[Nurba]

Hinayana.....Hinayana ....

Hi Tony, just as an aside - as you are a Tibetan Buddhist practitioner, I wonder if you are aware that 'Hinayana' can be used as a pejorative term to describe Theravada, which is why we try to avoid its use here (except perhaps jokingly).



The myth of Hinayana

In the centuries around the birth of Christ there was a radical development going on in Buddhism. A new school was born, and its adherents called it Mahayana. How this new school differed from the earlier schools, can be found in any history of Buddhism. Here we will concentrate on one of the results of this schism: the term Hinayana.

The adherents of the older schools criticized the Mahayanists, especially for creating new sutras, forging the word of the Buddha. The Mahayanists on the other side reacted to that critique by accusing their opponents of not understanding the teaching of the Buddha at all and for beeing narrowminded egoists. The debate got heated, and accusations flowed from both sides. Then some brilliant person at the Mahayana side of the debate created the word pair Mahayana/Hinayana, and it stuck. They called their opponents Hinayana, and this word worked excellently as an insult – with a simplicity and a parallellity to Mahayana that any fool could grasp.


continued:

http://www.lienet.no/hinayan1.htm


kind regards

Aloka