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Mahayana
One of the three major Buddhist traditions. It arose in the 1st cent. AD and is widely followed today in China, Korea, and Japan, and Tibet. Mahayanists distinguish themselves from the more conservative Theravada Buddhists of Sri Lanka, Burma, Thailand, Laos, and Cambodia. Whereas the Theravadins view the historical Buddha as a (merely) human teacher of the truth, Mahayanists see him as an earthly manifestation of a celestial Buddha. Mahayanists revere bodhisattvas, key figures in universal salvation. Compassion, the chief virtue of the bodhisattva, is valued as highly as wisdom, the virtue emphasized by the ancient Buddhists. Within Mahayana Buddhism, some branches emphasize esoteric practices (e.g., Shingon, Tibetan Buddhism). See also Kegon, Nichiren Buddhism, Pure Land Buddhism, Tiantai, Zen.


Mahican
Algonquian-speaking Indian people of the upper Hudson River Valley above the Catskill Mtns. The Mahican consisted of five major divisions governed by hereditary sachems (chiefs) assisted by elected counselors. They lived in strongholds of 20-30 houses situated on hills or in woodlands. In 1664 they were forced by the Mohawk to move to what is now Stockbridge, Mass., where they became known as the Stockbridge Indians. Later they moved to Wisconsin, where they now number about 1,000. J. F. Cooper drew a romanticized portrait of the declining Mahican in The Last of the Mohicans (1826).


Maracaibo
City (pop., 1990: 1,250,000), NW Venezuela, situated on the channel connecting Lake Maracaibo with the Gulf of Venezuela. It is Venezuela's second-largest city. Founded in 1571 as Nueva Zamora, it became a center for inland trade after Gibraltar, at the head of the lake, was destroyed in 1669. It changed hands several times during Venezuela's struggle for independence from Spain. Within a decade of the discovery of oil in 1917, it became the oil metropolis of Venezuela and S. America.


Mataram
Historic kingdom, Java. Originally a vassal state of Pajang, it became powerful under Senapati, who became its first king in the late 16th cent. Its territory expanded in the early 17th cent., but the kingdom later began to decline. In the mid-18th cent. it lost both power and territory to the Dutch E. India Co., and was a vassal state of the company by 1749. Wars of succession in 1755 led to its division into the regions of Surakarta and Yogyakarta.

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