prince was longing; was it any wonder that it, with the prospect that it offered of converting a world, should have prevailed."

"Already before the time of As'oka the logical void involved in the acceptance of Nirvana had led to the evolution of a Maitreya Buddha, the "Future Buddha" of Kindness, who was to mitigate the ills of an inflexible Karma; but the movement did not here end, and once started, its mere vis inertiae carried it on. Pratyeka Buddhas, those who had without regard to others attained an individual Buddhahood, and Bodhisattvas, those whose progressive Karma was insensibly leading them along the "path" to Buddhahood, were the natural outcome of the movement, and of these, two--Manjus'ri, the Gracious-one, and Avalokites'vara, the Pitiful-one--gradually came to the front. At first only mental abstractions, the inevitable tendency was to segregate from the magma, and condense as personal Buddhas. In the process they came under the influence of the school of As'vaghosha, when Manjus'ri easily was found to take the place of Cpenta Armaita, Holy Wisdom, and Avalokites'vara in like manner of Khshathra Vairya, Perfect Sovereignty, both lieutenants of Ahura Mazda in ruling mundane affairs. So it was that when Amida came to take in the celestial hierarchy the place of The Buddha, seats beside him were found for the two great Bodhisattvas, Avalokites'vara and Manjus'ri."

Yet it is noteworthy that a very great portion of this literature thus early translated into Chinese is Hinayana.

[paragraph continues] Many of the extra-Indian provinces of the Kushan Empire, Khotan to wit, and portions of Bactria, had been converted to Buddhism long before the commencement of the Mahayana movement, and, having been converted to Hinayana, remained constant to their allegiance, though sectarian differences, as well as the nature of the mountainous countries between them, cut them off from their Hinayana brethren on the southern slopes of the Himalaya. Besides, the dividing-line between the two Vehicles was hardly as yet sharply drawn.

We may therefore safely conclude that the second-century Buddhist mission to China was mainly an effort made by the Kushans to gain the friendship of that portion of the Chinese people that was predisposed to religion; that its members came from extra-Indian countries which had long since been Buddhist, and which had now passed under the sway of the Kushans; and that, whilst it contained the beginnings of Mahayanism, it was in the main Hinayana.