As stated in the Introduction, the term Mahâyâna was invented in the times of Nâgârjuna and Âryadeva (about the third or fourth century after Christ), when doctrinal struggles between the Çrâvaka and the Bodhisattva classes reached a climax. The progressive Hindu Buddhists, desiring to announce the essential features of their doctrine, did so naturally at the expense of their rival and by pointing out why theirs was greater than, or superior to, Hînayânism. Their views were thus necessarily vitiated by a partisan spirit, and instead of impartially and critically enumerating the principal characteristics of Mahâyânism, they placed rather too much stress upon those points that do not in these latter days appear to be very essential, but that were then considered by them to be of paramount importance. These points, nevertheless, {61} throw some light on the nature of Mahâyâna Buddhism as historically distinguished from its consanguineous rival and fellow-doctrine. _Sthiramati’s Conception of Mahâyânism._ Sthiramati[20] in his _Introduction to Mahâyânism_ states that Mahâyânism is a special doctrine for the Bodhisattvas, who are to be distinguished from the other two classes, viz, the Çrâvakas and the Pratyekabuddhas. The essential difference of the doctrine consists in the belief that objects of the senses are merely phenomenal and have no absolute reality, that the indestructible Dharmakâya which is all-pervading constitutes the norm of existence, that all Bodhisattvas[21] are incarnations of the Dharmakâya, who not by their evil karma previously accumulated, but by their boundless love for all mankind, assume {62} corporeal existences, and that persons who thus appear in the flesh, as avatars of the Buddha supreme, associate themselves with the masses in all possible social relations, in order that they might thus lead them to a state of enlightenment. While this is a very summary statement of the Mahâyâna doctrine, a more elaborate and extended enumeration of its peculiar features in contradistinction to those of Hînayânism, is made in the _Miscellanea on Mahâyâna Metaphysics_,[22] _The Spiritual Stages of the Yogâcâra_,[23] _An Exposition of the Holy Doctrine_,[24] _A Comprehensive Treatise on Mahâyânism_,[25] and others. Let us first explain the “Seven General Characteristics” as described in the first three works here mentioned. _Seven Principal Features of Mahâyânism._ According to Asanga, who lived a little later than Nâgârjuna, that is, at the time when Mahâyânism was further divided into the Yogâcârya and the Mâdhyamika school, the seven features peculiar to Mahâyânism as distinguished from Hînayânism, are as follows: