“The Bodhisattvas do not feel, however, that they are being compelled by any external force to devote their lives to the edification and uplifting of the masses. They do not recognise any outward authority, the violation of which may react upon them in the form of a punishment. They have already passed beyond this stage of world-conception which implies a dualism; they are on the contrary moving in a much wider and higher sphere of thought. All that is done by them springs from their spontaneous will, from the free activity of the Bodhicitta, which constitutes their reason of existence; and thus there is nothing compulsory in their thoughts and movements. [To use Laotzean terminology, they are practising non-action, _wu wei_, and whatever may appear to the ignorant and unenlightened as a strenuous and restless life, is merely a natural {286} overflow from the inexhaustible fount of energy called Bodhicitta, heart of intelligence].”[121] _Bodhisattva in “Primitive” Buddhism._ The notion of Bodhisattva was not entirely absent in “primitive” Buddhism, only it did not have such a wide signification. All Buddhas were Bodhisattvas in their former lives. The Jâtaka stories minutely describe what self-sacrificing deeds were done by them and how by the karma of these merits they finally attained Buddhahood. Çâkyamuni was not the only Buddha, but there had already been seven or twenty-four Buddhas prior to him, and the coming Buddha to be known as Maitreya is believed to be disciplining himself in the Tuṣita heaven and going through the stages of Bodhisattvahood. The one who is thus destined to be the future Buddha must be extraordinarily gifted in spiritual energy. He must pass through eons of self-discipline, must practise deeds of non-atman with unflinching courage and fortitude through innumerable existences. The following quotation from the Jâtaka tales will be sufficient to see what ponderous and exacting conditions were conceived by the so-called Hînayânists to be necessary for a human being to become a fully qualified Buddha.[122] {287}