How extensively and intensively the concept of Enlightenment influenced the development of Mahayana Buddhism may be seen in the composition of the _Saddharmapuṇḍarīka_, which is really one of the profoundest Mahayana protests against the Hinayana conception of the Buddha’s Enlightenment. According to the latter, the Buddha attained it at Gayā while meditating under the Bodhi-tree, for they regarded the Buddha as a mortal being like themselves, subject to historical and psychological conditions. But the Mahayanists could not be satisfied with such a realistic common-sense interpretation of the personality of the Buddha, they saw something in it which went deep into their hearts and wanted to come in immediate touch with it. What they sought was finally given, and they found that the idea of the Buddha’s being a common soul was a delusion, that the Tathagata arrived in his Supreme Perfect Enlightenment “many hundred thousand myriads of kotis of æons ago,” and that all those historical “facts” in his life which are recorded in the Agama or Nikaya literature are his “skilful devices” (_upāya-kauśalya_) to lead creatures to full ripeness and go in the Buddha Way.[f30] In other words, this means that Enlightenment is the absolute reason of the universe and the essence of Buddhahood, and therefore that to obtain Enlightenment is to realise in one’s inner consciousness the ultimate truth of the world which for ever is. While the _Puṇḍarīka_ emphasises the Buddha-aspect of Enlightenment, Zen directs its attention mainly to the Enlightenment-aspect of Buddhahood. When this latter aspect is considered intellectually, we have the philosophy of Buddhist dogmatics, which is studied by scholars of the Tendai (_t‘ien-tai_), Kegon (_avataṁsaka_), Hosso, (_dharmalaksha_), and other schools. Zen approaches it from the practical side of life, that is, to work out Enlightenment in life itself. Seeing that the idea of Enlightenment played such an important rôle in the development of Mahayana Buddhism, what is the content of it? Can we describe it in an intelligible manner so that our analytical intellect could grasp it and make it an object of thought? The Fourfold Noble Truth was not the content of Enlightenment, nor was the Twelvefold Chain of Causation, nor the Eightfold Righteous Path. The truth flashed through the Buddha’s consciousness was not such a thought capable of discursive unfolding. When he exclaimed: “Through birth and rebirth’s endless round, Seeking in vain, I hastened on, To find who framed this edifice, What misery!—birth incessantly! “O builder! I’ve discovered thee! This fabric thou shall ne’er rebuild! The rafters all are broken now, And pointed roof demolished lies! This mind has demolition reached, And seen the last of all desire!”[f31]