{"id":6495,"date":"2024-06-20T21:02:16","date_gmt":"2024-06-21T02:02:16","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thereligioushistorynerd\/?p=6495"},"modified":"2025-05-22T16:14:57","modified_gmt":"2025-05-22T21:14:57","slug":"the-quest-for-original-buddhism-part-1","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.patheos.com\/blogs\/thereligioushistorynerd\/2024\/06\/the-quest-for-original-buddhism-part-1\/","title":{"rendered":"The Quest for Original Buddhism"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<\/head>

There are multiple views about \u201coriginal Buddhism<\/a>.\u201d The historical Buddha lived, we believe, about 26 centuries ago. He lived in what is now northeastern India, and in time his disciples spread his teachings throughout the Indus Peninsula and beyond. Today, Buddhism is a global religion made up of\u00a0 many schools, denominations, sects, sub-sects, or whatever you want to call them. And these can be very different from one another, in doctrine and practice.\u00a0 So it\u2019s natural to wonder how much any of them resemble the Buddhism of 26 centuries ago.<\/p>\n

Today the many schools of Buddhism are grouped under three major headings. Theravada <\/strong>Buddhism is the dominant form in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Laos, Thailand, and Cambodia. Mahayana<\/strong> dominates east Asia \u2014 China, Korea, Taiwan, Japan. Vietnam is mostly Mahayana but has some Theravada also. Mahayana Buddhism<\/a> contains several different sects and denominations, including Zen and Pure Land. The third major heading is Vajrayana<\/strong>, which is the tradition that takes in the several schools of Tibetan Buddhism<\/a> and a few sects outside Tibet, such as Japanese Shingon. Vajrayana is built upon the same doctrinal and philosophical schools as Mahayana but has its own unique practices.<\/p>\n

Original Buddhism? About Theravada<\/h2>\n The Theravada Buddhism<\/a> of southeast Asia is<\/em> the oldest extant school, and Theravadins often claim their school is original Buddhism. But that\u2019s not something we can know, especially since the historical record is a tad flimsy. The standard story is that about 380 BCE, roughly a century after the Buddha had passed into final Nirvana, a dispute over monastic rules caused Buddhism to split into two major factions. These factions were called the Sthavira (\u201cthe Elders\u201d) and the Mahasamghika (\u201cGreat Congregation\u201d). Which of these two was closest to an \u201coriginal Buddhism\u201d would be an entirely subjective opinion at this point. Before long these major schools had further subdivided into sub-schools, many of which disagreed with the others on points of doctrine. The identity and teachings of these schools, and how they relate to each other, is debated by scholars today. As I said, the historical record is a tad flimsy.<\/p>\n Today\u2019s Theravada is associated with Sthavira, but how direct that association is, is hard to say. At least one source I have at hand (John S. Strong, Buddhisms: An Introduction<\/em>) suggests that Theravada evolved from a sub-school called Vibhajyavada<\/a>, \u201cthose who make distinctions.\u201d Very likely it was Vibhajyavada monastics who brought Buddhism to Sri Lanka during the reign of Ashoka<\/a> in the 3rd century BCE. The Buddhism of Sri Lanka evolved into today\u2019s Theravada. How much Vibhajyavada resembled \u201coriginal\u201d Buddhism is not something we can know precisely. For that matter, how much today\u2019s Theravada resembles the Vibhajyavada of the 3rd century BCE is not all that clear, either. It\u2019s certainly possible that today\u2019s Theravada is very close to original Buddhism, but that\u2019s something one must accept on faith.<\/p>\n The Pali Canon, said to preserve the sermons, monastic rules, and other commentary of the historical Buddha, is the scriptural canon of Theravada Buddhism. But other early schools also preserved these same texts, in different prakrits<\/em> or dialects of Sanskrit, and what we have of those scriptures don\u2019t precisely match. And we have no way to know which version of anything is closest to an \u201coriginal.\u201d\u00a0 I\u2019ve written about this in an earlier post; see \u201cWill Ancient Gandharan Scrolls Change Buddhist History?<\/a>\u201d That said, all versions of the early scriptures are said to be remarkably consistent in their presentation of the core teachings of Buddhism. We can be reasonably certain that the main doctrinal principles taught by the Buddha have not been lost, even though the way those principles are understood from school to school does vary somewhat.<\/p>\n The Other Buddhism: Mahayana<\/h2>\n***** ** Mahayana is sometimes said to have developed from Mahasamghika, although that doesn\u2019t seem to be a universally accepted opinion among academic scholars. I understand today\u2019s Mahayana probably does contain traces of\u00a0 Mahasamghika as well as of some now-extinct Sthavira sects. There are, unfortunately, some big holes in our knowledge of precisely what Mahasamghika taught and how it might have differed doctrinally from Sthavira.<\/p>\n ** *****Whatever its origins, Mahayana as we know it today began to emerge about the 1st century BCE and continued to develop through the next few centuries. The distinctive philosophies and doctrines of Mahayana flow from the historical Buddha\u2019s teachings but go beyond what is taught in Theravada. Mahayana doesn\u2019t believe that it has deviated from the Buddha\u2019s original teachings; rather, Mahayana teaches it has clarified them and enlarged upon them.<\/p>\n The \u201cnew\u201d philosophies that emerged in Mahayana are explained as turnings of the Dharma Wheel<\/a>. The first turning was the historical Buddha\u2019s first sermon, where he explained the doctrine of the Four Noble Truths<\/a> and some other foundational teachings that are shared with Theravada. Subsequent turnings introduced Mahayana teachings on, for example, the fundamental nature of all phenomena and beings and the relationship between mind and our experience of reality.<\/p>\n The Next Few Centuries<\/h2>\n******* ** The third \u201cyana\u201d or vehicle, Vajrayana, first emerged in northern India in about the 5th century CE.\u00a0 It took root in Tibet in the 7th and 8th centuries, and from Tibet spread throughout the Himalayas. There also was a Vajrayana school in China for some time that is now extinct in China but survives in Japan as Shingon. Vajrayana is also Mahayana; it shares the same philosophical and doctrinal foundations as Mahayana. The difference between Vajrayana and Mahayana is more about practice than doctrine.<\/p>\n ** Buddhism spread throughout Asia and adapted to many different cultures. Unlike the spread of Christianity in Europe, there was no Buddhist \u201cPope\u201d or other authority insisting on uniformity. A monk or nun who was ready to teach would simply go somewhere and begin teaching. Early Buddhism was primarily monastic, but in time there were traditions such as Pure Land that became popular with laypeople. And now the many widely diverse traditions are establishing themselves in the West. If the past is any guide in time they will adapt to western culture.<\/p>\n ** Regarding original Buddhism \u2014 I am a Zen student, and so my perspectives tend to align with Mahayana. But I\u2019ve studied the various sects over a period of years. I can\u2019t vouch for the authenticity of every teacher and temple, but in my experience the major denominations at their core are all still teaching the main doctrinal principles of the Buddha.\u00a0 Maybe they\u2019re all \u201coriginal.\u201d<\/p>\n ** In a future post I want to look at \u201coriginal Buddhism\u201d from the perspective of the West, which in some ways is an entirely different issue.<\/p>\n ** .<\/p>\n ** ** A Buddha statue at dawn at Borobudur in Java, Indonesia. Taken by Anandajoti. Source: Wikimedia Commons, Creative Commons Attribution 2.0 Generic license<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/body><\/html>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" ** *******There are multiple views about \u201coriginal Buddhism.\u201d The historical Buddha lived, we believe, about 26 centuries ago. He lived in what is now northeastern India, and in time his disciples spread his teachings throughout the Indus Peninsula and beyond. Today, Buddhism is a global religion made up of\u00a0 many schools, denominations, sects, sub-sects, or whatever […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":4714,"featured_media":6501,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[46],"tags":[270,88,360,267,276],"class_list":["post-6495","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-buddhism","tag-buddha","tag-buddhism-in-china","tag-buddhism-in-southeast-asia","tag-mahayana-buddhism","tag-tibetan-buddhism"],"yoast_head":"\nThe Quest for Original Buddhism<\/title>\n<meta name=\"description\" content=\"Today, Buddhism is a global religion made up of\u00a0 many schools, denominations, sects, sub-sects, etc.. 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