MythicBodhisattva vow: to delay nirvana until all beings are liberated
UBSalem missionary commission: to carry the gospel to every people
Salem missionary commission: to carry the gospel to every people = Bodhisattva vow: to delay nirvana until all beings are liberated
The Connection
The Mahayana Bodhisattva ideal, formalized between 100 BCE and 200 CE, centers on the vow of an enlightened being to postpone final liberation until every sentient being has been awakened. This is the same structure as the Salem missionary commission the UB describes: spiritually advanced individuals commissioned to travel into every culture and carry the one-God teaching until it has reached all peoples. Both traditions encode the principle that spiritual attainment is not a private achievement but a communal responsibility.
UB Citation
UB 93:7.1, 94:0.1
Academic Source
Williams, Mahayana Buddhism (1989); Harrison, "The Earliest Mahayana" (1987)
Historical Evidence(Suggestive evidence)
Paul Williams' Mahayana Buddhism documents the Bodhisattva vow as the central ethical innovation of Mahayana over earlier Theravada practice. Paul Harrison traced the earliest Mahayana texts to Central Asia (the Gandhari sources), in the same cultural corridor where Salem-missionary influence would have reached. The parallel is structural rather than derivative: an ethic of universal commission, in which personal spiritual attainment is held in trust for the community rather than consumed privately.
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