Hinduism and Buddhism, an Historical Sketch, Vol. 2

Before there was modern Western scholarship on Buddhism, there was Charles Eliot. This second volume of his monumental history tackles the most transformative movement in Buddhist thought: Mahayana, the Great Vehicle that redefined what it meant to seek enlightenment. Eliot traces Mahayana's emergence not as a smooth theological evolution but as a revolutionary current that broke against early Buddhism's conservatism, offering salvation through compassion rather than solitary attainment. He guides readers through the movement's defining innovations: the worship of Bodhisattvas who postpone their own nirvana to save all beings, the rise of new scriptures that expanded the Buddhist canon, and metaphysical doctrines that reimagined the nature of reality itself. Written in 1921, this remains one of the few early Western attempts to understand Mahayana on its own terms rather than as a deviation from Theravada orthodoxy. For anyone seeking to understand how Buddhism became the compassionate, expansive tradition that would eventually sweep across East Asia, this volume is essential reading.