Amitabha sects consider Nagarjuna as their first Patriarch. Amitabha scriptures were known to China since the 2nd century, but the Pure Land School which taught the worship of Amitabha was founded by Hui-yuan and some of its most important teachers began as students of San-lun-zong, the Three Treatise School and then became Amitabhaists. The Amitabha sects hold the doctrine of salvation by faith in Amitabha and their goal is the attainment of his paradise (Sukhavati) by his grace. Nagarjuna's Suhrllekha distinctly countenances Amitabha cult.
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Some materials referred:
T.R.V.Murti, The Central Philosophy of Buddhism, London, Allen and Unwin, 1955.
K.N. Jayatilleke, Early Buddhist Theory of Knowledge, London, Allen and Unwin, 1963.
Hsueh-li Cheng, Nagarjuna's Twelve Gate Treatise, Boston, D. Reidel Publishing Company, 1982.
Frederick J. Streng, Emptiness: A Study in Religious Meaning, New York, Abingdon, 1967.
Richard Robinson, Early Madhyamika in India and China, University of Wiscosin-Madison Press, 1967.
Hajime Nakamura, Buddhist Logic Expounded by Means of Symbolic Logic, Jounal of Indian and Buddhist Studies, No 7, 1958.

Buddhist relations with Brahmanism and Hinduism
Cheng Jianhua
In December 1999, scholars of Indology from different parts of the world (China, Indian, Belgium and the United States) met in New Delhi: at issue lay their different approaches to the Buddhist relations with Brahmanism and Hinduism. One might assume that the differences may be explained by either Buddhism was an anti-ritualistic tendency of Vedic origin or an independent religion of different tradition: the reality is more complex, for some of them, especially, Indians have expressed with a strong mind of faith of religion, whereas other scholars would demonstrate only from the theoretical and historical point of view, and still others face major problem in their misinterpretations of the prehistoric study. The existence alone of those world scholars argues for the complexity of the issue.
For over four decades, these differences in approaches have caused many problems in the issue of academic study of religion and subsequently much literature written in different languages (English, Chinese, Hindi, Japanese, French and German) has been produced on these particular issues. In the foreword of the work of 2500 Years of Buddhism (New Delhi, 1956), the most prominent Indian scholar, Dr. S. Radhakrishnan has described Buddhism as: an offshoot of the more ancient faith of the Hindus, perhaps a schism or a heresy. Since the Brahmanical standpoint has possessed India's scholastic field for about a millennium, it is no doubt and quiet certain that Indian scholars, such as Dr. S. Radhakrishnan, have sought to sum up the history of Buddhism in India largely from this particular standpoint.
The conflict between Buddhism and Brahmanism, the transformation of the Buddhist heritage in India and the disappearance of Buddhism as a living faith from Indian soil during the early medieval centuries, were largely responsible for the growth of misconception on ancient Indian civilization and for the propagation of the Brahmanical standpoint during the medieval through modern times. Nevertheless, Buddhism should be studied from the Buddhist standpoint and its relations with Brahmanism and Hinduism should be studied from the historical standpoint and the scientific line. In this paper, I will focus on my disagreement with those current theories of the origin of Buddhism, of its early relation with Brahmanism and of its position with regard to Hinduism.

II. The origin of Buddhism
It has been told that in India it is a fashion to speak and to write: Buddhism is a sect of Hinduism, Buddha was a Hindu, and Hinduism is so catholic as to tolerate and worship a heretical and anti-Vedic teacher like the Buddha. This comfortable theory has been so thoroughly propagated in the Indian soil that it will take a long years for scholars and historians to sweep away its illu

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