Hinayana

Hinayana ( Sanskrit हीनयान hīnayāna , "lesser vehicle") is a Mahayana Buddhist name for all non-Mahayana currents of Buddhism . The Theravada is the oldest existing school tradition of Hinayana, of which there were up to eighteen Buddhist schools. Another important direction is the Sarvastivada .

Origin and meaning

Origin of the term

The terms "Hinayana" and "Mahayana" come from the Prajnaparamita - sutras ( Sanskrit प्रज्नापारमिता prajnaparamita ) ( "The Sutras of far-reaching discriminating awareness, Sutras of the Perfection of Wisdom"). The sutras come from the Buddhist tradition of Mahayana .

The name Hinayana only came into use with the emergence of the Mahayana, when the latter claimed to be "larger" (maha) or more comprehensive in its objectives than the followers of the old wisdom school, who are therefore called "small" (hina) designated. In addition to the size differentiation through the objective, the naming can also be understood in the context of the first schism of the Buddhism movement.

Buddhist Schism and Second Buddhist Council

This took place after the second Buddhist council , which was held around 383 BC. In Vaiśālī (pali: Vesālī ) after the extinction of the Buddha took place.

Territorial expansion of the various Buddhist currents from 6/4 Century BC Until 12th century AD

The Vaibhashika and Sautrantika systems were Hinayana traditions in Sanskrit , while the Theravada system was part of a Pali tradition.

In the second book of the Vinaya Pitaka, the Cullavagga, this incident is described in detail. Among other things, that it took place 100 years after the Parinibbana of the Buddha and that the cause was 10 "theses" by monks from Vesali, which violated previously applicable religious law, the main trigger being the controversy "dealing with money". The assumption that the Buddha's orally handed down teachings should be written down by the participating monks and brought to a consensus is not confirmed by the canonical text. The consensus failed and the council split into two camps. A large group split off from the traditionalist Theravada school branch , in which the opinion was expressed that the strict Theravada religious rules should be relaxed. The split off monks formed the majority and called themselves Mahasanghikas. The two vehicles of Buddhism emerged, the schism was complete. The smaller vehicle (usually somewhat contemptuously called "Hinayana") was characterized by traditional disciplinary rigor and was accordingly viewed as very exclusive or elitist - only a few people were able to submit to this severity in order to find redemption. The larger vehicle advocating a relaxation of the rules was named Mahayana , the "Big Vehicle". Before the emergence of Mahayana, there were no collective terms for different schools due to the lack of necessity. The term Hinayana, which emerged after the schism, is still used despite its pejorative character.

In Mahayana, the term Śrāvakayāna (vehicle of the listener) is used instead of Hinayana .

Another school of Hinayana in the Mahayana distribution area (East Asia) that still exists today, albeit greatly changed and reduced in size, is the Vinaya School. It was of some importance in the area of ordination and the transmission of traditional monastic rules. In China it spread under the name Lü-zong , in Japanese it is called Risshū . In different times (e.g. Nara period , Song dynasty ) the monks were expected to receive the transmission of tradition from this school.

Various schools of Hinayana

The Hinayana comprised eighteen schools. The most important are the Sarvastivada and the Theravada. In Sarvastivada there were two main systems based on philosophical differences: Vaibhashika and Sautrantika .

The Sarvāstivāda (Sanskrit सर्वास्तिवाद sarvāstivāda) is a branch in early Indian Buddhism belonging to the Sthaviravāda , which separated from the school of Vibhajjavada (Theravada) after the third council of Pataliputta due to different understandings, for example about the understanding of Abhidharma . The Mahishasaka , Vatsiputriya and Kashyapiya schools emerged from the Sarvāstivāda .

The Theravada , the largest and only surviving lineage of Hinayana, is widespread in Sri Lanka and continental Southeast Asia ( Myanmar , Thailand , Laos , Cambodia and partly also in Vietnam ) and is the predominant direction of Buddhism in these countries and is therefore used in scientific circles better known as "southern Buddhism". The Sarvastivada was widespread in northern India.

An opinion particularly held by Theravada Buddhists is the following: since Theravada alone survived from the earlier schools of Hinayana , it seems reasonable to speak only of Theravada and Mahayana as the two great lines of Buddhism. In a historical context, however, this can be misleading as other schools of Hinayana also existed. Of the schools of Hinayana that are no longer practiced today, the following are the most important: the Mahasanghika , the Pudgalavada , the Sarvastivada and the Sautrantika .

The Hinayana teaching systems, which were taken up at Indian monastic universities such as Nalanda and later by Tibetan Mahayanists, originate from these two schools. The lineage of monastic vows practiced in Tibet comes from another Sarvastivada sub-category, the Mulasarvastivada .

The term "Hinayana" in Tibetan Buddhism

In Buddhism in Tibet , the terms Hinayana and Mahayana are used exclusively in the sense of personal motivation for the endeavor to achieve enlightenment; they complement the motivation of the practitioner to attain enlightenment for himself or for the benefit of all beings. In Tibetan Buddhism, the attitude of Mahayana is desirable. Hinayana thus remains a theoretical construct in which most practitioners are stuck practically speaking, because they are not yet purely altruistic, but while they are aware of this and strive for the perfection of bodhichitta in order to actually adopt a Mahayanist attitude.

In ancient India, the distinction does not seem to have existed. According to the few traditions from Chinese and Tibetan sources (the Islamic and Hindu suppression of Buddhism itself left nothing in India, Buddhism was completely wiped out there) it is sometimes unsure to make an assignment.

According to Tibetan sources, in a very early council the Mahasanghika ('Great Sangha') and the Sthaviravadin ('Old Way') separated over the question of whether it was permissible within the 'Great Sangha' of differences in the spiritual maturity of different arhats to accept or (as before) not (hence the names). As a result, a total of 18 schools emerged, of which it is not always certain today which of these two schools they belonged to; there is also evidence that this distinction appeared to be of little importance among Buddhists. In any case, as a result of the extinction of Western and Indian Buddhism, only a subgroup of the Sthaviravadin (= Theravadin) survived as well as one direction of the Mahasanghikas, namely the Prasanghika-Madhyamaka, which are responsible for all northern traditions (China and Tibet).

literature

Heinz Bechert : Buddhism in South and Southeast Asia: past and present. W. Kohlhammer, Stuttgart 2013, ISBN 978-3-17-022429-2 .
Hans Wolfgang Schumann : Buddhism. Philosophy to salvation. The great systems of thought of Hinayana and Mahayana. (= Dalp paperbacks ). Dalp, Francke, Bern / Munich 1963.
Nalinaksha Dutt: The Spread of Buddhism and the Buddhist Schools. Rajesch Publications, New Delhi / Allahabad 1950. ( fdocuments.in on fdocuments.in)
Klaus-Josef Notz : Lexicon of Buddhism Basic Concepts, Tradition, Practice. Herder Verlag, Freiburg / Basel / Vienna 1998, ISBN 3-451-04700-4 . (as digitized Directmedia, Berlin 2001 yumpu.com )

Web links

The terms Hinayana and Mahayana at www.StudyBuddhism.com
What is Theravada , an introduction.

Individual evidence

^ Arvind Sharma: A Note on the Use of the Word Hīnayāna in the Teachings of Buddhism. In: The Eastern Buddhist. Vol. 9, No. 2, 1976. (digitized version)
^ RH Robinson, WL Johnson, Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Buddhist Religions: A Historical Introduction. fifth edition. Wadsworth, Belmont, California 2005, p. 46. ( Many Buddhisms, a Dhamma vinaya , brief introduction to Theravada)
↑ or before he entered the Parinirvana, (Sanskrit परिनिर्वाण parinirvāṇa "the final liberation")
↑ Katharina Ceming , Hans P. Sturm: Buddhismus. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16494-X , p. 30f.
↑ Santuttho: Cullavagga - The small group from the collection of the Buddhist monastic rules . 1st edition. Michael Zeh Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-937972-32-9 , pp. 577 .
^ Hans Wolfgang Schumann : Buddhism: donors, schools and systems. (= Diederichs yellow row ). Diederichs, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7205-2652-6 , p. 133.

[1] Arvind Sharma: A Note on the Use of the Word Hīnayāna in the Teachings of Buddhism. In: The Eastern Buddhist. Vol. 9, No. 2, 1976. (digitized version)

[2] RH Robinson, WL Johnson, Thanissaro Bhikkhu: Buddhist Religions: A Historical Introduction. fifth edition. Wadsworth, Belmont, California 2005, p. 46. ( Many Buddhisms, a Dhamma vinaya , brief introduction to Theravada)

[3] r before he entered the Parinirvana, (Sanskrit परिनिर्वाण parinirvāṇa "the final liberation")

[4] Katharina Ceming , Hans P. Sturm: Buddhismus. Fischer, Frankfurt am Main 2005, ISBN 3-596-16494-X , p. 30f.

[5] Santuttho: Cullavagga - The small group from the collection of the Buddhist monastic rules . 1st edition. Michael Zeh Verlag, Berlin 2014, ISBN 978-3-937972-32-9 , pp. 577 .

[6] Hans Wolfgang Schumann : Buddhism: donors, schools and systems. (= Diederichs yellow row ). Diederichs, Munich 2005, ISBN 3-7205-2652-6 , p. 133.