The Great Vehicle — awakening, for everyone.
The broad northern current of Buddhism: the bodhisattva who defers final rest until all beings are free, emptiness as the deepest teaching, and skillful means that let the dharma take a thousand local forms.
DeitiesCosmic buddhas and bodhisattvas venerated — not creator gods
Founded100 CE · India, spreading north and east
AfterlifeRebirth, until awakening — deferred by the compassionate
TextsHeart Sūtra · Lotus Sūtra · Diamond Sūtra
The map
Mahāyāna’s corner of it — solid lines are descent; dotted lines are resemblance only, ideas held in common across unrelated faiths. Click a node to recenter; ✕ returns here. All 171 faiths →
c. 1500 BCE Vedic Religion c. 480 BCE Buddhism 100 CE Mahāyāna 400 CE Pure Land 520 CE Zen 1253 CE Nichiren Buddhism
The bodhisattva stays until all beings are free.
The vow that defines the Great Vehicle: awakening deferred out of compassion.
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Emptiness runs all the way down.
Shunyata — all things, nirvana included, are empty of self-nature.
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Skillful means adapts the teaching.
Upaya: the dharma takes whatever form actually liberates the person in front of it.
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The bodhisattva vow.
Beings are numberless; I vow to free them all. The most self-defeating promise ever formalized — taken knowingly, as the engine of the path.
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