Mahasanghika

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Mahāsāṅghika ( Great Congregation ) is the name of an early school of Buddhism . It was created 137 years after the death (entrance into nirvana ) of Siddhartha Gautama , shortly after the second council of Vaiśālī . In a pamphlet, the monk Mahādeva summarized five points that relate to the properties of arhats , for example that an arhat can be seduced in a dream and thus have nocturnal ejaculations. Much of the Sangha agreed with these observations, but a minority denied this 'innovation'. A council convened after Pataliputra could only determine the split in the order. The group of monks who disagreed with the innovations left the council and called themselves the Sthaviravādin ('those of the old way', Pali> Theravādin); the monks who stayed behind were given the name Mahāsāṅghika because they taught a theory of the Great Sangha.

Both schools subsequently changed their canons . Some authors emphasize that the change in the Mahasanghikas also offered greater opportunities for lay people (non-ordained) than the strongly monastic path of Theravada .

Later such differences of opinion resulted in 18 schools, although today it is not always clear which of these two original groups they belonged to. The Mahasanghika were regarded as one of the four Shravaka schools ('faithful listeners': Sthaviravāda , Mahasanghika, Sammitiya , Sarvastivada ).

In practical life, the difference remained without great consequences; Buddhist monks of different traditions did associate with one another. For example, the Mahasanghika Atisha was the librarian of the Vikramalashila monastery, which itself belonged to a different school, and of his teachers he valued the guru from Sumatra (Suvarnadvipi), who again belonged to a different school.

As a result of this change, the Mahasanghika developed the concept of the bodhisattva path , while the goal of Theravada (Sthaviravada) continues to be called 'arhatship'. King Ashoka had a Theravada teacher; although he also promoted Mahasanghika monasteries, he sent a Theravada monk to Sri Lanka, from where this tradition spread to Southeast Asia. There it partially superimposed Mahasanghika traditions (e.g. in Thailand).

The Sarvastivada school, on the other hand, was not valued by the king and subsequently concentrated far away from the royal court in northern India, Kashmir and in the west (Bamiyan). As a result, it spread via the Silk Road (Khotan, Tunhuang) to China, from there to Korea, Japan, but also Vietnam (?). Shortly before and as a result of the destruction of Buddhist culture by Islamic conquerors ('furor islamicus'), Tibet had more and more contacts with Central Asian, then Kashmiri, and finally North Indian Buddhists (some refugees, first from Khotan and Kashmir, later from Northern India), which were all Mahasanghikas (Saravstivada) (and uniformly the subgroup of Prasanghika Madhyamaka ).

This school distinguished between a 'small path' and a 'large path', on skt, for the purpose of testing the students' motivation. Hinayana and Mahayana . The motivation of the small path (enlightenment for one's own good) remains theoretical, one strives for the motivation of the 'big path' (enlightenment for the good of all living beings). This distinction was later taken up (by Europeans) to call the Theravada school Hinayana.

literature

  • Hans Wolfgang Schumann, Buddhism. Donors, schools and systems . ISBN 3-424-01123-1
  • Bu-sTon, 1931-1932, A history of Buddhism. , tr. by EE Obermiller. 2 parts. Heidelberg.
  • Hirakawa Akira & Paul Groner, 1993, A history of Indian Buddhism: from Sakyamuni to early Mahayana. Delhi.
  • Jonang Taranatha, 1983, The Seven Instruction Lineages by Jonang Taranatha. Translated and edited by David Templeman. Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA).
  • Losang Norbu Tsonawa, (transl.) 1985, Indian Buddhist Pandits. From "The Jewel Garland of Buddhist History" . Dharamsala: Library of Tibetan Works and Archives (LTWA).
  • Majumdar, AK 1977, Concise history of Ancient India (3 volumes). Delhi: Munshiram Manoharlal.
  • Pabongka Rinpoche, 1997, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, A concise discourse on the path to enlightenment edited by Trijang Rinpoche , translated by Michael Richards.
  • Charles Prebish, Janice J. Nattier, 1977, Mahasamghika Origins: The Beginnings of Buddhist Sectarianism; History of Religions, 16, 3, 237-272.
  • Charles Prebish, 1996, Saiksa-dharmas Revisited: Further Considerations of Mahasamghika Origins; History of Religions, 35, 3, 258-270.
  • Roerich, George N. (tr.), 1949, The Blue Annals. Parts One and Two. 2 vols. 1st ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass; see Blue Annals

swell

  1. ^ André Bareau, 1964, Buddhism - Jinism - Primitive Peoples . in: Christel Matthias Schröder - The Religions of Mankind, Volume 13.
  2. Reynolds, John Myrdhin, 1996, The Golden Letters. Snow Lion Publications.
  3. Rhys Davids, TW 1891, The Sects of the Buddhists . in: The Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, pp. 409-422
  4. ^ Pabongka Rinpoche, 1997, Liberation in the Palm of Your Hand, A concise discourse on the path to enlightenment edited by Trijang Rinpoche , translated by Michael Richards. Page 45ff.
  5. ^ EJ Thomas: The Lalitavistara and Sarvastivada. In: Indian Historical Quarterly 16/2 (1940), p. 241
  6. cf. "[…], several Muslim chronicles of the time portray the impact of repeated massacres, the looting of monasteries, the destruction of Buddhist images, and the burning of books, people, and libraries." Crosby, Kate 2003: Persecutions. in: Buswell, Encyclopedia of Buddhism. MacMillan, pp. 639-644.