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The History of Buddhist Thought c29: Appendix II. The Eighteen Schools

The History of Buddhist Thought c29

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Appendix II. The Eighteen Schools

c29.2

There are at least six accounts of the origin of the eighteen schools.¹ The best known is that of the Pāli Chronicles. The number eighteen is traditional, but in fact more than this number are recorded. The Chronicles get out of the difficulty by placing eighteen of them before the third Council. In the other accounts some of the names are dropped, evidently names of schools which no longer existed, and in their place are put others which had become prominent later. All represent the first secession as due to the Mahāsanghikas. Then according to the Chronicles the divisions were as follows:—

c29.3

¹ *Dpvs.* v, *Mhvs.* v; Vasumitra in Masuda, *Origin and doctrines of the Early Indian Buddhist Schools*, and in Vasiliev, *Buddhismus*, p. 244; Bhavya in Rockhill, *Life of the Buddha*, p. 181; Tāranātha gives accounts according to five schools, p. 270.

c29.5

In Vasumitra this becomes:—

c29.6

1. Mahāsanghikas.
2. Ekavyavaharikas.
3. Lokottaravādas.
4. Kaukkuṭikas or Kukkulikas.
5. Bahuśrutīyas.
6. Prajñaptivādas.
7. Caityaśailas.
8. Aparaśailas.
9. Uttaraśailas.

c29.7

This is essentially the same list with additions. The Lokottaravādas are the real Mahāsanghikas, and the two last schools here added may be the Aparaseliyas and

c29.8

Pubbaseliyas mentioned as late schools by the *Kathāvatthu* commentator. Bhavya and the rest have Pūrvaśailas for Uttaraśailas. The Gokulikas have become Kaukkuṭikas, Kukkulikas, and even Kaurukullakas. The *Kathāvatthu* commentator says that they declared all compound things to be utter *kukkulā*, cinderheaps, perhaps a doctrine developed out of their name. Nothing more is known of them. Gokula may be a quite independent name of local significance. There is further change in the Sarvāstivāda list ¹:—

c29.9

¹ This is the list of *Mvyut.*, discussed above (p. 38); it is given also by Tāranātha, p. 271, who attributes it to Vinītadeva.

c29.10

1. Mahāsanghikas.
2. Pūrvaśailas.
3. Aparaśailas.
4. Haimavatas.
5. Lokottaravādas.
6. Prajñaptivādas.

c29.11

Here four have disappeared, and the Haimavatas have been added. This can be explained if we suppose that the recorders did not depend merely upon traditional lists, but were influenced by the actual state of the sects as they knew them. What they recorded as Mahāsanghika sects would necessarily be those which claimed to belong to that group. From this point of view the Aparaśailas and Pūrvaśailas would be rightly included. They held Mahāsanghika doctrines, but being south Indian sects they are much later than the others. Their lateness is recognized by the *Kathāvatthu* commentator, though he shows their close connection with the Mahāsanghikas in doctrine. The most significant name is Prajñaptivāda, the doctrine that knowledge is not real but convention. It is probable that we have here a reference to the Mahāyāna epistemological theories.² These theories were certainly in existence when the above lists were compiled. It has been noticed that there is no direct connection between the Mahāyāna epistemology and the bodhisattva doctrine. The latter came from the Sarvāstivādins, and the Mahāyānists appear to have received their two characteristic doctrines from these two independent sources.

c29.12

² It is of course a complete anachronism to place its origin as early as the second century after Buddha’s death.

c29.13

The Haimavatas are classed by Vasumitra as Theravādins. The Kathāvatthu commentator merely mentions them (Hemavatas) as a late school. They were certainly not the old Theravāda, but they may in Vasumitra's time have claimed to be Theravādas or Sthaviras.

c29.14

The next great secession from Theravāda is represented thus by the chronicles :—

c29.15

[Figure: Mahimsāsakas Sabbatthivādas Dhammaguttikas Kassapikas Saṃkantikas Suttavādas.]

c29.16

Here too we have a group of closely related schools, of which the actual historical origin could hardly have been known. Then, treated as an independent secession,

c29.17

[Figure: Vajjiputtakas Dhammuttarikas Bhadrayānikas Chandāgārikas Sammitiyas.]

c29.18

These two groups of eleven schools with the six of the Mahāsanghikas and the Theravāda itself form the eighteen schools recognized by the Chronicles. In these two last groups the best known schools occur, for they are those which continued in India until quite late times. Vasumitra makes both groups to be secessions from Sarvāstivāda. This school, he says, separated from the Theravāda at the beginning of the third century after Buddha's death. Then also in the third century the Vātsīputrīyas from the Sarvāstivādas. From the Vātsīputrīyas :

c29.19

1. Dharmottarīyas
2. Bhadrāyaṇīyas
3. Sammatīyas
4. Channagirikas.

c29.20

These, except for variations in the names, agree with those in the Chronicles.

c29.21

Immediately afterwards also from the Sarvāstivādas the Mahīṃśāsakas separated, and from them :

c29.22

1. Dharmaguptikas
2. Kāśyapīyas
3. Sautrāntikas or Saṃkrāntivādas.

c29.23

These two groups with some other variations are treated in the Sarvāstivāda list as constituting the Sammatīya and Sarvāstivāda groups (p. 38).

c29.24

Where the forms of the names differ from those in the Chronicles the probability is that the Sanskrit forms are right. The Vajjiputtakas of Vesālī were never a secession.¹ It was their practices, according to one tradition, which caused the first secession, but the first sect or school was the Mahāsanghika.¹ The later Vajjiputtakas, who seceded after the Sarvāstivāda group, are called Vātsīputrīyas in the Sanskrit. As these continued to exist in the north, where the accounts were compiled, the latter form is more likely to be correct. They were people of the Vatsa country, and it is not known whether Vatsīputra was the name of a leader or a general name for the people of the district. Dharmottarīya and Bhadrāyaṇīya also look like names formed from the personal names Dharmottara or Dhammuttara and Bhadrāyaṇa, and so with Dharmaguptika and Kāśyapīya. Bhadrayāna looks like a corruption. It is not really an addition to knowledge to translate Bhadrayānika “Lucky Vehicle” and Dhammaguttika “Norm-guard”. Still other names occur which do not furnish real information, even if we were sure of their etymology. There are half a dozen forms of Chandāgārika or Channagirika. The Chinese chose a form which means “Six-Towners”. The name probably comes from some place-name where the school was established, as was certainly the case with several names like Pūrvaśaila, “east rock”. Andhakas and Uttarāpathakas are collective terms used for southern and northern schools respectively.

c29.25

¹ Mrs. Rhys Davids in the genealogical tree (*Points of Controversy*) makes the Vajjiputtakas the first secession with the Mahāsanghikas leading nowhere.

c29.26

The different accounts have much in common, for they were speaking to some extent of schools which existed round about them. When they give their views on the origin of the secessions they appear to be theorizing. One view makes the Sarvāstivāda originate from the Mahīṃśāsaka, and another view reverses this. It is a point on which the rival schools were not likely to agree, and the history of the schools did not begin to be written until long after exact knowledge of the original disputes was lost. How little was actually known about the circumstances of the secessions can be seen from the two entirely different accounts of the secession of the Mahāsanghikas. According to one account it was purely a matter of discipline, and according to another a series of doctrinal questions. Yet neither of these matters appear characteristic in the later history of that school. Przyluski rejects both explanations. He says that the Great Assembly (Mahāsangha) was the meeting of all believers, religious and lay people; that originally it was held on feast days, when the more learned preached the doctrine, and all publicly confessed their faults; that when the congregation of the religious was constituted, it became the custom in different groups to convoke only the Assembly in the strict sense, to the exclusion of the laics; that this practice had the advantage of safeguarding the prestige of the religious by permitting them to confess their faults behind closed doors; that it appears to have been inaugurated in the communities of the West; and that the Mahāsanghika sect, localized in the East, for long preserved the ancient custom, to which it probably owed its name.¹

c29.27

¹ Le Bouddhisme, p. 29; no evidence is given for all this.

c29.28

The Mahāvaṃsa tells us that besides the seventeen schools which arose in the second century after Buddha's death there were six later ones that arose in India and two in Ceylon:

c29.29

The Hemavatas, Rājagiriyas, and also the Siddhatthakas, the Pubbaseliya monks and also the Aparaseliyas, The Vajiriyas—these six also separated in Jambudīpa. The Dhammarucis and the Sāgaliyas separated in Ceylon.

c29.30

These are sects which the Chroniclers and commentators evidently knew, but they tell us nothing of their origin. This makes it unlikely that the later accounts, which classify some of them with the older groups, knew anything of their real history. The Ceylon sects have been discussed above (p. 40).

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