“The genuine Arhat/Elders’ School is like a great “banyan tree” (Mahānigrodha) with a strong root and spread leaves, while the other seventeen schools that branched out from the Elders’ School or the Great School are like “thorns” (Kantaka) that grew from the tree trunk.”
“Today, when we talk about a school (Nikāya), we may mean a philosophical school or a Dharma lineage, but it was not originally understood in that way. It primarily referred to students who followed the same master. That was the original meaning of nikāya.”
Summary Introduction
In Day Five of the Mar-Ngog teachings, the 17th Gyalwang Karmapa, Ogyen Trinley Dorje continues his groundbreaking and detailed research in Tibetan for the first time in the history of Tibetan Buddhism on the original split into the early Buddhist schools.
Focusing first on the account preserved in the Southern transmission, especially the Sri Lankan Theravāda historical sources, and then turning to the later development of the various sub-schools.
As the Karmapa discussed before, the principal Southern sources discussed are the Dīpavaṃsa, the Mahāvaṃsa, and the Samantapāsādikā, the Vinaya commentary. These works present the history of the early Buddhist schools from the perspective of the Sri Lankan Mahāvihāra tradition. They describe the emergence of the Mahāsāṃghika and Sthaviravāda traditions, the development of the eighteen schools, and the disputes that arose concerning the scriptures, Vinaya, Abhidharma, and language.
The Sri Lankan sources are strongly critical of the Mahāsāṃghikas. They accuse them of reorganising or rewriting parts of the scriptures, misunderstanding the distinction between provisional and definitive teachings, altering passages of the Sūtras and Vinaya, composing new texts, and changing grammatical forms and linguistic usage. Although these accounts clearly reflect the sectarian standpoint of the Mahāvihāra tradition, they are important because they suggest that the early divisions within the Buddhist Saṅgha were connected with more than a single doctrinal controversy.
Contemporary scholarship generally considers differences in the practice and interpretation of the Vinaya to have been the principal cause of the original division of the Saṅgha. At the same time, the historical accounts indicate that disputes concerning the Sūtras, Abhidharma, language, and textual transmission also contributed to the gradual emergence of distinct Buddhist communities.
A further important feature of the Southern account is the description of the Third Council, traditionally said to have taken place during the reign of Emperor Aśoka under the leadership of Moggaliputta Tissa.
The Karmapa explained that the Sri Lankan histories describe a period in which non-Buddhists had entered the Saṅgha disguised as monks due the abundance of food and wealth in those communities provided by Emperor Aśoka, disturbing both the Vinaya discipline and the harmony of the community.
Moggaliputta Tissa is said to have purified the Saṅgha, identified the true monks as those who followed the Vibhajyavāda, or “teaching of distinction,” and presided over a council of one thousand arhats.
The Kathāvatthu, or “Points of Debate/Controversy,” is traditionally associated with Moggaliputta Tissa and this council. However, modern scholars have observed that the text contains discussions of schools and doctrinal positions that appear to have developed after Aśoka’s lifetime. This suggests that although an earlier core of the work may have existed at that time, the text in its present form was probably expanded over a considerably longer period.
The Karmapa then changed the discussion from the original division of the Saṅgha to the development of the sub-schools. The unified Saṅgha first divided into the Mahāsāṃghika and Sthaviravāda, and these in turn gradually developed into numerous further traditions. As Vinītadeva explains, differences of place, interpretation, and teachers eventually produced the eighteen schools.
In this context, the 17th Karmapa explained the meaning of the word “school” itself is important. The Pali term nikāya originally referred primarily to a group or collection, particularly a community of students following the lineage of a particular teacher, rather than to a fully developed philosophical system of tenets. Only gradually did these communities become associated with distinct doctrinal positions and philosophical views.
The Northern transmission, particularly Vasumitra’s Samayabhedoparacanacakra (Wheel Distinguishing the Differences Between Scriptural Traditions), provides another account of this process. According to this tradition, the Mahāsāṃghika was the first of the two original schools to divide into several sub-schools, including the Ekavyāvahārika, Lokottaravāda, Kukkuṭika, Bahuśrutīya, Prajñaptivāda, and the schools associated with the Caitika traditions of southern India.
Taken together, these accounts show that the emergence of the early Buddhist schools was not a single event caused by one doctrinal disagreement. Rather, it was a gradual historical process shaped by differences in Vinaya practice, textual interpretation, geographical location, teachers, lineages, language, and doctrinal development.
Personal Observations: Human greed is never-ending and the 17th Karmapa’s outstanding act of a new Tibetan-language History of Buddhism in Asia
From my own perspective, this teaching showed that the original Buddhist community was split into two main groups by men, one of whom saw themselves as keeping the vows and precepts, the other who were greater in number but seen as degenerate in their conduct and actions. That as the community grew wealthier and food and shelter became easier, more “impostor” monks entered the community attracted to the easy access to resources, rather than having to work as a layperson. This was interesting too. One could say that not much has changed in relation to that even today! The amount of monastics I see in Bodh Gaya and other “pilgrimage places” in fancy cafes and restaurants meant for laypeople, quaffing cappuccinos and eating freshly slaughtered chicken steaks, momos and burgers is beyond belief!
It is far removed from the Buddhist mendicant monks of Shakyamuni Buddha’s times. No wonder the monastic community has become even more degenerate. It seems as if laypeople are now the best examples of Buddhist scholars, translators and practitioners, because they do it by choice and not out of being put into a monastery by their family, or wanting an “easy life”!
In any case, I learnt so much from listening to these teachings, and realised that the 17th Karmapa is creating a History of Buddhism in India, China, Tibet and Asia in Tibetan that has never been done before by any lineage head.
Je Tāranātha, the Jonang and Shangpa Kagyu and Kālacakra master, wrote a History of Buddhism in India but nothing like the scale and breadth of the 17th Karmapa’s masterpiece in Tibetan.
Not only that, it appears to be a self-initiated and led effort, using original sources in Pali, Sanskrit, Tibetan, Chinese and using contemporary research, standards and methods too. Such a remarkable and extraordinary act from someone who has faced so many difficult challenges and also not much support from those senior to him, who should have been there for him!
Here is a summary infographic of the main key points of the Day Five teaching, which I created with AI based on my transcript below. For more detailed infographics, as well as the slides created by the 17th Karmapa himself, see below too.
17th Karmapa Mar-Ngog Summer Teachings
TRANSCRIPT DAY FIVE
” The great banyan tree and the difference of thorns”, account of Masters of the Mahāvihāra school of the Southern transmission, associated with Vibhajyavāda Buddhism
Today, we will continue discussing the explanation of the original split into schools according to the Pali tradition of the Southern transmission. We are continuing from where we left off the other day. Last time we spoke about what was discussed in the Vinaya, and now we will discuss what is said in the historical texts about the development of the schools.
There is the old Sri Lankan history called the Dīpavaṃsa, particularly its fifth chapter, as well as the fifth chapter of the Mahāvaṃsa and the background stories in the debates commentary, Kathāvatthu.
These describe the origins of the Mahāsāṃghika school. They also describe the development of the eighteen schools and give details about the splits into other schools. Moreover, they criticize the Mahāsāṃghikas severely for rewriting and changing the scriptures, and they say that they made up all sorts of things. These points are recorded in the historical documents.
The historical texts compare the Mahāsāṃghika and the Sthaviras/Elders’ and indicate that:
“The genuine Arhat/Elders’ School is like a great “banyan tree” (Mahānigrodha) with a strong root and spread leaves, while the other seventeen schools that branched out from the Elders’ School or the Great School are like “thorns” (Kantaka) that grew from the tree trunk.”
In addition, the “School of Detailed Explanation” (Vibhajyavādin) that was inherited by the great monasteries of the Southern Buddhist tradition emphasized the importance of preserving the accurate contents of the First, Second, and Third Councils flawlessly.
They compare the Sthaviravada school to a great tree with roots and spreading limbs. Then they describe the other schools that split off from the Sthaviras as being like growths on a tree, basically denigrating or demeaning them.
Not only that, these texts were basically prepared by the masters of the Mahāvihāra school of the Southern transmission, associated with Vibhajyavāda Buddhism. They say that the Vibhajyavāda school alone preserves the contents of the Buddha’s teaching without mistake and correctly upholds the First, Second, and Third Councils. That is the Mahāvihāra school of the Southern transmission. They are very insistent that they are the ones who uphold the unbroken teaching.
Sri Lankan criticism of the Mahāsāṃghikas [the monk community] as “re-writing/tampering with the teachings” in the Dīpavaṃsa
When we look at the old Sri Lankan histories, there is criticism of the Mahāsāṃghikas for rewriting the three Piṭakas.
So there is a question: how did the Mahāsāṃghikas rearrange the texts? This is described in the Dīpavaṃsa, where they give an account of the Great Council, or Mahāsāṃghika Council.
In the Sri Lankan account, they call the Mahāsāṃghikas the Bikhshu [monk] saṅgha and say that they disrupted the actual Second Council. I thought I would briefly introduce how this is described in the Dīpavaṃsa.
“32-33. The Mahāsāṃghika was criticized, saying, “The Tripitaka has been tampered with.” “The Mahāsāṃghika monks destroyed the true council and conducted another council, and they scattered the scriptures in one place, destroying the Five Nikāyas and the original intent of the Vinaya.”
In the thirty-second and thirty-third stanzas, it says that the Mahāsāṃghika Saṅgha, the monks, disrupted the actual Council and held a different one. They did not accept the Second Council; instead, they held a separate council called the Great Saṅgha Council, with ten thousand bhikkhus and rearranged the scriptures into sections. For example, there were the five Nikāyas, collections of sūtras, and the original form and intent of the Saṅgha. The account says that they destroyed these arrangements of texts.
The thirty-fourth and thirty-fifth stanzas then explain the criticisms made of the Mahāsāṃghikas:
“The members of the Mahāsāṃghika Saṅgha do not understand which teachings of the Buddha were provisional and which are not. They also do not understand what was taught explicitly and what was taught implicitly. Due to this, they incorrectly interpret the Buddha’s indirect teachings based only on the Buddha’s indirect words, and clinging to mere words, they have destroyed many correct intended meanings.”
Thus, according to this criticism, they tangled up the words and destroyed much of the true meaning of the teachings.
Another criticism, in the thirty-sixth stanza:
” The bhikkhus of the Mahāsāṃghika discarded profound passages from the sūtras and Vinaya, and wrote new sūtras and other texts that resembled the sūtras and Vinaya but were fabricated by themselves.”
In the thirty-seventh stanza, it says:
“The Mahāsāṃghikas They discarded and abandoned several scriptures, including the Parivāra of the Vinaya, six treatises on Abhidharma, the path of Patisambhida, Niddesa, and some parts of the Jataka, and subsequently composed new works on Dharma.”
In the thirty-eighth stanza, it says that:
“38. they discarded the original grammar of words, gender, abbreviations, and so forth, and changed these all haphazardly.”
I think the basic point is that they used language that was not the same as that used by the Sthaviravadas; in other words, it was mixed with local dialects, so the grammar was somewhat different. For this reason, the account says that they did whatever they wanted with the grammar of the texts.
Historical Accounts suggest the Original Split was not just about the Vinaya but also about disputes over the texts, Sutras, language
If we look at the way the Sthaviravadas criticize the Mahāsāṃghikas in this passage, basically the reason for the original split into schools was the Vinaya. Most contemporary scholars say that the primary cause of the split into schools concerned the practice of the Vinaya, not philosophical points. Because of differences in the practice of the Vinaya, the original split occurred, and this is generally accepted by researchers. So it probably is the case that the primary cause of the split into schools was the Vinaya.
But if we look at the events described above, it was not just the Vinaya. There were also disputes over the Abhidharma, the sūtras, and language, and these were also related to the original split into schools. For that reason, many different conditions and situations came together: primarily differences in the practice of the Vinaya, but also issues regarding the sūtras, the Abhidharma, language, and other matters.
The Third Council and the Southern Sri Lankan Transmission: Vibhajyavāda school and the influence of the Kathāvatthu
Next, I would like to speak about the third account. I have spoken about this before. This concerns the Vibhajyavāda school and the influence of the debates commentary/Kathāvatthu. The account of the Southern transmission says that there was a Third Council, and this is related to the split into schools.
When we talk about the Third Council here, we are not speaking about the same Third Council that we know in the Tibetan tradition, the account connected with Kaniṣka. This is an account of the Third Council according to the Sri Lankan histories.
These Sri Lankan histories of the Third Council are found in the Dīpavaṃsa and the Mahāvaṃsa, as well as in the Samantapāsādikā, the Vinaya commentary. It appears only in the scriptures of the Sri Lankan Theravāda school and is not mentioned in the scriptures of any other school. For this reason, it is a council known only in the Sri Lankan Theravāda tradition and is not clearly explained in any other tradition.
The difference between King Kāḷāśoka (Black Ashoka) and Dharma King Aśoka
The Sri Lankan histories say that:
“According to the Theravada tradition, the “Splitting of the Fundamental Sects” is said to have a great connection with the “Third Council” that occurred during the reign of Emperor Ashoka. The “Third Council” is a way of speaking in the traditions of Sinhalese scriptures such as the <Island Lineage> and the <Mahavamsa> (<Samantapasadika>) and is not clear in the texts of other sects, only in the tradition of the Sinhalese Elders’ School.”
The Second Council was held about one hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, during the reign of King Kāḷāśoka.
Later, 218 years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, Dharma King Aśoka ascended to the throne, with his support, Moggaliputta Tissa led the Saṅgha in holding the Third Council.
However, in the Northern transmission we have Vasumitra’s The Wheel Treatise Distinguishing the Differences Between Scriptural Traditions, which says that Aśoka appeared only one hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. This is a little different from the explanation in the Southern transmission. The Treatise also does not mention that a Third Council was held.
2. ཆོས་རྒྱལ་མྱ་ངན་མེད། (Aśoka / Maurya Aśoka) ནི་རྨ་བྱ་རྒྱལ་རབས་སུ་གཏོགས་ཤིང༌། སངས་རྒྱས་མྱ་ངན་ལས་འདས་ནས་ལོ་200ལྷག་གི་རྗེས་སུ་བྱུང་། རྒྱ་གར་གྱི་རྒྱལ་ཁབ་ཕལ་མོ་ཆེ་གཅིག་གྱུར་མཛད་པའི་རྒྱལ་པོ་ཆེན་པོ་ཞིག་ཡིན་ལ བཀའ་བསྡུ་གསུམ་པའི་སྦྱིན་བདག་མཛད་ཅིང༌།
ཡོངས་སུ་གྲགས་པའི་མྱ་ངན་མེད་ཀྱི་རྡོ་རིང་ཡི་གེ་བཞེངས་མཁན་དེ་ཡིན།
One important point is that we need to distinguish Kāḷāśoka from Aśoka.
“1. Black Aśoka (Kālāśoka) belonged to the Śiśunāga dynasty and appeared more than 100 years after the Buddha’s passing. His main achievement was sponsoring the Second Buddhist Council.
2. King Aśoka (Aśoka / Maurya Aśoka) belonged to the Peacock dynasty and appeared more than 200 years after the Buddha’s passing. He was a great king who unified most of India and sponsored the Third Buddhist Council, as well as the famous Aśoka Pillar Inscriptions.”
In the past, many early Tibetan histories, as well as historians from other countries, treated Kāḷāśoka and Aśoka as the same person. For that reason, they had to assert that Aśoka sponsored the Second Council. They thought that Kāḷāśoka, who sponsored the Second Council, was the same as Aśoka.
Most contemporary research, however, clearly explains that Kāḷāśoka and Dharma King Aśoka were completely different people.
Many Tibetans have said that in the first part of his life he was called Kāḷāśoka, or Black Aśoka, because he had killed many people, and that after becoming Buddhist he was called Dharma King Aśoka.
But it is not a question of the first and second parts of one person’s life; they were completely different people.
Kāḷāśoka was a king who appeared around one hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa. Dharma King Aśoka, by contrast, was a king of the Maurya dynasty in the third century BCE, just over two hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa.
Kāḷāśoka was a king of the Śiśunāga dynasty and probably reigned in the fourth century BCE. One of his legacies is that he sponsored the Second Council.
The Dharma King Aśoka’s main legacies are that he united and reigned over most of the Indian subcontinent and erected the famous Aśokan pillars with their inscriptions. Likewise, according to the accounts of the Southern transmission, he was the sponsor of the Third Council.
“Disguised impostor monks and the cessation of confession”: Non-Buddhists disguised as monks and entering the Saṅgha for food and wealth
Next there is the issue of non-Buddhists disguising themselves and entering the Saṅgha.
According to the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa histories:
“Due to the great service rendered by Dharma King Aśoka to the Buddha’s teachings, the living conditions of the monastic community became affluent and prosperous. Consequently, many non-Buddhists and those attached to food and wealth entered the monastic community as ‘dwellers by stealth’ or “disguised monks” (Theeyasamvāsaka). That is those who do not possess valid ordination but assume the form of a monk. They mingled among the monks, spread erroneous views, and undermined the monastic discipline. As a result, in the city of Vaishali (Pātaliputra) at the Parakeet Grove (Kukkutārāma), the monks with pure discipline were unable to hold the monthly confession (Uposatha) for seven years.”
Many of these people came into the Saṅgha and, according to the account, damaged the Vinaya discipline and the harmony of the Saṅgha. At that time in Pāṭaliputra there was a monastery called Kukkuṭārāma, where many bhikkhus of pure discipline were unable to hold the uposatha/so-jong ceremony for more than seven years.
The Meaning of Vibhajyavāda and the Sri Lankan Buddhist community
In order to pacify the dispute in the Saṅgha, a master was called in Moggaliputta Tissa, with the support of King Ashoka, who gathered the monks and investigated their doctrinal positions. Those bhikkhus who said that the “Buddha taught by making distinctions” were regarded as true bhikkhus.
In order to determine who was a bhikkhu and who was not, those who said that the Buddha made distinctions when he spoke were regarded as true bhikkhus. Those who responded that the Buddha was either an eternalist or an annihilationist—that is, those who upheld non-Buddhist views—were expelled from the Saṅgha.
“The analysis of the situation reveals that the main cause of the conflict is the disagreement on the fundamental tenets of Buddhism, particularly the nature of reality, the self, and the concept of time. The followers of the “Vibhajjavadin” school, which advocates for a nuanced and detailed understanding of these concepts, are considered to be the true followers of the Buddha. In contrast, those who subscribe to more extreme views, such as the eternalism or nihilism, are seen as deviating from the true path of the Buddha. The conflict eventually reaches a climax when the “Vibhajjavadin” school, with the support of King Ashoka, successfully suppresses the other schools and establishes itself as the dominant force within the Buddhist community. This marks a significant turning point in the history of Buddhism, as it sets the stage for the development of the Theravada tradition, which is still practiced today in many countries of Southeast Asia.”
The meaning of the word Vibhajyavāda is that the nature of things, whatever it is, is not categorically one thing or the other. You cannot simply describe something categorically as one thing or not. If you say that it is categorically one thing, you cannot properly explain it. For example, when answering a question, taking a single position and saying that something is categorically one way is not enough. Instead, you need to make distinctions.
That is Vibhajyavāda: you need to make distinctions. You need to distinguish the relative from the ultimate truth when giving explanations. Unless you explain things in that way, you cannot directly talk about them.
For that reason, the Theravādins of Sri Lanka called themselves Vibhajyavādins. They distinguish the actual nature of things; that is, they examine the nature of things when they speak.
They are not saying that something is categorically one thing or the other. They do not speak categorically; instead, they make distinctions. For this reason, they call themselves Vibhajyavādins—those who make distinctions when they speak.
The Vibhajyavādins, the Theravādins of Sri Lanka, said that the other schools were not Vibhajyavādins. The reason for this is, for example, that the Sarvāstivāda says that the three times exist substantially, and so forth.
There is something similar here to the distinctions we find in Middle Way texts when we speak about how other schools fall into extremes. So it is similar in that way.
The Kathāvatthu (the Basis of Debate/Controversies) and the Third Council: Sri Lankan texts only
After Moggaliputta Tissa had cleansed the Saṅgha and expelled the false monks, he wrote the Basis of Controversies/Kathāvatthu [transcriber’s note: I have changed this translation to “Basis of Controversies” rather than Debate Commentary used by the oral interpreter] to refute the wrong views of other schools. This is a very famous text that he wrote.
After he wrote it, he summoned a thousand arhats together, and they held what is called a Dharma Council that lasted for nine months. They once again recompiled the sūtras. This is what is called the Third Council.
This event is described only in the Theravāda texts from Sri Lanka. The texts of other schools do not mention it at all. For this reason, even if a Third Council was held, it was not a council accepted by all Buddhists. It was basically an internal council of the Sthavira/Elders tradition. This is also what contemporary researchers say.
Contemporary Research on the Date of the Kathāvatthu: appeared after the reign of King Aśoka and not from the time of the Third Council
Another result of contemporary research is that the Kathāvatthu/Basis of Sayings attributed to Moggaliputta Tissa during the time of Aśoka, refutes 217 different positions and views. Many of these are actually views of schools that appeared in southern India after the reign of King Aśoka. For example, the views of Andhra schools such as the Pūrvaśaila and Aparaśaila appear in that text.
For this reason, the Kathāvatthu that we have now probably does not date entirely from the time of the Third Council. At least part of its present form must have developed about a hundred years after King Aśoka, in the latter part of the second century BCE or perhaps even later.
In any case, the basic part, or seed of it may have been written by Moggaliputta Tissa, but additions continued until the end of the second century BCE or even later. That is when the present-day form of the Kathāvatthu dates from. So it is not correct to say that the entire text appeared at the time of Aśoka.
If the Kathāvatthu in its present form is taken as representing the Third Council, then the Third Council could only have been held in the second century BCE. It could not have been held earlier than that.
Development of the Sub-Schools: when the two Original Schools split into schools
Next, I would like to speak about the development of the sub-schools. We have spoken a lot about the original split into schools, and it might seem as though there is no end to this topic. I think we had better leave the original split into schools there and now speak about the development of the sub-schools.
When we talk about the development of the sub-schools, we are speaking about the two original schools: the Sthavira and the Mahāsāṃghika. First the Saṅgha was unified, and then it split into these two schools.
After the split into these two schools, within each of the original schools there were more and more people who held the lineage and more followers. As they expanded in this way, they gradually broke into different groups. As it says in the text by Vinītadeva in the Tengyur, the Summary of the Different Schools: from differences of place, meaning, and teachers, in the end there were eighteen schools.
Basically, because of differences of place, meaning, and teachers, they split into many different schools. Those are what we call the sub-schools: the two original schools splitting into many other schools.
What “School” (Nikāya) Originally Meant: following the same master
Before we speak about these sub-schools, we need to have a proper understanding of what we mean by the word ‘school.’ In Pali, the word is nikāya. Nikāya can mean a collection, compendium, section, or group. Originally, the word meant a group of students who followed the same master.
It did not mean what it came to mean later. Today, when we talk about a school, we may mean a philosophical tenet, school or a Dharma lineage, but it was not originally understood in that way. It primarily referred to students who followed the same master. That was the original meaning of nikāya.
For example, in Pali there are the five Nikāyas, corresponding to the five Āgamas in Sanskrit. One is the Dīgha Nikāya, translated as the Long Discourses. Then there is the Majjhima Nikāya, translated as the Middle-Length Discourses.
At this point, nikāya means a section of scriptures organized by length or content. It is a section of the scriptures. Likewise, for the Sthaviras, when the word nikāya entered the name of a school, it was originally understood as the gathering of those who held the lineage of a particular master—the lineage holders or students. So at that time it primarily referred to a lineage of vows. It was not about philosophical doctrine.
Ācāryavāda as schools that “discarded the true meaning of the Buddha” and the Later Meaning of “School”
Later, however, a Sanskrit term appeared: ācāryavāda. Ācārya, as you all know, means a master or teacher. Vāda means a proponent or a position.
For example, Theravāda means the proponents of the elders, or the school of the elders.
In the Dīpavaṃsa and Mahāvaṃsa, the word ācāryavāda has a rather deprecatory or denigrating meaning. It is used for schools said to have discarded the true Dharma taught by the Buddha and instead followed the views of a particular master. That is what they called an ācāryavāda: they did not accept the Buddha’s words, but instead followed the views of a certain master. That is how the word is used there, basically as a deprecatory or critical term.
Later historians used the word ācāryavāda, ‘proponents of the teachers,’ to refer to the sub-schools that broke off from the original Buddhist Saṅgha. In the beginning, a school referred to the group around a particular master: the people who followed that master. There was no clearly defined doctrinal form at first. Gradually, students began to hold the tenets or positions upheld by the master they followed.
From that time, the word nikāya, or school, began to acquire its modern sense of different philosophical schools. These days, that is how we tend to understand it: as a different philosophical school or set of tenets. But this understanding developed gradually over time; originally, that was not how the word was understood.
The Northern Transmission
Next, there are the explanations of the Northern and Southern transmissions, and there are many different accounts.
First, I would like to speak about the account of the Northern transmission. The main source for it is Vasumitra’s Treatise Distinguishing the Differences Between Scriptural Traditions (Samayabhedoparacanacakra). So when we discuss the development of the sub-schools, we will take the Treatise/Wheel Distinguishing the Differences Between Scriptural Traditions as the basis for the discussion.
The first original school to split: the Mahāsāṃghika Sub-Schools
Of the two original schools, the Mahāsāṃghika school was the first to begin splitting into sub-schools.
Between one hundred and two hundred years after the parinirvāṇa, the school split four times. The first split occurred during the second century after the parinirvāṇa, when three schools split off from the Mahāsāṃghika.
As it says there—this is according to the Xuanzang translation—there is a slight difference between the Chinese and Tibetan translations. The Xuanzang translation gives two hundred years. The Tibetan translation gives one hundred years.
It says that in the hundredth year the:
- Ekavyāvahārika,
- Lokottaravāda, and
- Kukkuṭika
separated from the Mahāsāṃghika.
Then the Bahuśrutīya school appeared just under two hundred years after the parinirvāṇa.
First Split of the Mahāsāṃghika school: Ekavyāvahārika, Lokottaravāda, and Kukkuṭika
First, I would like to speak about the first split. From the original Mahāsāṃghika school, three schools split off. The first was the Ekavyāvahārika school, the second the Lokottaravāda, and the third the Kukkuṭika.
The Ekavyāvahārika school (ཐ་སྙད་གཅིག་ཏུ་སྨྲ་བ། ) was so called because they said that all worldly and supramundane dharmas are merely designations. They do not truly exist; they are all designated by the same term. Because they held this view, they were called the Ekavyāvahārika, or Single Designation, school.
The second is the Lokottaravāda, or Transcendent school ( འཇིག་རྟེན་ལས་འདས་པར་སྨྲ་བ། ). They are called this because they assert that all worldly phenomena are confused. The only things that are true are the truth of the path and nirvāṇa, or the truth of cessation. These are supramundane; all worldly phenomena are confused. For that reason, they are called the Lokottaravāda school.
The Kukkuṭika school (བྱ་ལབ་ཏུ་སྨྲ་བ། ) was so called because the master who founded it came from the Kukkuṭa clan. Because he was born into that clan, the name of his clan was given to the school. There is a story about this, but I will tell it later.
Second Split of the Mahāsāṃghika school: Bahuśrutīya (མང་ཐོས་སྡེ )
The next is the Bahuśrutīya school, which arose in the second split. It separated from the Mahāsāṃghika just under two hundred years after the parinirvāṇa.
The accounts differ slightly on the date. Again, there is a slight difference between the Tibetan and Chinese texts: the Chinese says the second century, while the Tibetan gives the first.
It is called the Bahuśrutīya, or Well-Learned school [transcriber’s note: “those who have heard much” (lit.)] because it engaged in a very profound analysis of Dharma and studied many different sūtras and scriptures. For this reason, it is called the Bahuśrutīya school.
Third Split of the Mahāsāṃghika school: Prajñaptivāda
Following that is the third split of the Mahāsāṃghika school. According to the Chinese account, this occurred around two hundred years after the parinirvāṇa; the Tibetan says one hundred years.
At that time the Prajñaptivāda, or Designation school separated. When we talk about Prajñaptivāda, the reason it is called Prajñaptivāda is that they said that interdependent phenomena, such as pleasure and pain, are designations. These are interdependent. Phenomena such as the twelve sense bases are also imaginary designations. For this reason, they are called the Prajñaptivāda, or Designation school.
Later Southern Schools: Caityaka, Aparaśaila, and Pūrvaśaila
Then, around two hundred years after the Buddha’s parinirvāṇa, there was a king called Great King Pariyavadi, who went forth and lived at Caityaśaila Mountain. He followed and propagated the Five Traditions associated with the Mahāsāṃghika tradition. These are the Five Points of Mahādeva, and he followed and propagated them. This gives us another date connected with the Five Points. Because of this, the Caityaka, Aparaśaila, and Pūrvaśaila schools separated from the Mahāsāṃghika school.
The names Caityaśaila, Aparaśaila, or Western Mountain, and Pūrvaśaila, or Eastern Mountain, are primarily geographical. All three were in the southern Indian region of Andhra, in what is now called Andhra Pradesh. Because they were based at these mountains or regions, they were called by these names. These three schools again developed out of another dispute about the Five Points of Mahādeva.
In brief, if we count the original Mahāsāṃghika school and then add the other sub-schools, the Ekavyāvahārika, Lokottaravāda, Kukkuṭika, Bahuśrutīya, Prajñaptivāda, Caityaka, Aparaśaila, and Pūrvaśaila schools. Including the Mahāsāṃghika itself gives nine schools.
Four or Five Splits? Depends on whether original school is included or not
One point here concerns whether the text speaks of four or five splits. It should say that there are four splits, or five if the original division is included. If you ask how many times the Mahāsāṃghika itself split into sub-schools, there were four secondary splits, not five.
There are two different ways of counting this. If you also include the original split, you can get five; if you do not count that, there are four splits into sub-schools. The original split was the division of the original Buddhist Saṅgha into the Mahāsāṃghika and Sthavirada schools.
If you count that original split, then you have five splits. If you do not, then there are four secondary splits from the Mahāsāṃghika into its sub-schools. So it is a question of whether the original split is included in the count.