Mahayana Definition & Meaning

Origin of Mahayana

Sanskrit Mahāyānam greater vehicle (as contrasted with Hīnayānam lesser vehicle Hinayana) mahā- great meg- in Indo-European roots yānam vehicle ei- in Indo-European roots

From American Heritage Dictionary of the English Language, 5th Edition

The Mahayana systems are the union of Buddha's teaching with the forms of the Brahman philosophy.
And as the Mahavastu was a standard work of a particular sect, or rather school, called the Maha-sanghikas, it has thus preserved for us the theory of the Buddha as held outside the followers of the canon, by those whose views developed, in after centuries, into the Mahayana or modern form of Buddhism in India.
The latter, in Sanskrit, is the earliest exposition we have of the later Mahayana doctrine.
We have now also the text of the Prajna Paramita, a later treatise on the Mahayana system, which in time entirely replaced in India the original doctrines.
Thus in Buddhism the presuppositions which Buddha uncritically took over work out their logical results in the Mahayana, so that great sects calling themselves " Buddhist " affirm what the Master denied and deny what he taught.

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