Sautrāntika

The Sautrāntika or Sutravadin (सौत्रान्तिक, Suttavāda in Pali; ; Kyou Ryou Bu) were an early Buddhist school generally believed to be descended from the Sthavira nikāya by way of their immediate parent school, the Sarvāstivādins. While they are identified as a unique doctrinal tendency, they were part of the Sarvāstivāda Vinaya lineage of monastic ordination. Their name means literally "the conclusions of the sutras" where sūtra is lengthened into the vṛddhi derivative sautra, and combined with the word anta, meaning end or conclusion, with a final nominal marker ika (compare with the term vedānta), meaning their philosophy is derived from the sūtras. As stated by the commentator Yasomitra, they hold the sutras, but not the Abhidharma commentaries (sastras), as authoritative. The views of this group first appear in the Abhidharmakośabhāṣya of Vasubandhu. The name Sautrāntika indicates that unlike other North Indian Sthaviras, this school held the Buddhist sutras as central to their views, over and above the ideas presented in the Abhidharma literature. The Sarvastivada scholar Samghabhadra, in his Nyayanusara, attacks a school of thought named Sautrantika which he associates with the scholars Śrīlāta and his student Vasubandhu. According to Samghabhadra, a central tenet of this school was that all sutra is explicit meaning (nitartha), hence their name. The Sarvāstivādins sometimes referred to them as the school, meaning "those who utilize the method of examples". This latter name may have been a pejorative label. It is also possible that the name 'Dārṣṭāntika' identifies a predecessor tradition, or another related, but distinct, doctrinal position; the exact relationship between the two terms is unclear. Charles Willemen identifies the Sautrāntika as a Western branch of the Sarvāstivādins, active in the Gandhara area, who split from the Sarvāstivādins sometime before 200 CE, when the Sautrāntika name emerged.