(10) The final characteristic to be mentioned as distinctly Mahâyânistic is the doctrine of Trikâya. There is, it is asserted, the highest being which is the ultimate cause of the universe and in which all existences find their essential origin and significance. This is called by the Mahâyânists Dharmakâya. The Dharmakâya, however, does not remain in its absoluteness, it reveals itself in the realm of cause and effect. It then takes a particular form. It becomes a devil, or a god, or a deva, or a human being, or an animal of lower grade, adapting itself to the degrees of the intellectual development of the people. For it is the people’s inner needs which necessitate the special forms of manifestation. This is called Nirmânakâya, that is, the body of transformation. The Buddha who manifested himself in the person of Gautama, the son of King of Çuddhodâna about two thousand five hundred years ago on the Ganges, is a form of Nirmânakâya. The third one is called Sambhogakâya, or body of bliss. This is the spiritual {74} body of a Buddha, invested with all possible grandeur in form and in possession of all imaginable psychic powers. The conception of Sambhogakâya is full of wild imaginations which are not easy of comprehension by modern minds.[35] These characteristics enumerated at seven or ten as peculiarly Mahâyânistic are what the Hindu Buddhist philosophers of the first century down to the fifth or sixth century of the Christian era thought to be the most essential points of their faith and what they thought entitled it to be called the “Great Vehicle” (_Mahâyâna_) of salvation, in contradistinction to the faith embraced by their conservative brethren. But, as we view them now, the points here specified are to a great extent saturated with a partisan spirit, and besides they are more or less scattered and unconnected statements of the so-called salient features of Mahâyânism. Nor do they furnish much information concerning the nature of Mahâyânism as a coherent system of religious teachings. They give but a general and somewhat obscure delineation of it, and that in opposition to Hînayânism. In point of fact, Mahâyânism is a school of Buddhism and has many characteristics in common with Hînayânism. Indeed, the spirit of the former is also that of the latter, and as far as the general trend of Buddhism is concerned there is no need of emphasising {75} the significance of one school over the other. On the following pages I shall try to present a more comprehensive and impartial exposition of the Buddhism, which has been persistently designated by its followers as Mahâyânism. SPECULATIVE MAHÂYÂNISM. {76} CHAPTER III. PRACTISE AND SPECULATION.