The Early Buddhist Schools: An Overview

Even before the Buddha passed, there was already significant debate about how best to preserve his teachings. One faction wanted to enshrine the Buddha’s words in a formalized textual transmission, like the Vedas, which were revered and passed down through specific rituals and oral traditions. However, the Buddha himself insisted that the teachings should be preserved in the common language of the people, making them accessible to all, not just a select few.

The Pali Canon provides us with a glimpse into these early efforts at preservation. For example, Ananda, the Buddha’s cousin and closest attendant, was consciously memorizing the Buddha’s discourses. Yet, following the Buddha’s death, tensions began to rise. After the loss of two of the Buddha’s most esteemed disciples—Sariputta, the disciple foremost in wisdom, and Moggallana, who was known for his psychic powers—there were even reports of power struggles among the monastic community. Moggallana’s brutal murder remains shrouded in mystery—was it the work of rival monastics or external robbers? We may never know.

Throughout the Buddha’s life, he faced criticism from his cousin, Devadatta, who believed the rules of the monastic community were too lax. Devadatta even went as far as attempting to kill the Buddha. Despite these challenges, the Buddha remained resolute in his teachings. Towards the end of his life, when Ananda suggested the appointment of a successor, the Buddha declined, declaring that the teachings themselves should serve as the guiding force for the order after his passing.

A faction within the community after the Buddha’s passing argued that, with the Buddha gone, the monastics could now do whatever they pleased. This is the interpretation we find in the Theravāda tradition. However, the Buddha had previously stated that minor rules of the Vinaya—the monastic code—could be adjusted after his passing. This, too, might reflect a power struggle between conservative monastics who wished to preserve the Vinaya as it was, and more liberal elements who sought to revise it in line with the Buddha’s apparent intent.

In any case, Mahākassapa, the disciple renowned for his asceticism, convened the First Buddhist Council. This council reaffirmed the monastic rules, including some that were discriminatory toward female monastics. Mahākassapa’s role in this is uncertain. He famously stated that the number of rules should decrease as the community’s spiritual development advanced—an intriguing suggestion, since the later development of the Vinaya, with its increasing restrictions, seems to contradict this idea.

Indeed, the Vinaya established at this council has been criticized for being overly rigid and even misogynistic, which led to the eventual decline of the female monastic order in many parts of the Buddhist world. The Pali Canon documents these events, which offers valuable insights into the early tensions and divisions within the Buddhist community.

The Buddha had placed great emphasis on the ideological unity of the community, and he established rules for the evaluation of new teachings, insisting on consensus or, in the absence of consensus, majority rule, with respect for elders. The Vinaya outlines these principles in the monastic code. However, as the community expanded and diversified—especially given the challenges of limited communication and travel—maintaining this unity became increasingly difficult.

By the time of the Second Buddhist Council, a century after the Buddha’s passing, tensions came to a head. A minority group of reformist elders proposed new rules for the Vinaya, which included changes the Buddha had specifically prohibited. When the larger Mahāsāṅghika faction rejected their efforts, they founded the Sthavira nikāya. This first schism within the Buddhist community, however, was not over doctrinal differences but over monastic discipline and organization.

Over the next 300 years, numerous schools and sects emerged, often based on geographic divisions, leading to what are traditionally known as the Eighteen Schools. These schools represent the ways that early Buddhism developed, split, and adapted to different local contexts. The names and doctrines of these schools vary across sources, but for the purposes of this talk, I will be referencing a list compiled by A.K. Warder, a prominent scholar of Indian Buddhism. In his book Indian Buddhism (3rd revised edition, 2000), Warder provides a list of eighteen schools in approximate chronological order, reflecting the state of Buddhist thought around 50 BCE.

Interestingly, this period also marks the first major textualization of the Pali Canon and the emergence of Mahāyāna literature, particularly the Prajñāpāramitā texts. Warder’s list of schools, therefore, corresponds to a significant moment in Buddhist history, one where the early Hinayana schools, which we now refer to as the Eighteen Schools, were becoming more clearly defined in their distinct beliefs and practices.

Though we often hear about the Mahāyāna schools today, it is important to note that these Eighteen Schools, referred to by the Theravada as “thorns on the teaching,” were all part of the early, pre-Mahāyāna tradition. Some prefer to avoid the term Hinayana as pejorative, so I will refer to these schools collectively as the Eighteen Schools throughout this talk, but Buddhist sectarianism predates the Mahayana.

Finally, a word about the diverse perspectives within Buddhist scholarship: While I have followed Warder’s framework, it is important to recognize that opinions and interpretations vary. As with much of early Buddhist history, the picture is far from uniform, and debates continue to unfold in the academic world.

Now, let us turn to the chart I have prepared, which breaks down the development of these schools over the first 350 years of Buddhism, from 400 BCE to 50 BCE. I encourage you to follow along, as it will help you track the development of these early Buddhist schools and understand their historical and doctrinal evolution.

The Eighteen Schools

The so-called Eighteen Schools were not eighteen modern denominations with fixed institutions, headquarters, and formal membership lists. Rather, they were evolving lineages of interpretation, discipline, regional identity, textual transmission, and philosophical emphasis that developed in the centuries after the Buddha’s death.

The following chronology assumes, for working purposes, that the Buddha’s parinibbāna occurred around 400 BCE. On that basis, the Second Buddhist Council, traditionally placed about 116 years after the Buddha’s death, may be dated to approximately c 284 BCE. All dates should be treated as approximate.

1. Mahāsāṅghika, “Great Assembly” — c 284 BCE

The Mahāsāṅghika, or “Great Assembly,” is often presented as the majority faction that emerged from the first great division in the Buddhist community. In some reconstructions, the more conservative Sthavira minority separated from the Mahāsāṅghika majority over questions of monastic discipline. Other sources place the schism somewhat later, so the exact historical sequence remains debated.

The Mahāsāṅghikas are important because they preserved traditions that appear, in several respects, to anticipate later Mahāyāna ideas. Their Vinaya recension has sometimes been regarded as preserving older features.

Doctrinally, the Mahāsāṅghikas tended to emphasize the supermundane nature of the Buddha. The Buddha was not merely an ordinary human teacher who had awakened, but a being whose body, speech, mind, knowledge, and powers transcended ordinary human limitations. This view helped prepare the ground for later developments in Buddhist devotion, cosmology, and Buddhology.

They also seem to have placed greater emphasis on the bodhisattva ideal, multiple buddhas, and the luminous or originally pure nature of mind. Their approach to the teachings may also have encouraged the distinction between the surface meaning of the discourses and their deeper or ultimate meaning.

Essential ideas:

• The Buddha is supermundane or transcendent.
• There are multiple buddhas and bodhisattvas.
• The mind is, in some sense, originally clear or luminous.
• The bodhisattva ideal becomes increasingly important.
• They were relatively flexible in matters of monastic discipline.
• They helped prepare the ground for later Mahāyāna developments.

2. Sthaviravāda, “Teaching of the Elders” — c 284 BCE

The Sthaviravāda, or “Teaching of the Elders,” represents the more conservative side of the early division. Older accounts often portrayed the Sthaviras as the original Buddhist school from which the Mahāsāṅghikas broke away. More recent scholarship has complicated this picture, suggesting that the situation may have been the reverse: the Sthaviras may have been the minority faction that split from the Mahāsāṅghika majority.

The conflict appears to have centred mainly on the Vinaya, the monastic code. The Sthaviras objected to certain practices that they regarded as too lax, such as storing salt, eating after midday, using money, and conducting monastic acts without proper quorum.

The Sthavira tradition emphasized the preservation of discipline, the authority of the elders, and the path of the arhant. It also became the ancestor of several later schools, including the Sarvāstivāda, Vātsīputrīya, Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya, and Dharmaguptaka lines.

Essential ideas:

• Conservative approach to Vinaya.
• Emphasis on monastic discipline.
• Authority of the elders.
• Arhantship as the central ideal.
• Preservation of the early teachings and practices.
• Ancestor of several later non-Mahāyāna schools.

3. Vātsīputrīya / Pudgalavāda, “Teaching of the Person” — c 200 BCE

The Vātsīputrīya, also known as the Pudgalavāda, was one of the most controversial early Buddhist schools. It emerged from the Sthavira lineage and became famous for its doctrine of the pudgala, or “person.”

The Pudgalavādins argued that the person is real in some sense, but is neither identical with nor completely different from the five aggregates. This was their way of explaining moral responsibility, karma, rebirth, and liberation without positing a permanent soul. Other Buddhists criticized this view as dangerously close to the rejected doctrine of ātman, but the Pudgalavādins insisted that they were preserving the Buddha’s true meaning. The Internet Encyclopedia of Philosophy summarizes this as the school’s distinctive claim that the person is “real” in some sense, while opponents saw this as conflicting with non-self.

Essential ideas:

• Affirmed the pudgala, or “person.”
• The person is neither identical with nor separate from the five aggregates.
• The pudgala explains karma, rebirth, continuity, and liberation.
• Rejected the permanent soul or ātman.
• Rejected the view that the person is merely a bundle of momentary events.

4. Dharmottariya, “School of Dharmottara” — c 150 BCE

The Dharmottariya was a minor branch of the Vātsīputrīya/Pudgalavāda tradition. Very little is known about its independent doctrines.

The school appears to have developed in western India, possibly in the Aparānta region near the port city of Surparaka. Since it derived from the Vātsīputrīya line, its central doctrine was probably the pudgala, the “person” who accounts for continuity without being a permanent self.

Essential ideas:

• A minor branch of the Pudgalavāda tradition.
• Accepted the doctrine of the pudgala.
• Used the pudgala to explain karma, rebirth, moral continuity, and liberation.
• Rejected both a permanent soul and a purely discontinuous stream of events.
• Its distinctive doctrines are mostly unknown.

5. Bhadrayaniya, “School of Bhadrayana” — c 150 BCE

The Bhadrayaniya was another minor school connected with the Vātsīputrīya/Pudgalavāda lineage. It appears to have been located near the western Deccan, possibly around Nasik, behind the important port city of Surparaka.

Because details of its doctrine are sparse, it is safest to describe it as a regional Pudgalavāda-related school rather than as a major independent philosophical movement.

Essential ideas:

• A minor Pudgalavāda-related school.
• Probably accepted the doctrine of the pudgala.
• Used the pudgala to explain karma, rebirth, continuity, and liberation.
• Its own distinctive doctrines are mostly unknown.

6. Saṃmitīya, “School of Sammiti” — c 150 BCE

The Saṃmitīya emerged from the Vātsīputrīya/Pudgalavāda tradition and became one of the most influential non-Mahāyāna schools in India. Some accounts suggest that it was, for a time, extremely widespread.

Like the other Pudgalavāda schools, the Saṃmitīya affirmed the reality of the pudgala. They used this doctrine to explain how karma and rebirth could function without accepting a permanent soul. Later reports also portray the Saṃmitīyas as strongly opposed to Mahāyāna ideas, though this should be stated cautiously, since many of our sources are sectarian.

Essential ideas:

• A major Pudgalavāda school.
• Affirmed the reality of the pudgala.
• The person is neither identical with nor separate from the aggregates.
• The pudgala explains karma, rebirth, and liberation.
• Rejected both eternalism and complete discontinuity.
• Later sources portray them as strongly non-Mahāyāna.

7. Sannāgarika, “Dwellers of the Noble City” — c 150 BCE

The Sannāgarika was a minor branch of the Vātsīputrīya/Pudgalavāda movement. Its exact origin, founder, and independent doctrines are poorly preserved.

As a Pudgalavāda-related school, it likely upheld the doctrine of the pudgala. This means it tried to preserve the Buddhist teaching of non-self while still accounting for the continuity of karma, rebirth, and liberation.

Essential ideas:

• A minor Pudgalavāda-related school.
• Accepted the doctrine of the pudgala.
• Used the pudgala to explain karma and rebirth.
• Tried to preserve non-self while accounting for continuity.
• Its distinctive teachings are mostly unknown.

8. Sarvāstivāda, “Teaching that All Exists” — c 250 BCE

The Sarvāstivāda was one of the most philosophically important early Buddhist schools. Its name means “the teaching that all exists,” referring to its doctrine that dharmas exist in the past, present, and future.

This does not mean that past, present, and future events all exist in a crude or identical way. Rather, Sarvāstivādins argued that dharmas exist across the three times, while their present activity arises and ceases. This allowed them to explain karma, continuity, memory, and causation while still preserving impermanence. Stanford’s entry on Abhidharma explains that, for Sarvāstivāda, past and future dharmas retain causal potential and exist due to their intrinsic nature, even though present activity arises and falls away.

The Sarvāstivādins developed a highly systematic Abhidharma and classified reality into dharmas, the basic elements of experience. Their tradition flourished especially in Kashmir and Gandhāra and became one of the great intellectual forces in Indian Buddhism.

Essential ideas:

• Past, present, and future dharmas all exist in some sense.
• Denied a permanent self.
• Affirmed the reality of dharmas as basic elements of experience.
• Developed a detailed Abhidharma system.
• Accepted nirvāṇa as an unconditioned dharma.
• Accepted an intermediate state between death and rebirth.
• Became one of the most philosophically sophisticated early Buddhist schools.

9. Mahīśāsaka, “School of Mahisasa” — c 200 BCE

The Mahīśāsaka school probably arose in the second century BCE. It is often treated as a branch of the Sthavira family.

In contrast to the Sarvāstivādins, the Mahīśāsakas denied that past and future dharmas exist in the same sense as present dharmas. They emphasized the present moment and rejected the intermediate state between death and rebirth. At the same time, they seem to have accepted some kind of subtle continuity of the aggregates after death as the basis for rebirth.

They also held a less transcendent view of the Buddha than some Mahāsāṅghika schools, seeing him as belonging to the monastic community rather than standing wholly outside it.

Essential ideas:

• Only the present exists in the fullest sense.
• Past and future do not exist in the Sarvāstivāda sense.
• Rejected an intermediate state between death and rebirth.
• Accepted a subtle continuity of the aggregates as the basis of rebirth.
• Saw the Buddha as part of the monastic community.
• Emphasized present reality and immediate experience.

10. Kāśyapīya / Haimavata, “School of Kāśyapa” — c 200 BCE

The Kāśyapīya, sometimes associated with the Haimavata, was a Sthavira-related school that developed around the second century BCE. It appears to have taken an eclectic position between other early schools.

According to traditional summaries, the Kāśyapīyas held that an arhant was not yet perfect. They also accepted some ideas similar to the Sarvāstivāda and Dharmaguptaka schools, especially concerning karma, the present moment, and the status of compounded things.

Essential ideas:

• Held that an arhant is not yet perfect.
• Took an eclectic position between Sthavira and Mahāsāṅghika tendencies.
• Emphasized the present moment.
• Allowed that past karma and future conditions still matter.
• Taught that compounded things perish instantly.
• Was doctrinally close to Sarvāstivāda and Dharmaguptaka in some respects.

11. Dharmaguptaka, “School of Dharmagupta” — c 100 BCE

The Dharmaguptaka school probably split from the Mahīśāsaka line sometime between the late second and early first centuries BCE. It flourished in northwestern India and played a major role in transmitting Buddhism beyond India into Central Asia and China.

The Dharmaguptaka became especially important because its Vinaya became the basis for monastic ordination in much of East Asian Buddhism. Modern scholarship on Vinaya traditions commonly identifies three surviving Vinaya lineages: Theravāda in South and Southeast Asia, Mūlasarvāstivāda in Tibet, and Dharmaguptaka in China, Korea, Vietnam, and related East Asian traditions.

The Dharmaguptakas distinguished between gifts given to the Buddha and gifts given to the monastic community, regarding offerings to the Buddha and to stūpas as especially meritorious. They also distinguished the path of buddhas and bodhisattvas from the path of disciples.

Essential ideas:

• Gifts to the Buddha are especially meritorious.
• Offerings to stūpas generate great merit.
• The path of buddhas and bodhisattvas is distinct from that of disciples.
• The body of an arhant is free from defilement.
• Non-Buddhists cannot attain the highest superknowledges.
• Their Vinaya became foundational for East Asian Buddhism.
• They show early openness to bodhisattva and mantra traditions.

12. Ekavyāvahārika, “Teaching of the Single Utterance” — c 250 BCE

The Ekavyāvahārika was a Mahāsāṅghika-related school, usually placed in the Aśokan period. Its name suggests the idea of a single expression, single utterance, or unified meaning.

This school taught that the Buddha’s teaching has a single, ultimate meaning, though ordinary people understand it through conventional distinctions. They also held that all principles are known in a single instant of insight and that ultimate truth transcends ordinary language.

Some of their ideas anticipate later Mahāyāna themes, especially the idea that mind is originally pure but obscured by defilements.

Essential ideas:

• The Buddha’s teaching has a single ultimate meaning.
• All realities may be known in a single instant of insight.
• Ultimate truth transcends ordinary distinctions and language.
• The mind is originally pure.
• Defilements obscure this pure mind.
• Anticipates some later Mahāyāna themes.

13. Lokottaravāda, “Teaching of the Transcendent” — c 200 BCE

The Lokottaravāda developed from the Mahāsāṅghika tradition. Its name means “Teaching of the Transcendent” or “Teaching of the Supermundane.”

The school is especially associated with the Mahāvastu, a major Buddhist text belonging to the Lokottaravāda Vinaya tradition. The Mahāvastu presents a highly exalted view of the Buddha and preserves extensive legendary and biographical material. Public summaries of Lokottaravāda doctrine describe its Buddha as transcendent, with his earthly life and physical manifestation understood as appearances rather than ordinary human limitations.

For the Lokottaravādins, the Buddha only appears to act in ordinary human ways. His body, speech, mind, and actions are ultimately supermundane. This view strongly anticipates later Mahāyāna Buddhology.

Essential ideas:

• The Buddha is transcendent or supermundane.
• The Buddha’s ordinary human actions are appearances.
• The Buddha does not truly suffer ordinary limitation.
• All teachings may be understood as a single supermundane utterance.
• Phenomena have only provisional reality.
• Emphasized emptiness of self and emptiness of phenomena.
• Developed the bodhisattva path and Buddha-biographical traditions.

14. Gokulika / Kukkutika — c 200 BCE

The Gokulika, also known as Kukkutika and by related names, was a Mahāsāṅghika-related school. It probably split from the Mahāsāṅghika sometime in the third or second century BCE.

The Gokulikas were known for an interest in Abhidharma and logical analysis. According to later sources, they taught that there is no true happiness in conditioned existence. They also held that thought or mind is intrinsically pure and radiant, and that all principles are, in the final analysis, labels or conceptual constructs.

Unlike some related Mahāsāṅghika schools, the Gokulikas do not seem to have accepted emerging Mahāyāna texts as authoritative.

Essential ideas:

• Specialized in Abhidharma and logical analysis.
• Taught that conditioned existence contains no true happiness.
• Held that mind is intrinsically pure and radiant.
• Taught that all principles are known in a single moment of awakening.
• Saw dharmas or principles as conceptual labels.
• Did not accept Mahāyāna sūtras as authoritative.

15. Bahuśrutīya, “Teaching of the Many Hearers” — c 150–200 BCE

The Bahuśrutīya emerged from the Gokulika line, probably in the late third or second century BCE. The name means “Those Who Have Heard Much” or “Teaching of the Many Hearers.”

The Bahuśrutīyas distinguished between the Buddha’s ordinary or mundane teachings and his deeper, transcendent teachings. They held that the Buddha’s highest teaching could be summarized through impermanence, suffering, emptiness, non-self, and nirvāṇa. This distinction between surface teaching and deeper teaching helped prepare the way for later two-truths theories.

They rejected both the Sarvāstivāda claim that everything exists and the nihilistic claim that nothing exists. In this sense, they occupied a middle position.

Essential ideas:

• Distinguished mundane and transcendent teachings.
• Summarized the Buddha’s deepest teaching as impermanence, suffering, emptiness, non-self, and nirvāṇa.
• Treated ordinary phenomena as provisional.
• Held nirvāṇa to be ultimately real.
• Accepted a form of two-truths distinction.
• Rejected the pudgala as ultimately real.
• Rejected an intermediate state.
• Helped prepare the ground for later Mahāyāna and Madhyamaka ideas.

16. Prajñaptivāda, “Teaching of Designation” — c 150–200 BCE

The Prajñaptivāda split from the Bahuśrutīya school, probably over questions connected with truth, language, and conceptual designation. Its name comes from prajñapti, meaning designation, concept, denotation, or imputation.

The Prajñaptivādins emphasized that many things we take to be real are actually conceptual constructions. Language gives us useful conventional truths, but it cannot fully express ultimate reality. This makes the Prajñaptivāda especially interesting as a precursor to later Madhyamaka-style reflection on language and emptiness.

At the same time, they did not simply deny reality. They affirmed that suffering is real and that wisdom and merit are necessary for liberation.

Essential ideas:

• Emphasized designation, naming, and conceptual construction.
• Distinguished ultimate truth from conventional or concealing truth.
• Held that language expresses provisional truths.
• Saw ultimate reality as beyond language.
• Treated phenomena as conceptual designations.
• Affirmed that suffering is real.
• Held the Noble Eightfold Path to be eternal and indestructible.
• Emphasized wisdom and merit.

17. Caitika, “Pertaining to the Shrine/Mind” — c 150 BCE

The Caitika school arose from the Mahāsāṅghika tradition in the Andhra region of southern India. It is associated with the broader development of the Andhra schools, which played an important role in the emergence of Mahāyāna ideas.

The Caitikas taught that the Buddha’s discourse is ultimately transcendent and supermundane. Ordinary hearers may perceive only the conventional meaning of the Buddha’s words, while the deeper meaning is beyond ordinary language. They also emphasized the bodhisattva path and regarded the arhant as fallible or incomplete compared with the bodhisattva.

The Caitikas are often treated as a bridge between early Mahāsāṅghika thought and later Mahāyāna developments, especially in relation to the exalted Buddha, the superiority of the bodhisattva path, and the potential for Buddhahood.

Essential ideas:

• The Buddha’s discourse is transcendent and supermundane.
• Ordinary people perceive only its conventional meaning.
• The Buddha and advanced disciples may perform miracles.
• The bodhisattva path is superior to the arhant path.
• Bodhisattvas may freely take rebirth in lower realms to help beings.
• Arhants are fallible and incomplete.
• Anticipates later ideas about universal Buddhahood.

18. Śaila, “Mountain School” — c 50 BCE

The Śaila, or “Mountain School,” developed from the Caitika branch of the Mahāsāṅghika tradition. It divided into two principal branches: Apara Śaila and Uttara/Pūrva Śaila.

The Śaila schools continued the Caitika emphasis on the supermundane nature of the Buddha and the superiority of the bodhisattva path. One of their distinctive teachings was that the bodhisattva is born certain of attaining enlightenment. This gave the bodhisattva career a sense of inevitability and cosmic significance.

Essential ideas:

• Shared the Caitika view that the Buddha’s teaching has a deeper transcendent meaning.
• A branch of the Caitika/Mahāsāṅghika tradition.
• Divided into Apara Śaila and Uttara/Pūrva Śaila.
• Emphasized the supermundane Buddha.
• Valued the bodhisattva path above the arhant ideal.
• Held that the bodhisattva is certain to attain enlightenment.

Summary

According to tradition, Mahākassapa, the disciple foremost in asceticism and the third most important of the Buddha’s disciples after Sāriputta and Mahāmoggallāna (who predeceased the Buddha), convened the First Buddhist Council shortly after the Buddha’s passing, around April 400 BCE. The council most likely took place in July, in response to a liberalizing movement within the monastic order. The gathering occurred near the Sattapanni Cave on Vultures’ Peak near Rājagṛha (modern-day Rajgir). The canon mentions an improbably large number of 500 attendees, but a more realistic estimate might be a smaller, core group of senior monks—perhaps only a few dozen—especially those with direct experience of the Buddha’s teachings, such as Mahākassapa, Ānanda, and Upāli. The focus of the council was not on mass participation but rather on ensuring the authoritative oral transmission of the Dharma and Vinaya.

Even Ānanda, the Buddha’s personal attendant for 25 years, was admitted only at the last minute, despite his critical role in memorizing the Buddha’s teachings. The Vinaya was recited by Upāli, the Buddha’s barber, while the Sūttapitaka (the Buddha’s discourses) was recited by Ānanda. The Abhidharmas were composed later and are sectarian productions. Also, not all schools recognized any “abhidharma.”

The First Buddhist Council was far from harmonious. The Pāli Canon itself indicates that the order was divided and that the council was contentious. The Buddha had stated that minor rules of the Vinaya could be abrogated, and it is clear that he favored the ordination of women, affirming that women could attain emancipation (nirvana). This was a remarkable statement, particularly in late Vedic India, when women were generally regarded as subordinate to men. This implies that, at the time, some people held the view that women were incapable of enlightenment—a view the Buddha sought to correct. Despite his statement, however, the monastics at the council decided to retain all of the Vinaya rules, including the “eight heavy rules,” so-called, which were specifically designed to ensure the subordination of female monastics to their male counterparts. Ānanda, in particular, was criticized by the monastics for defending the ordination of women and for what they perceived as general laxity in monastic discipline.

Over the next 350 years, three more Buddhist councils were held in response to the proliferation of Buddhist schools, which numbered between 12 and 30, depending on how they are classified. The traditional number is 18, with some variations in the historical records. Of these 18 schools, eight were named after their founders, six after important doctrinal principles—such as the Person, the doctrine that All Exists, Single Conduct, the Transcendent, Denotation, and Mind—and three were categorized by their geographical locations or other features, such as the Great Assembly, the Elders, and the Many Hearers. These schools are all considered Hinayana (Lesser Vehicle) schools, as the Mahāyāna tradition did not arise until the first century BCE. This dispels the notion that Hinayana was a unified tradition, as the diverse doctrines of the 18 schools often anticipate many aspects of the Mahāyāna that would later emerge.

When one examines the doctrinal issues addressed by the various schools (as we discussed last week), certain themes recur throughout the debates, including:

• The nature and status of the Vinaya rules;
• The perfection and infallibility of the arhants;
• The nature of the Buddha and whether he is mundane or transcendent;
• The relationship between the Buddha, bodhisattvas, and arhants;
• The nature of truth: Is it linguistic or translinguistic?
• Are the Buddha’s discourses conventional or ultimate?
• The meaning of “not-self”;
• The nature of the mind, Buddha nature, and the tathagatagarbha;
• How karma is transmitted from one life to the next;
• Can bodhisattvas voluntarily choose to be reborn?
• Does a person persist after death?
• Is there an intermediate state between lives?
• The relationship between past, present, and future;
• The nature of phenomenal existence in relation to ultimate reality;
• How is emancipation (nirvana) achieved? and
• Are the Mahāyāna sūtras the authentic Word of the Buddha?

These are just a few of the key questions that emerged from the debates between the schools, highlighting the diversity of thought and the complexity of early Buddhist doctrinal development.

The Five Points of Mahadeva

Mahadeva is a mysterious figure who, according to the Theravadin account, declared Five Points about thirty-five years after the Second Buddhist Council circa 300 BCE. However, some modern scholars have suggested that Mahadeva was the founder of the Caitaka school about two hundred years later, i.e., in the first century BCE. Although the historicity of this account is controversial, there is no doubt that the Five Points refer to an important controversy to do with the perfection of arhants which divided the schools. These points or theses were:

Five Points of Mahadeva:

1. Male arhants can have nocturnal emissions: Mahadeva argued that even an enlightened being (arhant) could have involuntary physical experiences, such as nocturnal emissions, which was controversial because it implied that arhants were not entirely free from physical afflictions or desires.
2. Arhants can be ignorant: This point suggested that arhants might still possess ignorance in certain areas, even after attaining enlightenment. This was a challenge to the notion that an arhant would be completely free from ignorance.
3. Arhants can doubt: Mahadeva proposed that arhants could still experience doubt, even though they had achieved enlightenment. This was another challenge to the idea that an enlightened being would be free from all mental afflictions, including doubt.
4. Arhants need guidance: Mahadeva posited that even arhants might need guidance or help from others on the path, which was a controversial assertion, as many believed that once someone attained the status of arhant, they were fully self-sufficient in their wisdom and spiritual progress.
5. Arhants may attain the path by means of a verbal ejaculation: This point suggested that arhants could attain enlightenment or the path to it simply through a verbal utterance, such as a sudden insight or exclamation, which was a low or simplistic way of reaching spiritual realization.

The gist of the first four of these points is that arhants are imperfect and fallible and therefore cannot represent the highest stage of the Buddhist path. As we have seen, the schools were divided on this question, including several Sthavira schools. The oldest Sthavira school to hold this view of the imperfection and fallibility of arhants was the Sarvastivada. The Sarvastivada also criticized the Mahisasaka view concerning the inferiority of women. In both respects, the Sarvastivada exhibits similarities to the Mahasamghika school, despite being a school in the Sthavira line. Warder dates the secession of the Sarvastivada from the Sthavira during the reign of Ashoka (third century BCE).

Views on Arhants

One of the most interesting things that emerges out of the foregoing study is the position of the early schools (all pre-Mahayana, remember) on the status of arhants. We think of arhantship as the goal of the Buddhist path, based on the Pali Canon, the only surviving complete early Buddhist canon, preserved by the Theravada school, yet the picture appears very differently when we catalogue the positions of the early Buddhist schools on this question.

The Sarvastivada, Kasyapiya, Dharmaguptaka, Mahasamghika, Ekavyāvahārika, Lokottaravāda, Bahuśrutīya, Pajñaptivāda, and the Caitika schools all regarded arhants as imperfect in their spiritual attainment compared to buddhas and therefore fallible, despite their being emancipated. This ambiguity or paradox has to do with the doctrine of interconnectedness, as I have explained in previous talks, as well as the historical fact of the primogeniture of the Buddha. Significantly, three of these schools fall under the conservative Sthavira, the same school with which the Theravadins identify themselves. Even the Mahisasakas – another Sthavira school – also appeared to believe that women could become arhants, but not buddhas, implying that arhantship is inferior to Buddhahood. There was no consensus on this point. We think of arhantship as the goal of the Buddhist path, although the Pali Canon itself clearly considers Buddhahood to lie beyond arhantship, because this is the view of the Theravadins.

The Buddha also prescribed different spiritual strategies for different people, based on their personal predilections and stages of development, including intentional rebirth, divine rebirth, and rebirth in the Brahma worlds, which are clearly not the highest goal according to the Buddha. There is even an arhant rebirth (in the Pure Abodes). The loving-kindness meditation, which the Pali Canon often mentions, by itself does not seem to lead to arhantship. As we have shown in this paper, the Theravadin claim to be identical with presectarian or original Buddhism is historically false. On the other hand, the doctrine, associated with Mahadeva, that arhants are imperfect and fallible explains certain difficulties with the arhant concept in the Pali Canon, including the fact that it is a non-Buddhist concept generally (but not universally) associated with an intermediate stage of realization (e.g. by the Jains) and the Buddha’s statement and the evidence of the Pali Canon that it could be achieved relatively easily, in as short a time as one week, which seems an awfully short time to achieve the complete transcendent self-perfection that the Buddha took eons to attain, even with the aid of the Buddhist teaching.

The Forty-Eight Doctrines of the Mahasamghikas

When Martin Luther decided to challenge the dogmas of the Roman Church in November 1517, he summarized his “disputation” in ninety-five theses, which he nailed to the front door of the All-Saints Church in Wittenberg. Similarly, the Doctrines of the Different Schools (Samayabhedoparacanacakra) of Vasumitra records forty-eight special theses attributed to the Mahāsāṃghika, Ekavyāvahārika, Lokottaravāda, and the Gokulika schools. Vasumitra was a monastic who led the Fourth Buddhist Council in Kashmir about the first or second century and helped to compile the Great Commentary of the Abhidhamma. Whether this is the same Vasumitra who wrote the Doctrines of the Different Schools is unclear. The book exists in English translation under the title Origins and Doctrines of the Early Indian Buddhist Schools. The book summarizes the 48 doctrines on pages 18 to 32. In simplified summary form, they are as follows:

1. Buddhas are transcendent.
2. The Tathagata is undefiled.
3. Tathagatas preach the righteous law.
4. The Buddha can expound all doctrines in a single utterance.
5. The speech of the Buddha is always true.
6. The “bliss body” of the Buddha is infinite.
7. The divine power of the Tathagata is infinite.
8. The Buddha is immortal.
9. The Buddha never tires of enlightening beings.
10. The Buddha neither sleeps nor dreams.
11. There is no hesitation when the Buddha answers a question.
12. The realization of the Buddha is trans-linguistic.
13. The Buddha understands everything at once.
14. The wisdom of the Buddha is infinite.
15. Buddhas know that they have extinguished all defilements and will not be reborn.
16. Bodhisattvas are not born in the usual, mundane way.
17. The appearance of a white elephant indicates the bodhisattva’s final birth.
18. Bodhisattvas are born through a special means.
19. Bodhisattvas do not harbour thoughts of greed, anger, or harming others.
20. Bodhisattvas may be reborn in good or bad states to help others.
21. One who has realized truth can meditate on all aspects of the Four Noble Truths simultaneously.
22. The five sense consciousnesses conduce to both passion and dispassion.
23. Beings in the form and formless worlds possess all six sense consciousnesses.
24. The five sense organs in themselves are impercipient.
25. One can speak even in a meditative state.
26. Perfected beings are unattached.
27. Stream entrants know their own state.
28. Arhants are subject to temptation, ignorance, and doubt; they are still dependent on others, and one realizes the path through utterances.
29. Suffering leads one to the path.
30. The words of suffering can help one realize the path.
31. By wisdom, one annihilates suffering and experiences bliss.
32. Suffering is a kind of food.
33. One can remain in a meditative state indefinitely.
34. A Buddhist in an advanced state of realization can still retrogress.
35. A stream-entrant can retrogress, but an arhant cannot (because they have no passions).
36. There is no worldly right view or right faith.
37. Everything is good or bad; nothing is morally neutral.
38. A stream-entrant has destroyed all bonds.
39. A stream entrant cannot commit matricide, patricide, murder of an arhant, causing a schism, or cutting a Tathagata.
40. All Buddha discourses are inherently perfect.
41. There are nine ultimate or absolute things: extinction realized by wisdom, extinction not realized by wisdom, ordinary space, infinite space, infinite consciousness, nothingness, neither perception nor non-perception, moral causality, and the teaching.
42. Mind is inherently pure.
43. Subconscious passions are neither mental nor do they become conscious.
44. Conscious and unconscious passions differ.
45. Past and future are not real.
46. Mental objects can be known or understood.
47. There is no intermediate state of existence between death and rebirth.
48. Stream entrants are capable of meditation.

Theravāda’s Claim to Historical Primacy

The modern Theravāda school — often referred to as the “Doctrine of the Elders” — traces its origins to Sri Lanka, where Buddhaghosa systematized and formalized its teachings in the 5th century CE. This tradition retroactively identified itself with the Vibhajjavāda school, the Sri Lankan branch of which Mahinda, the son (or brother) of Emperor Ashoka, established in the 3rd century BCE. Initially, this lineage was known as the Tamraparṇīya, meaning “the Sri Lankan lineage.”

Notably, A.K. Warder does not include the Tamraparṇīya or Theravāda in his list of the eighteen early Buddhist schools in his book Indian Buddhism. The World Fellowship of Buddhists conference only formally adopted the term “Theravāda” itself much later, in 1950.

Doctrinal disputes within the tradition led to the formation of three main sub-schools, each named after its associated monastery: the Mahāvihāra, Abhayagiri-vihāra, and Jātavana-vihāra. According to Chinese sources, Mahāyāna Buddhism was also practiced in Sri Lanka as early as the 7th century CE. The Mahāyāna followers were associated with the Abhayagiri monastery, while the so-called “Hīnayāna” Buddhists were centred around the Mahā monastery. The Jātavana monastery, while traditionally aligned with the Mahāvihāra school, also played a significant role in these doctrinal divisions, particularly as it became a point of intersection between the competing sectarian views during this period. These divisions reconciled in the 12th century, following the intervention of Sri Lankan kings, under the guidance of two forest monks from the Mahāvihāra school. The reunification of these sub-schools cemented the association between Theravāda Buddhism and Sri Lankan nationalism.

Historically, the Tamraparṇīya/Theravāda emerged as an offshoot of the Vibhajjavāda school, which, in turn, descended from the Sthavira faction. The Sthavira school was one of the groups that split off from the Mahāsāṃghika school, via six intermediate schools. As I have previously discussed, this schism violated Buddhist ecclesiastical law, implying that all subsequent developments within these schools are illegal. Therefore, the Theravādins, in claiming direct succession from the original, pre-sectarian Buddhism, face a challenge to their dogmatic claim to represent the unbroken, original teachings of the Buddha.

Thus, Theravāda Buddhism stands as one of the most recent of the so-called “early” schools of Buddhism.

Theravadins consider buddhas and arahants to have reached the same level of spiritual development; thus, arhants must be perfect and infallible. As I have shown, this view was by no means universally accepted by the early schools. Since the arhants of the First Buddhist Council and the Pali Canon itself were extremely misogynistic, this commits modern Theravadins to the view that women are spiritually inferior to men, a position still held in Thailand. The female monastic order died out in Sri Lanka during the thirteenth century. Some scholars consider Theravada Buddhism to be a composite of many separate traditions, overlapping but still distinct. The Theravadin Vinaya, with 227 rules for monks and 311 for nuns, both enshrines the misogyny of the First Buddhist Council and preserves a larger number of rules than the Mahasamghika, for which reason the Mahasamghika Vinaya is considered the oldest Vinaya extant (the original Vinaya is believed to consist of only 152 rules). Mahakassapa says that a larger number of rules indicates degeneracy, not spiritual superiority, contrary to popular thinking today, which also corresponds to the historical account of the Pali Canon.

According to Ajahn Sucitto, a British-born Theravada Buddhist monastic,

It wasn’t originally a counterpoise to Mahāyāna, although it became subsequently defined, and has defined itself, as such. In fact, the terms ‘Mahāyāna’ came into being around the first century, long before the term ‘Theravāda’ was applied to a ‘school’ of Buddhism. The German scholar, Hermann Oldenberg referred to ‘Theravada’ to describe the Pali Vinaya texts he was translating – and published in 1879, but it wasn’t until the early years of the twentieth-century that the term ‘Theravāda’ was employed (by the English bhikkhu, Ven Ananda Metteyya) to describe the Buddhists of Sri Lanka, Burma and S.E. Asia. Even then the term was not officially used in the Asian homelands until the gathering of the World Fellowship of Buddhists in Colombo in 1950.

Theravada Buddhism experienced a series of collapses and revivals. Each time, the tradition became more consolidated, which of course also implies a loss of diversity. This phenomenon of simplification over time is well-known to students of hermeneutics. According to Ajahn Sucitto, the Sri Lankan female monastic order disappeared during the eighteenth century and had to be revived from Thailand. This is the oldest lineage in Sri Lanka today – a mere three hundred years old.

David Chapman, in his essay, “Theravada Reinvents Meditation,” notes that

in the early 1800s, vipassana had been completely, or almost completely, lost in the Theravada world. Either no one, or perhaps only a handful of people, knew how to do it. Vipassana was reinvented by four people in the late 1800s and early 1900s. They started with descriptions of meditation in scripture. Those were vague and contradictory, so the inventors tried out different things that seemed like they might be what the texts were talking about, to see if they worked. They each came up with different methods. Since then, extensive innovation in Theravada meditation has continued. Advocates of different methods disagree, often harshly, about which is correct. …

In the mid-1800s, these texts were revered because supposedly they showed the way to nirvana. However, the way they were practiced was for groups of monks to ritually chant the text in unison. This is like a bunch of people who don’t know what a computer is reading the manual out loud, hoping the machine will spring to life, without realizing you need to plug it in. …

In the 1880s, there is no evidence that anyone in Sri Lanka knew how to meditate. One biography of [Anagarika] Dharmapala [a Sri Lankan Buddhist revivalist and writer] says flatly that “the practice had been neglected and then forgotten.” It’s possible that there were a few monks somewhere who still practiced vipassana, but there is no evidence for that. We do know that he travelled extensively in Sri Lanka, and “in spite of all his enquiries he never succeeded in finding even a single person, whether monk or layman, who could instruct him in… meditation practices.”

Chapman makes two further points that are of interest here:

• Asian Theravada repeatedly reinvented meditation under the influence of Western ideas.
• Men who were “into” extreme asceticism, which the Buddha expressly forbade, reinvented Theravada meditation. This fascination with asceticism continues in Theravada today, which (it is quite clear) has unfortunately also become associated with religious fascism, especially in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, and Thailand.

Revised April 25, 2026

Appendix

Since writing the foregoing Hajime Nakamura’s exceptionally valuable book, Indian Buddhism (1980), has come to my attention, including his summaries of Original and Early Buddhism (op. cit., pp. 57-82). Although Nakamura gives no specific dates, one may identify Original Buddhism with pre-sectarian Buddhism, whereas Early Buddhism may be identified with the Early Buddhist Schools, say, after the Second Buddhist Council circa 300 BCE to Ashoka’s death circa 232 BCE . I have summarized his synopsis of Original Buddhism in my essay on “The Oldest Buddhist Scriptures.” Here I will summarize his material on Early Buddhism to complement the foregoing. This is the most accurate and succinct synopsis I know of.

DOCTRINE

1. Metaphysical questions were forbidden.
2. The Buddha had no desire to compete polemically with other sects.
3. There is a concept of “meaninglessness statement” in the Pali nikayas.
4. The first problem Buddhism took up was suffering, defined as “things not working as one wants them to.”
5. Buddhism was empiricist.
6. Nothing is permanent. There is no permanent metaphysical substrate. All things are temporary existences that are changing always. [My note: This is an extraordinary insight that presages process philosophy, which did not come into its full flowering until the 20th century .]
7. The doctrine of non-self – the attitude of not assuming anything as Self except one’s Self – eliminates selfish desires. It is enlightenment itself. Buddhism did not deny the Self as such. Paradoxically, Buddhism aimed at establishing existential subjectivity or individuality by the negation of the ego. The realization of the True Self was striven for. One can interpret the practice of Buddhism as the formation of the True Self, like the teachings of the European mystic George Ivanovitch Gurdjieff.
8. Atman is often referred to with – compared to – light, as in the early Upanishads.
9. Buddhism assumed the reality and existence of transmigration. [My note: despite the apparent desire by some so-called modern or Western Buddhists to discard the theory of rebirth].
10. Dharma is the fundamental conception of Buddhism. The Buddha sees dharma. Dharma denotes a norm and whatever the norm regulates. Dharma replaces the Upanishadic concept of Brahman. Even defilements were dharmas.
11. Human existence divided itself into corporeality (matter or its attributes), feeling, perception, mental formations, and consciousness. One does not find the ego anywhere.
12. The problem of the subconscious was especially important. Nakamura compares it to depth psychology (Jung).
13. The Four Noble Truths represented the first systematized teaching.

PRACTICE

1. The practical implication of the First Noble Truths is the Middle Way or the Noble Eightfold Path, which begins with seeing the dharma (Right View).
2. The Middle Way is the basis of ethics, which avoids attachment to the extremes of asceticism or hedonism. [My note: Here we see the root of the doctrine of non-duality or trans-duality, pace Bhikkhu Bodhi.] The basis of Buddhist ethics was universal loving kindness or benevolence. Buddhism held that the value of moral conduct can be determined by the motive (intentionality) of the actor [My note: as distinct from the Jain emphasis on action].
3. Various formulas of Interdependent Origination appear in the early Buddhist scriptures. The interdependence between discriminative consciousness and volitional activities is the basic nexus of all subject-object relationships. It reveals the inner working of the mind, through which conversion from ignorance to enlightenment becomes possible. The twelve-link formula resembles Samkhya-Yoga and Jainism. The essential purport of the theory is causality (the law of karma). Sickness is inherent in human existence.
4. Ignorance is fundamental, but knowledge or cognition can annul it, resulting in enlightenment.
5. The concept of bodhicitta appears in Pali as annacitta (“the thought of gnosis, the intention of gaining arhantshp”).
6. Nirvana is absolute nothingness and perfect peace. The distinction between nirvana and parinirvana came later. The concept of void is a key point for early Buddhism. Deliverance is freedom.
7. Early Buddhists refrained from defining ultimate reality. Everything is provisional.
8. Buddhist doctrine was not systematic. The teaching and method of teaching, including the use of parables and similes oriented to lay people, differed according to the mental ability of the individuals addressed.
9. Buddhist cosmology was systematized gradually.
10. Buddhism held the idea of three evil realms of hells, hungry ghosts, and animals, but there was no concept of eternal damnation.
11. Mahayana ideas, including void, consciousness, and thought are in the Pali scriptures.
12. Early Buddhism was not closely organized.
13. People did not always regard Gotama as the leader of Buddhism. E.g., the Jains regarded Sariputta, who emphasized compassion and opposed severe austerity, as the leader of Buddhism.
14. The nuns’ order predates the building of permanent monastic institutions.
15. The original Vinaya consisted of 152 rules, regarded as a sort of education. The Vinaya for nuns came later.
16. Early Buddhism advocated the equality of men and women.
17. Early Buddhist monastics lived alone, simply, in remote dwellings, and avoided worldly entanglements.
18. There were many solitary ascetics in early Buddhism, called paccekabuddhas (as in Jainism). They lived in forests, caves, deserted places, and hermitages, and practised meditation, consisting of various kinds of meditations and meditative attainments. Monastics recited sacred phrases in ceremonies as a form of meditation. The goal of meditation was nirvana, defined as mental stillness and understanding things as they are, including the fundamental impurity of the body (meditation on the body as a corpse). Mystical powers were ascribed to advanced monastics, but magical practices were forbidden. The primary samadhi was meditation on the Buddha.
19. Monastics wore three yellowish-red robes, a common colour of ascetics’ robes at the time.
20. Buddhism repudiated animal sacrifice.
21. There were only Four Precepts originally. The consumption of alcohol came later. Buddhists did not prohibit meat eating, but they did prohibit eating onions.
22. Some scriptures asserted that lay people or householders could attain arhantship/nirvana, but the question was controversial. [My note: Multiple householders in the Pali Canon attained arhantship, including at least one non-celibate householder.]
23. Circumambulation was practised [My note: cf. walking meditation.]
24. Lay practice focused on giving alms, observing precepts and expecting to be reborn in a higher world or dimension (“heaven”), especially by means of altruistic philanthropy. Altruistic philanthropy directed to holy people was especially efficacious. Lay people and even monastics (?) practised donation of things and properties. [My note: How, if they were vowed to poverty?]
25. Medicine could cure diseases, sometimes in combination with “magical formulas” [My note: mantra yoga again!]. They also believed that the Buddha’s mercy or meditation on the Buddha could cure diseases.
26. Buddhism originally had no gods. They regarded nagas as demigods, part serpent and part god.
27. Some monastics rebelled against the discipline of the Buddha and even defied the authority of Gotama. [My note: Thus, there were competing groups of Buddhists. See also my summary of Original Buddhism, Point 11.]

Bibliography

Chapman, David. “Theravada Reinvents Meditation.” https://meaningness.wordpress.com/2011/07/07/theravada-reinvents-meditation.

Dhammika, S. Broken Buddha: Critical Reflections on Theravada and a Plea for a New Buddhism. http://www.buddhistische-gesellschaft-berlin.de/downloads/brokenbuddhanew.pdf.

Nakamura, Hajime. Indian Buddhism: A Survey with Bibliographical Notes. Japan, 1980; rpt. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1987.

Natier and Prebish. “Mahasamghika Origins: The Beginning of Buddhist Sectarianism.” http://lirs.ru/lib/Mahasamghika_Origins.Prebish.pdf.

New World Encyclopedia.  “Theravada Buddhism.” http://www.newworldencyclopedia.org/entry/Theravada_Buddhism.

Sucitto, Ajahn. “What is Theravada?” http://ajahnsucitto.org/articles/what-is-theravada-2012.

Sujato. “Bhikkuni Sangha and the Authenticity Project.” http://secularbuddhism.org/2013/05/04/episode-167-bhikkhu-sujato-bhikkhuni-sangha-and-the-authenticity-project.

Sujato and Brahmali. “Authenticity of the Early Buddhist Texts,” http://ocbs.org/wp-content/uploads/2015/09/authenticity.pdf.

Vasumitra. Origin and Doctrines of Early Indian Buddhist Schools. Trans. Masuda. https://www2.ihp.sinica.edu.tw/file/1143INtSgsf.pdf.

Warder, A.K. Indian Buddhism.  http://www.ahandfulofleaves.org/documents/Indian%20Buddhism_Warder_1970-2004.pdf.

Wikipedia: Bahusrutiya, Caitika, Dhammaguptaka, Ekavyavaharika, Kasyapiya, Kukkutika, Lokottaravada, Mahasamghika, Prajnaptivada, Pudgalavada, Sarvastivada, Sthavira nikaya.

Notes

[1] This is the prevailing modern interpretation. However, some scholars interpret the Pali in the opposite sense.

[2] Many modern scholars doubt the story that Ananda had to convince the Buddha to admit women to the sangha based on his reluctance to ordain his stepmother, Mahapajapati, based on contrary evidence in the canon that a nun’s order (bhikkunisangha) already existed when Mahapajapati presented herself to the Buddha. The account also makes no “theological” sense, since it implies that the Buddha was irresolute and did not know his own mind. The overall evidence of the canon is that the Buddha did not discriminate against women and ordained women on an equal basis with men. It is, however, possible that the Buddha delayed creating the bhikkunisangha for a time due to social prejudice.

[3] The eight “heavy rules” (garudhammas) for nuns include inconsistent textual references that indicate that they were not instituted by the Buddha, including references to a probationer ordination that did not exist at the time of Mahapajapati’s purported ordination.

[4] The bhumis are characterized by the realization of joy, elimination of defilements, illumination, wisdom, meditation, emptiness, cessation, arhantship, dharma realization, and finally self-perfection.

[5] To recap, the chain of “interdependent origination” (paticca + sam + uppada) includes two links (nidanas), craving (tanha) and ignorance (avijja), which are subject to intention, thus two points where the chain can be broken, resulting in liberation. Contact comes at the approximate midpoint of the chain, resulting from feeling and giving rise to clinging (desirous attachment), and is reversed through the practice of dispassion. Ignorance is the first link and therefore the root or “first cause” of the chain, resulting from birth, ageing, suffering, and death (interpreting the diagram as a cycle or “circle”) and giving rise to “constructive activities” (sankharas), and is reversed through the practice of wisdom, which is both the beginning and the goal of the path (Right View). Wisdom or gnosis is the essential salvific principle, from which dispassion automatically follows. Interestingly, these two accomplishments, dispassion and wisdom, correspond exactly to the two stages of emancipation, the arhant and the Buddha respectively, with the Buddha preeminent due to the singular role of ignorance in the chain, which we see reflected in the primogeniture of the Buddha and the dependence of the arhants upon him.

[6] 344 years if one accepts the traditional Theravadin date of the parinibbana of 544 BCE.

[7] “Early Buddhists believed that by the attitude of not assuming anything except one’s Self as Self, one could get over sufferings. Paradoxically speaking, Buddhism aimed at establishing the existential subjectivity or individuality by the negation of the  ego. The realization of the true Self was striven for. Buddhism did not deny the self as such, contrary to the general assumption by many scholars who tend to regard the theory of Non-Self as a sort of nihilism.” (Nakamura, Indian Buddhism, pp. 63f.).