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Still, compared with Mahayana and Hinayana Buddhism in Nepal and Bihar, the Tibetan tradition is a fairly new phenomenon.

Let us take, first of all, the schools of the Hinayana, or Minor Vehicle, which, as we should expect, is not extensively represented in Japan.

There can be no doubt that the form in which it became known at the outset was the Hinayana, or Exoteric, as distinguished from the Mahayana, or Esoteric.

It must be remembered that this school, though nominally belonging to the Hinayana, came to be something very different from the Theravâda of Ceylon.

He at first favoured the Hinayana but subsequently went over to the Mahayana, being moved in part by the exhortations of Hsüan Chuang.