There is a Tibetan saying that just as every valley has its own language … (ibid, p. 1)
每個山谷都有它的語言
… the expression ‘Mahayana’ (or its equivalent in the local language) has been used by Buddhists from perhaps as early as the first century BCE to the present day, (ibid, p. 2)
So the critique of the essentialist fallacy was always an integral part of Buddhist philosophy and spiritual practice, although not all Buddhist traditions went as far as the Madhyamika in its application. (ibid, pp. 2-3)
It is not a sect or school but rather perhaps a spiritual movement (or, as Jan Nattier insists below, a vocation) which initially gained its identity not by a definition but by distinguishing itself from altern- ative spiritual movements or tendencies. （ibid, p. 3)
Mahayana was, moreover, not a sudden phenomenon with a readily identifiable and unitary geographical or conceptual origin, it was not a planned movement spearheaded by a committee of geniuses (or fanatics). It developed over a number of centuries as an alternative and distinctive view of what Buddhism and the concern of some or perhaps even all Buddhists should ultimately be. Its growth and develop- ment in the early centuries was marked by, and from our perspective is all but identical with, the evolution of a new and distinctive canonical literature, the Mahayana sutras. (ibid, p. 3)
In the centuries after the death of the Buddha there arose a number of doctrinal schools and monastic sects.3 The latter are primarily identified through their own Vinayas, or monastic codes. (ibid, p. 3)
藉戒律而分派別 （Q: 大乘小乘，戒律有何差別？）
