________________
BUDDHISM
in mind the rescue of all living beings, conducting them to release-and-extinction in the pure and perfect nirvāņa. And when, by virtuc of this attitude, he has rescued all living beings, no being whatsoever has been made to reach nirvāņa."
Following this paradoxical remark, the Buddha supplies his explanation. "Why, () Subhūti, is this so? Because, if this savior had the notion of the actual existence of any being, he could not be called a perfect Enlightened One. If there could occur to him the conception of a living being donning the garb of various bodies and migrating through numerous existences, or the idea of an individual personality, then he could not be called a Bodhisattia, 'a being whose essence is Enlightenment.' And why is this so? Because there is no such thing as anything or anybody standing in the vehicle of the Enlightened Ones." "
Another text states that on a certain day, when myriads of gods had focked together to celebrate with a great fcast the solemn occasion of the Buddha's preaching of a sermon, they were all saying joyfully: "Forsooth, this is the second time that the wheel of the truc law has been set in motion on Indian soil, let us go and watch!” But the Buddha, turning stealthily to Subhūti, whispered something that he would not tell the gods; for it was beyond their power of understanding. "This is not the second time that the wheel of the true law has been set in motion; there is no setting in motion of anything, nor any stopping of the motion of anything. Knowing just that, is the perfection of wisdom (prajñā-pāramitā), which is characteristic of the beings whose essence is enlightenment.” 10
These bewildering texts, with their explicit teaching of the Wisdom of the Far Bank (prajñā-pāramitā), belong to a later period of the Buddhist tradition, the stage of the so-called “Great Ferryboat," or Mahāyāna, which teaches that the secret meaning and goal of the doctrine is the universal Buddhahood
. Vajracchedikā 17. 10 Astasähasrikā Prajñāpāramitā g.
484
