Nikaya Buddhism

• 1. Nikaya Buddhism

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  Masatoshi Nagatomi of Harvard University coined the term "Nikaya Buddhism" to solve a problem that the older vocabulary could not handle. The word it replaced, "Hinayana," carries the literal meaning of "inferior vehicle." It had been applied to the earliest Buddhist schools for centuries. Yet it was coined by the Mahayana tradition itself and never adopted by those schools to describe themselves. The Nikaya schools are the oldest organized expressions of Buddhist practice in India. Their doctrinal traditions remain active across the world today. What distinguished one school from another? How deeply did these ancient fraternities shape the traditions that came after them? And why did the word used to describe them matter so much to the scholars who studied them?

• 2. Eighteen Fraternities

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  Nikaya is a Pali word for "group" or "assemblage." In Indian Buddhism, these groups took the form of distinct monastic fraternities. Scholars conventionally count eighteen of them, though the actual number fluctuated across time and region. Each fraternity held its own doctrinal orientation. Each also organized its sacred texts into a canon built around units called pitakas, meaning "baskets." The number of pitakas differed from school to school.

  The Dharmaguptaka school illustrates how far schools could diverge from one another. Its canon incorporated both a Bodhisattva pitaka and a Dharani pitaka. These two additions set the Dharmaguptaka apart from many other schools. Other fraternities did not maintain separate collections in those categories. These structural differences were not superficial. They reflected each school's distinct understanding of which texts belonged to the tradition. The variation in how schools organized their pitakas points to the real diversity within the eighteen fraternities. A broad label like "Nikaya Buddhism" tends to obscure that diversity.

• 3. Transcendental Buddhas

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  For the Mahasanghikas, the bodhisattva ideal took precedence over the goal of becoming an arhat. These schools understood buddhas and bodhisattvas to be transcendental and supramundane, not figures bounded by ordinary human experience. Arhats, by contrast, were considered fallible. This combination pushed the Mahasanghikas toward a practice centered on full buddhahood. The arhat path, by their reckoning, fell short of the highest attainment.

  Avalokitavrata wrote of the Mahasanghikas as possessing a "Great Agama Pitaka." He associated this collection with Mahayana sutras such as the Prajnaparamita and the Ten Stages Sutra.

  Within the Caitika group of Mahasanghika nikayas, the Purvasailas and the Aparasailas each maintained texts in the Prakrit language. Bhavaviveka recorded that the Siddhartikas used a Vidyadhara Pitaka, while both the Purvasailas and the Aparasailas maintained a Bodhisattva Pitaka. These details indicate that organized collections of Mahayana texts had taken shape within Mahasanghika schools well before any formally distinct Mahayana institution emerged.

• 4. The Sthavira Branch

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  The Sarvastivadins held a major position within the Sthavira nikaya. Their framework for Buddhist practice recognized three vehicles: the Sravakayāna, the Pratyekabuddhayāna, and the Bodhisattvayāna. References to the Bodhisattvayāna and to the practice of the Six paramitas appear regularly across Sarvastivada texts. This openness to bodhisattva doctrine placed the Sarvastivadins in a notable position among the early schools.

  Theravada, based in Sri Lanka, accepted the three-vehicle framework but gave it a distinct interpretation. For Theravada, the three vehicles were not separate paths but three types of bodhi, or enlightenment. The Theravada nikaya relies exclusively on the Pali Canon, which is organized into three pitakas and contains no separate literature for bodhisattvas. Walpola Rahula documented the practical expression of this within Theravada ritual. At the close of a ceremony, a monk giving benedictions typically urges the congregation to seek nirvana. Each person is invited to aim for one of the three Bodhis: Sravakabodhi, Pratyekabodhi, or Samyaksambodhi, in keeping with their individual capacity. The Sarvastivadins' acknowledgment of the bodhisattva path suggests that the boundary between these schools and Mahayana was far from fixed.

• 5. No Separate Ordination

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  Jan Nattier found no evidence that Mahayana ever constituted a separate formal school or sect. Rather, it existed as a set of ideals and, later, doctrines, circulating within the existing Nikaya fraternities. Paul Williams reached a related conclusion: Mahayana never possessed its own vinaya, the monastic code. It never attempted to establish a separate ordination lineage from the Indian nikayas.

  Every bhikshu and bhikshuni who adhered to Mahayana teachings formally belonged to one of the Nikaya schools. Their ordination and monastic identity were grounded in the older fraternities, not in any Mahayana institution. This arrangement was not a temporary feature of the tradition's early development. It persists to the present day. In East Asia, the Dharmaguptaka nikaya provides the ordination lineage for Mahayana monks and nuns. In Tibetan Buddhism, the Mulasarvastivada nikaya fulfills that role.

• 6. A Question of Labels

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  Sravakayāna, literally meaning "hearer vehicle" or "disciples' vehicle," is one of several alternative terms scholars have proposed alongside "Nikaya Buddhism." Others include "sectarian Buddhism" and "conservative Buddhism." Scholars have not settled on a single preferred replacement. The term "Nikaya Buddhism" itself, like "Hinayana," focuses on the presumed commonality between schools rather than on the actual schools themselves. This commonality is thought to consist in a shared attitude toward scriptural authenticity.

  Reginald Ray, a Tibetan Buddhist scholar, offered one of the most precise critiques of the older vocabulary. He described "Hinayana" as "a stereotype that is useful in talking about a particular stage on the Tibetan Buddhist path." To apply it to a living historical tradition like the Theravada, he argued, was simply not appropriate. The term carries a technical meaning within Tibetan Buddhist philosophy; that meaning does not translate cleanly into a characterization of historical schools. Pre-Mahayana traditions like the Theravada are, in his words, "far richer, more complex, and more profound" than the definition of "Hinayana" allows.

  Within Theravada itself, the word nikaya also functions as a term for sub-schools and subsects within that tradition. The label coined to name these ancient fraternities from the outside turns out to be a word the fraternities use internally. These traditions employ it to describe their own internal divisions.