eighteen schools

eighteen schools, the division of the Buddhist community in India in the first three centuries following the death of the Buddha in c. 483 bc. Although texts speak of the “18 schools,” the lists differ considerably; and more than 30 names are mentioned in various chronicles.

The first division in the Buddhist community occurred as a result of the second council, said to have been held 100 years after the Buddha’s death, at Vaisali (Bihar state), when the Acariyavadins (followers of the traditional teaching) split away from the Sthaviravadins (followers of the Way of the Elders) and formed their own school, known as the Mahasanghikas. The Mahasanghikas’s views on the nature of the Buddha and the arhat (“saint”) foreshadowed the development of the Mahayana form of Buddhism. Further subdivisions of the Mahasanghikas over the next seven centuries included the Lokottaravadins, the Ekavyavaharikas, and the Kaukkutikas.

A subdivision within the Sthaviravadins emerged in the 3rd century bc, when the Sarvastivadins (followers of the Doctrine That All Is Real) broke away from the Vibhajyavadins (Those Who Make Distinctions). Other prominent offshoots of the Sthaviravadins were the Sammatiyas and the Vatsiputriyas, both known for their theory of pudgala (“person”); the Sautrantikas, who recognized the authority of the sutras (words of the Buddha) but not of the Abhidharma, the more schematic part of the canon; the Mahisasakas and the Dharmaguptas, whose names probably reflect their place of origin and founding teacher; and the Theravadins (Pali form of Sthaviravadins), the school that traveled to Sri Lanka and gave origin to the modern Theravadins, now prevalent in Sri Lanka, Myanmar (Burma), Thailand, and Cambodia.