Are you an EPFL student looking for a semester project?
Work with us on data science and visualisation projects, and deploy your project as an app on top of Graph Search.
Concept
Sthavira nikāya
Summary
The Sthavira nikāya (Sanskrit "Sect of the Elders"; ) was one of the early Buddhist schools. They split from the majority Mahāsāṃghikas at the time of the Second Buddhist council.
The Sthavira nikāya was one of the early Buddhist schools. The Sthavira nikāya split away from the majority Mahāsāṃghikas during the Second Buddhist council resulting in the first schism in the Sangha.
The Mahāsāṃghika Śāriputraparipṛcchā, a text written to justify this school's departure from the disciplinary code of the elder monks, asserts that the council was convened at Pāṭaliputra over matters of vinaya, and it is explained that the schism resulted from the majority (Mahāsaṃgha) refusing to accept the addition of rules to the Vinaya by the minority (Sthaviras). The Mahāsāṃghikas therefore saw the Sthaviras as being a breakaway group which was attempting to modify the original Vinaya.
Scholars have generally agreed that the matter of dispute was indeed a matter of vinaya, and have noted that the account of the Mahāsāṃghikas is bolstered by the vinaya texts themselves, as vinayas associated with the Sthaviras do contain more rules than those of the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya. Modern scholarship therefore generally agrees that the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya is the oldest. According to Skilton, future scholars may determine that a study of the Mahāsāṃghika school will contribute to a better understanding of the early Dhamma-Vinaya than the Theravada school.
The Tibetan historian Buton Rinchen Drub (1290–1364) wrote that the Mahāsāṃghikas used Prakrit, the Sarvāstivādins used Sanskrit, the Sthaviras used Paiśācī, and the Saṃmitīya used Apabhraṃśa.
The Sthaviras later divided into other schools such as:
Sarvāstivāda
Vatsīputrīya
Vibhajyavāda (Pali: Vibhajjavāda)
The Vibhajyavāda branch gave rise to a number of schools such as:
Mahīśāsaka
Dharmaguptaka
Kāśyapīya
Tāmraparnīya, later called "Theravāda"
The Theravāda school of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia has identified itself exclusively with the Sthaviras, as the Pali word thera is equivalent to the Sanskrit sthavira.
Official source
About this result
This page is automatically generated and may contain information that is not correct, complete, up-to-date, or relevant to your search query. The same applies to every other page on this website. Please make sure to verify the information with EPFL's official sources.