Specially characteristic of Mahayanist Buddhism are the Vaipulya[120] sutras, that is sutras of great extension or development.  These works, of which the Lotus is an example, follow the same scheme as the older sutras but are of wider scope and on a much larger scale, for they often consist of twenty or more chapters.  They usually attempt to give a general exposition of the whole Dharma, or at least of some aspect of it which is extolled as sufficient for the right conduct of life.  The chief speaker is usually the Buddha, who is introduced as teaching on the Vulture Peak, or some other well-known locality, and surrounded by a great assemblage many of whom are superhuman beings.  The occasion of the discourse is commonly signalized by his sending forth rays of light which illuminate the universe until the scene includes other worlds.  As early as the Anguttara Nikaya[121] we find references to the danger of a taste for ornate and poetic sutras and these compositions seem to be the outcome of that taste.  The literary ideas and methods which produced them are illustrated by the Sutralankara of Asvaghosha, a collection of edifying tales, many of which use the materials supplied by the Pali Nikayas and Vinaya but present them in a more effective and artistic form.  It was thought a pious task to amplify and embellish the simple narratives handed down by tradition.

The Mahayanist scriptures are composed in Sanskrit not in Pali, but it is only rarely—­for instance in the works of Asvaghosha—­that Buddhist Sanskrit conforms to the rules of the classical language.  Usually the words deviate from this standard both in form and meaning and often suggest that the text as we have it is a Sanskritized version of an older work in some popular dialect, brought into partial conformity with literary usage.  In the poetical portions, this process of sanskritization encountered greater difficulties than in prose, because metre and prosody often refused to admit the changes required by grammar, so that this poetical dialect cannot be called either Sanskrit, Pali or Magadhi but remains a mixture of learned and popular speech.  But Sanskrit did not become a sacred language for the Mahayanists like Latin for Roman Catholics.  It is rather Pali which has assumed this position among the Hinayanists, for Burmese and Sinhalese translations of the Pitakas acquired no authority.  But in the north the principle[122] that every man might read the Buddha’s word in his own vernacular was usually respected:  and the populations of Central Asia, the Chinese, the Tibetans, and the Mongols translated the scriptures into their own languages without attaching any superstitious importance to the original words, unless they were Dharanis or spells.