Promoters of Zen to the West record its ancestry, and recognize that Zen grew out of a combination of Taoism and Indian Mahayana Buddhism.

Proponents of Zen to the West emphasize disproportionately the amount of Mahayana Buddhism in Zen, probably in order to dignify the indisputably magical Taoist ideas with more respectable Buddhist metaphysic.

Actually, Zen owes more to Chinese Quietism than it does to Mahayana Buddhism.

Mahayana Buddhism was far more successful in China than its rival Hinayana, and both Indian schools and local Chinese sects arose from the 5th century.

These elaborations and disputes gave rise to various schools in early Buddhism of Abhidhamma, and to the Mahayana traditions and schools of the prajnaparamita, Madhyamaka, buddha-nature and Yogacara.

Mahayana Buddhism was far more successful in China than its rival Hinayana, and both Indian schools and local Chinese sects arose from the 5th century.

All Japanese Kamakura sects of Buddhism ( Zen, Nichiren, Jodo ) have relaxed Mahayana vinaya, and as a consequence, vegetarianism is rare.

( Mahayana Buddhism )

* Nirvana Day ( Mahayana Buddhism )

Mahayana Buddhism restated Buddhist teachings, and developed new teachings and texts.

With this in mind it is sometimes argued that the Theravada would not have been considered a " Hinayana " school by Mahayanists because unlike the now-extinct Sarvastivada school, the primary object of Mahayana criticism, the Theravada school does not claim the existence of independent dharmas ; in this it maintains the attitude of early Buddhism.

These scholars understand the term to refer to schools of Buddhism that did not accept the teachings of the Mahayana Sutras as authentic teachings of the Buddha.

* Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism, Routledge, 1989

* Ryukan Kimura, A Historical Study of the Terms Hinayana and Mahayana and the Origin of Mahayana Buddhism, Indological Book Corp., 1978

In contrast, the Yogācāra school, which arose within Mahayana Buddhism in India in the 4th century CE, based its " mind-only " idealism to a greater extent on phenomenological analyses of personal experience.

The consciousness-only approach of the Yogācāra school of Mahayana Buddhism is not true metaphysical idealism as Yogācāra thinkers did not focus on consciousness to assert it as ultimately real, it is only conventionally real since it arises from moment to moment due to fluctuating causes and conditions and is significant because it is the cause of karma and hence suffering.

In Mahayana Buddhism, gender is no obstacle to attaining enlightenment ( or nirvana ).

The Bodhisattva ideal in Mahayana Buddhism involves the complete renunciation of oneself in order to take on the burden of a suffering world.

In Sino-Tibetan and Turco-Mongol traditions, the Supreme God is commonly referred to as the ruler of Heaven, or the Sky Lord granted with omnipotent powers, but it has largely diminished in those regions due to ancestor worship, Taoism's pantheistic views and Buddhism's rejection of a creator God, although Mahayana Buddhism does seem to keep a sense of divinity.

Setting out to declare his own teachings of Buddhism, Nichiren started at the age of 32 by denouncing all Mahayana schools of his time and by declaring the correct teaching as the Universal Dharma ( Nam-Myōhō-Renge-Kyō ) and chanting as the only path for personal and social salvation.

There is a difference between Nichiren teachings and almost all schools of Mahayana Buddhism regarding the understanding of the Latter day of the Law, Mappō.

Mahayana teaches that the current age is that of decline of Shakyamauni's Buddhism and that a Future Buddha will appear to start Buddhism anew.

The Mahayana that developed in the north was a religion of idolatry and coarse magic, that made the world into a huge magical garden.

In its monastic form, Mahayana was merely an organization of magic-practicing monks ( bonzes ), who catered to the Chinese faith in the supernatural.

The Ch'an ( Zen ) sect may have derived its metaphysic from Mahayana, but its psychology was pure early Taoist.

Thus, the Mahayana metaphysic of mystical union for salvation was distilled down to a bare self-seeking, and for this reason, the mystic in Asia did not long remain in isolated contemplation.

Wilfred Cantwell Smith traced the story from a 2nd to 4th century Sanskrit Mahayana Buddhist text, to a Manichee version, which then found its way into Muslim culture as the Arabic Kitab Bilawhar wa-Yudasaf ( Book of Bilawhar and Yudasaf ), which was current in Baghdad in the 8th century.

The Kamakura period of 13th century Japan, in which Nichiren was born-was characterised by natural disasters, internal strife and confusion within Mahayana schools about whether: "... the world had further entered a period of decline " referring to the Latter Day of the Law.

Étienne Lamotte, who translated one third of the work into French, felt that it was the work of a North Indian bhikṣu of the Sarvāstivāda school, who later became a convert to the Mahayana.

Southern Thailand was the center of Hinduism and Mahayana.

A graduate of Bao Quoc Buddhist Academy in Central Vietnam, Thich Nhat Hanh received training in Zen and the Mahayana school of Buddhism and was ordained as a monk in 1949.

In the Mahayana Buddhist tradition, it is believed that the drawing was designed by the Buddha himself in order to help ordinary people understand the Buddhist teachings.

The principal religion in French Indochina was Buddhism, with Mahayana Buddhism influenced by Confucianism more dominant in Vietnam, while Theravada Buddhism was more widespread in Laos and Cambodia.

Dharmarakṣa was one of the greatest translators of Mahayana Buddhist scriptures into Chinese.

# The Mahayana tradition claims that there was a second turning in which the Perfection of Wisdom sutras were taught at Vulture's Peak, which led to the Mahayana schools.

The Lalitavistara Sutra ( a Mahayana Buddhist work ) recounts a contest including writing, arithmetic, wrestling and archery, in which the Buddha was pitted against the great mathematician Arjuna and showed off his numerical skills by citing the names of the powers of ten up to 1 ' tallakshana ', which equals 10 < sup > 53 </ sup >, but then going on to explain that this is just one of a series of counting systems that can be expanded geometrically.

The predominance of Hinduism in Cham religion was interrupted for a time in the 9th and 10th centuries, when a dynasty at Indrapura ( Dong Duong in Quang Nam Province of modern Vietnam ) adopted Mahayana Buddhism as its faith.

Tendai originated in China and is based on the Lotus Sutra, one of the most important sutras of Mahayana Buddhism ; Saichō was key to its transmission to Japan.

From the beginning, the largest form of Buddhism in Japan was the Mahayana school.

The most popular was Zen, which became the most popular type of Mahayana Buddhism of the time period.

Statements from modern Theravadins that the Buddha was " just a human " are often intended to contrast their view of him with that of the Mahayana, and with Christian views of Jesus.

The Chinese version of the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra also mentions the playing of several games, including Liubo, which some have taken as evidence that Liubo was transmitted to India.