Such a statement enables us to understand the remark which he makes elsewhere that the same school may belong to the Hinayana and Mahayana in different places, for, whatever may be meant by wisdom which aims at obliterating the difference between subject and object, it is clearly not out of sympathy with Yogacara doctrines.  In another place where he describes the curriculum followed by monks he says that they learn the Yogacarya-sastra first and then eight compositions of Asanga and Vasubandhu.  Among the works prescribed for logic is the Nyayadvara-sastra attributed to Nagarjuna.  The monk should learn not only the Abhidharma of the Sarvastivadins but also the Agamas, equivalent to the Sutra-pitaka.  So the study of the sutras and the works of Asanga and Vasubandhu is approved by a Sarvastivadin.

The Sautrantikas,[234] though accounted Hinayanists, mark a step in the direction of the Mahayana.  The founder of the school was Kumaralabdha, mentioned above.  In their estimation of scripture they reversed the views of the Vaibhashikas, for they rejected the Abhidharma and accepted only the sutras, arguing that the Abhidharma was practically an extract from them.  As literary criticism this is correct, if it means that the more ancient sutras are older than the oldest Abhidharma books.  But the indiscriminate acceptance of sutras led to a creed in which the supernatural played a larger part.  The Sautrantikas not only ascribed superhuman powers to the Buddha, but believed in the doctrine of three bodies.  In philosophy, though they were realists, they held that external objects are not perceived directly but that their existence is inferred.[235]

Something has already been said of the two other schools, both of which denied the reality of the external world.  The differences between them were concerned with metaphysics rather than theology and led to no popular controversies.

Up to this point the history of Indian Buddhism has proved singularly nebulous.  The most important dates are a matter of argument, the chief personages half mythical.  But when the records of the Chinese pilgrims commence we are in touch with something more solid.  They record dates and facts, though we must regret that they only repeat what they heard and make no attempt to criticize Indian traditions or even to weave them into a connected chronicle.

Fa-Hsien, the first of these interesting men, left China in 399 and resided in India from 405 to 411, spending three years at Pataliputra and two at Tamralipti.  He visited the Panjab, Hindustan and Bengal and his narrative leaves the impression that all these were in the main Buddhist countries:  of the Deccan which he did not visit he heard that its inhabitants were barbarous and not Buddhists, though it contained some Buddhist shrines.  Of the Middle Kingdom (which according to his reckoning begins with Muttra) he says that the people are free and happy and neither kill any living creature nor drink intoxicating liquor.[236]