Mahayana literally means the great vehicle.
This is how we should understand it:
among the followers of Buddha, during his life time,
as in fact also now
people differ in their motivations
for wanting to practice his teaching.
And if we look at that we'll see that really there are two
principle approaches, motivated by two
particular motivations.
For some people, for some of Buddha's immediate disciples
and continuing in the following centuries also, the principal
point to follow Buddha's teachings was to find a way
to end their own personal suffering.
And indeed they can, they can do that.
That is possible.
When one sees the clinging to self is the source of
suffering and that self is fictional, then one develops a
kind of spaciousness and a freedom,
that enables one to transcend the kind of wheel of
of birth and death, of suffering.
But there are others who considered this question of
why to follow the dharma,
why to practice the Buddhas teachings,
for whom the principle thing was the example set by the
Buddha himself which, was that his awakening,
his enlightenment so to speak,
was not merely a matter of his own
personal liberation, but actually a way of him entering
into this extraordinary ability
to show others the way out.
In other words,
Buddha's motivation itself was supreme compassion
for the benefit of all beings.
And his awakening, his enlightenment, was in fact becoming
that source of liberation and freedom from suffering
for all beings.
So those followers who considered Buddha's example primary,
they had this kind of wider, this more spacious,
this more profound and vast motivation
to become a Buddha
for the sake of all others.
In short they're motivated by bodhichitt,
the impulse to become enlightened for others.
And whoever understood and practiced Buddhas teaching
that way, consequently we say they entered into the
great vehicle.
Whereas those whose motivation was restricted only to their
own individual liberation, we term followers of the
Sravaka vehicle, the the disciples,
the disciples vehicle.
Now of course people can move from the Sravaka vehicle
to the Mahayana if the great compassion awakens in them,
they will necessarily then become followers of the Mahayana.
But the point is in Buddha's teachings both the approaches
are present.
And what we call the Mahayana teaching was that which
it was originally presented by Buddha to those disciples
who understood the teaching from that great compassion
point of view and also in terms of
their understanding
of the nature of reality as presented by Buddha,
understood it in a more complete way than the followers of
Sravakayana for whom only the emptiness
simply signified the absence of a personal self.
Whereas for those who entered into the Mahayana
Buddha's teachings on emptiness signified that
all phenomena, outer and inner, small and great,
mental and physical, all in fact lack inherent nature
or intrinsic essence.
This is the teaching of the great emptiness which is the
the view expressed in the Mahayana teachings
originally represented by Buddha.
So that is, so Mahayana is profounder in it's wisdom
than the Sravaka vehicle, and it's more extensive
in it's compassion.
If we were to elaborate on this, one could point out
other distinctive features of the Mahayana,
but that may be sufficient.