship of the outer stðpa to that of the inner stupa. [pdf]

1) Many ancient historical texts contain the claim that the Mahasanhika, one  of the traditions of sectarian Buddhism, is the source of Mahayana Buddhism, and so for long it was commonly held that Mahayana Buddhism derived from this Mahasanghika tradition. In other words, it was thought that Mahayana Buddhism was a new Buddhist movement that developed out of traditional sectarian Buddhism.

2) This idea was fundamentally challenged and overturned by Hirakawa Akira. Through a careful search and analysis of the textual accounts of daily life among Mahayana followers, Hirakawa developed a new theory that the origin of Mahayana Buddhism was totally unrelated to the traditional sectarian organizations; instead, he claimed that it was a religious movement that arose among groups of lay followers (see HIRAKAWA 1963 and 1968). According to Hirakawa, the practice of these lay followers centered around stupa worship, and the members of these groups were called bodhisattvas. They rejected the traditions of sectarian Buddhism, centered around the renunciants (bhiksus), and followed the path of the Buddha while remaining in lay life, thus advocating a completely new form of practice. According to Hirakawa’s thesis, Mahayana is a lay form of Buddhism from its very origins. Since Mahayana is the basis of Japanese Buddhism, this means that Japanese Buddhism has been lay-oriented from its very beginning. Hirakawa’s thesis was widely accepted and has been the standard explanation among Japanese Buddhists, standing unchallenged for over thirty years.

In recent years, however, a number of questions have been raised concerning Hirakawa’s thesis from a variety of sources. Scholars have pointed out many facts that cannot be explained by Hirakawa’s theories, and his thesis has ceased to become the standard explanation.

3) Now it appears more likely that, indeed, Mahayana Buddhism arose as an extension of traditional Nikaya Buddhism, and that it was originally a religion of the renunciants.

4) On the other hand, just because Hirakawa’s thesis has lost its dominant position does not mean that there is a new thesis ready to replace it. Even if there is general agreement that Mahayana has its origins in traditional Nikaya Buddhist organizations, there is still disagreement among scholars as to the concrete details of this development, and we still have not even established a common basis on which to proceed with the debate. As the edifice of Hirakawa’s thesis crumbles before our eyes, there is a feeling among scholars that battle lines are being drawn for a fierce debate aiming to establish a new thesis regarding the origins of Mahayana. As of now it is impossible to construct a unifying theory that encompasses all aspects of the origin of Mahayana Buddhism. For the time being it is necessary for various scholars to accumulate new information and arguments concerning this issue from the perspective of their respective areas of specialty. Perhaps a theory that incorporates and unifies them all can be proposed after this information has been gathered and absorbed.

5) Leading the pack in this scholarly goal of reaching a new explanation for the origins of Mahayana is the work of Gregory SCHOPEN (see, e.g., 1985, 1997). He has succeeded in clarifying various aspects of Mahayana Buddhism that were previously overlooked, by systematically studying ancient epigraphical materials and inscriptions, and by comparing this information with textual data. The Mahayana Buddhism that appears to us through such research is clearly a movement that was born from the womb of traditional Nikaya Buddhist organizations. After Schopen we find the spirited and energetic work of scholars such as Jonathan SILK (1994a, 1994b) and Paul HARRISON (1995a, 1995b), who have published excellent work in their respective fields. The theories proposed by these scholars are united in their opposition to the Hirakawa thesis. They reject the lay origin of Mahayana and present a new image of the establishment of Mahayana as an extension of Nikaya Buddhism. The broad image presented by these three scholars is generally in agreement, but their theories differ in many of their details and do not necessarily converge to present a single thesis. Part of the reason for this is that they are approaching the question from different perspectives. The differences among these three scholars have not yet been resolved, mainly because the data required to debate these differences is not available.

6) Then, in 1997, Shimoda Masahiro published his massive study that is the focus of this review. We now have, in addition to the positions of Schopen, Silk, and Harrison, a fourth position. Shimoda’s thorough analysis of the Mahayana Nirvana Sutra (including the Chinese translations [T 12. #374–376], the Tibetan translation, and Sanskrit fragments) succeeds in presenting a concrete picture of the process through which the Mahayana movement developed. Through a meticulous study of the textual materials he re-creates the long history of the Mahayana movement, from the period of embryonic development before the establishment of the Mahayanistic concept of the bodhisattva, to the arising of tathagatagarbha ideas. He shows clearly that Mahayana Buddhism in its embryonic period arose not from lay groups, as the Hirakawa thesis would have it, but within the traditional Nikaya organizations. Shimoda has taken us one step closer to answering the question, “If the Hirakawa thesis is not correct, then where and how did Mahayana Buddhism originate?”

1. When the oldest layer of the Nirvana Sutra appeared, the producers of this work were called dharma-kathika (“Dharma masters”; Jpn. hoshi). This fact contradicts the commonly-accepted idea that the upholders of Mahayana were called bodhisattvas. The importance of the notion of dharma-kathika has already been pointed out by SHIZUTANI Masao (1974), but until now no one realized that materials were available that tell so concretely of the dharma-kathika’s existence. This is a very important discovery. But, as Shimoda himself says, just because the oldest layers of the Nirvana Sutra were produced by dharma-kathikas rather than bodhisattvas does not necessarily mean that the creators of Mahayana were the dharma-kathikas. At the very least, however, it has been proven as a fact that the dharma-kathikas were deeply involved in the establishment of Mahayana Buddhism.

2. Shimoda clarifies the process whereby the dharma-kathikas at first rejected stupa worship, and then later reaffirmed it in a different form through the worship of “Buddha nature,” that is, “the Buddha-stupa immanent in sentient beings.” This is a momentous discovery that overturns previous theories that characterized all of Mahayana Buddhism in terms of the single phenomenon of the centrality of stupa worship.

3. In connection with the above point, Shimoda clearly outlines the process whereby the gradual internalization of the Buddha developed so that in spiritual terms it was expressed as the Buddha nature, and externally this was expressed through the creation of a sutra, resulting finally in the Nirvana Sutra and its tathagatagarbha philosophy.

The true form of Mahayana Buddhism that emerges from his conclusions is not a lay movement, as in Hirakawa’s thesis. It was a movement begun by a group of renunciants who, while dwelling within the Buddhist sangha, rebelled against traditional Buddhist doctrines and maintained their own doctrine and life-style. On this point Shimoda’s thesis is in direct opposition to that of Hirakawa.

[W]hat is the origin of stupa worship? Shimoda offers the following answer. Stupa worship was common at the very earliest stage of the development of Buddhism (at least, before the development of the “Nikaya” Nirvana Sutra. This stream of those who practiced stupa worship existed apart from the stream of those who emphasized “the word” and produced the Nikaya texts. We know of the existence of this stupa worship through many references to it in the Chinese translations of the Vinaya texts. As time passed, those who became weary of ritualistic stupa worship within the sangha and sought a “living” Buddha, started a new movement. This is the germination of Mahayana Buddhism among dharma-kathikas (or maybe “bodhisattvas”). They rejected the previous form of stupa worship, led a life of wandering, maintained strong relations with lay people, sought to perceive a “living” Buddha through the practice of samadhi, and expressed this experience with new words that grew into the Mahayana sutras. The movement did not stop there. The Mahayana followers then reestablished a connection between the stupas and the living Buddha that they had experienced internally, and developed the idea of “Buddha nature” as an internalization of the stupa. In this scenario, contrary to previous theories, stupa worship is not a unique characteristic of Mahayana Buddhism. Stupa worship can be traced all the way back to the time of the historical Buddha; it is a feature that was originally part of Buddhism, and Mahayana Buddhism arose as a new movement that rejected ritualistic stupa worship. ...

²² Относительная истина — samvrti-satya, vyavahara-salya, laukika-satya, тиб. kun rdzob bden pa, tha snyad ryi bden par ba; другие названия: мирообусловленная, или мирская, истина, истина, обусловленная (сокрытая) мирскими значениями, «истина покрова» и т.д. — представляют собой весь уровень человеческого знаково-понятийного общения, скрывающий (утаивающий) абсолютную, или наивысшую и данную непосредственно, истину (см. выше). Считается, что, разрабатывая учение о двух истинах (см. РА, I, 28-31; 45-47; 50-100; II, 3-5, а также другие главы; ШС, 1, 58-72; ДС, XCV), Нагарджуна следовал ранним сутрам Совершенствования Мудрости, например «Восьмитысячнику» [Ashtasahasrika 1960: 176-177]. Но как показал Тильман Феттер, в китайском переводе этой сутры, выполненном в середине II в., нет терминов, соответствующих абсолютной и относительной истинам [Vetter 1984a: 496—497]. Поэтому вполне вероятно, что учение о двух истинах нашло своё место в сутрах Совершенствования Мудрости уже под влиянием Нагарджуны, занимавшегося вместе с учениками их редактированием. Исходным материалом для основоположника школы срединников могли послужить и тексты Малой колесницы, например «Милинда-паньха», «Махавибхаша» идр., см. [Iida 1980: 243-269].
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Vetter 1984a. — Vetter T. Der Buddha und seine Lehre in DharmakTrtis Pramanavartika. — WSTB. H. 12.