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Central Asian Buddhist monk

teaching a Chinese monk.

Bezeklik, 9th-10th century

Early

Buddhism

Scriptures

Gandhran textsgamas

Pali Canon

Councils

1st Council

2nd Council

3rd Council

4th Council

Schools

First Sangha

Mahsghika Ekavyvahrika Lokottaravda Bahurutya Prajaptivda Caitika

Sthaviravda Mahsaka Dharmaguptaka Kyapya Sarvstivda Vibhajyavda Theravda

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DharmaguptakaFrom Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

The Dharmaguptaka (Sanskrit: ; traditional Chinese:; pinyin:Fzng B) are one ofthe eighteen or twenty early Buddhist schools, depending on one's source. They are said to have

originated from another sect, the Mahsakas. The Dharmaguptakas had a prominent role in earlyCentral Asian and Chinese Buddhism, and their monastic rules forbhikus andbhikus are still ineffect in some East Asian countries to this day, including China, Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan. They are

one of three surviving Vinaya lineages, along with the

Theravdaand the

Mlasarvstivda.

Contents

1 Doctrinal development

2 Appearance

3 History3.1 In Northwest India and Central Asia

3.2 In East Asia

4 Texts

4.1 Gandhran Buddhist texts4.2 Vinaya translation

4.3 gama collections4.4 Additional piakas4.5Abhinikramaa Stra

5 Relationship to the Mahyna6 See also

7 Notes

8 References9 External links

Doctrinal development

The Dharmaguptaka doctrine appears to have beencharacterized by an understanding of the Buddha as separate

from Sagha so that his teaching is superior to the one givenby arhats. They also emphasise the merit of devotion to

stupas, which often had pictorial representation of the stories

Buddha's previous life as a bodhisattva, as portrayed in the

Jatakas. The Dharmaguptakas regarded the path of a rvaka(rvakayna) and the path of a bodhisattva(bodhisattvayna) to be separate.

The Dharmaguptaka are known to have rejected the

authority of the Sarvstivdapratimoka rules on the groundsthat the original teachings of the Buddha had been lost.

[1]

Appearance

Between 148 and 170 CE, the Parthian monk An Shigao

came to China and translated a work which described the

color of monastic robes (Skt. kya) utitized in five majorIndian Buddhist sects, calledDa Biqiu Sanqian Weiyi (

).[2] Another text translated at a later date, the

ariputraparipcch, contains a very similar passage with nearly the same information.[2] However, the colors for Dharmaguptaka andSarvstivda are reversed. In the earlier source, the Sarvstivda are described as wearing deep red robes, while the Dharmaguptaka aredescribed as wearing black robes.[3] The corresponding passage found in the laterariputraparipcch, in contrast, portrays the

Sarvstivda as wearing black robes and the Dharmaguptaka as wearing deep red robes.[3]

During the Tang Dynasty, the Chinese Buddhist monastics typically wore grayish-black robes, and were even colloquially referred to as

Ziyi (), "those of the black robes."[4] However, the Song Dynasty monk Zanning (9191001 CE) writes that during the earlier

Han-Wei period, the Chinese monks typically wore red robes.[5]

rmaguptaka - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Dharmaguptaka

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The region ofAparnta,where the Dharmaguptakas

are believed to have

originated

Fullbhikuordination iscommon in the

Dharmaguptaka lineage.

Vesak festival, Taiwan

According to the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, the robes of monastics should be sewn out of no more than 18 pieces of cloth, and the cloth

should be fairly heavy and coarse.[6]

History

In Northwest India and Central Asia

The Gandharan Buddhist texts, the earliest Buddhist texts ever discovered, are apparently dedicated to

the teachers of the Dharmaguptaka school. They tend to confirm a flourishing of the Dharmaguptakaschool in northwestern India around the 1st century CE, with Gndhras the canonical language, andthis would explain the subsequent influence of the Dharmaguptakas in Central Asia and then

northeastern Asia. According to Buddhist scholar A.K. Warder, the Dharmaguptaka originated in

Aparnta.[7]

Scholars over the years have asserted that the Dharmaguptaka were founded by a Greek monk:[8]

One of the major missionaries was Yonaka Dhammarakkhita. He was, as his name indicates, a

Greek monk, native of 'Alasanda' (Alexandria). He features in the Pali tradition as a master of

psychic powers as well as an expert on Abhidhamma. He went to the Greek-occupied areas in the

west of India. Long ago Przyuski, followed by Frauwallner, suggested that Dhammarakkhita beidentified with the founder of the Dharmaguptaka school, since dhammarakkhita and

dhammagutta have identical meaning.

[9]

Since that time two pieces of evidence have come to lightthat make this suggestion highly plausible. One is the positive identification of very early

manuscripts belonging to the Dharmaguptakas in the Gandhra region, exactly where we expect to find YonakaDhammarakkhita. The second is that the phonetic rendering of his name in the Sudassanavinayavibhs evidently renders'Dharmagutta' rather than 'Dhammarakkhita'.

According to one scholar, the evidence afforded by the Gandharan Buddhist texts "suggest[s] that the Dharmaguptaka sect achieved

early success under their Indo-Scythian supporters in Gandhra, but that the sect subsequently declined with the rise of the KuaEmpire (ca. mid-first to third century A.D.), which gave its patronage to the Sarvstivda sect."[10] In the 7th century CE, Xuanzangand Yijing both recorded that the Dharmaguptakas were located in Oiyna and Central Asia, but not on the mainland of India.[11]

Yijing grouped the Mahsaka, Dharmaguptaka, and Kyapya together as sub-sects of the Sarvstivda, and stated that these threewere not prevalent in the "five parts of India," but were located in the some parts of Oiyna, Khotan, and Kucha.[12]

In East Asia

The Dharmaguptakas made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism outside India, to areas

such as Iran, Central Asia, and China, and they had great success in doing so.[13] Therefore, most

countries which adopted Buddhism from China, also adopted the Dharmaguptaka vinaya and ordination

lineage for bhikus and bhikus. According to A.K. Warder, in some ways in those East Asiancountries, the Dharmaguptaka sect can be considered to have survived to the present.[14] Warder further

writes:[15]

It was the Dharmaguptakas who were the first Buddhists to establish themselves in Central Asia.

They appear to have carried out a vast circling movement along the trade routes from Aparntanorth-west into Iran and at the same time into Oiyna (the Suvastu valley, north of Gandhra,which became one of their main centres). After establishing themselves as far west as Parthia they

followed the "silk route", the east-west axis of Asia, eastwards across Central Asia and on into

China, where they effectively established Buddhism in the second and third centuries A.D. The

Mahsakas and Kyapyas appear to have followed them across Asia into China. [...] For theearlier period of Chinese Buddhism it was the Dharmaguptakas who constituted the main and

most influential school, and even later theirVinaya remained the basis of the discipline there.

During the early period of Chinese Buddhism, the Indian Buddhist sects recognized as important, and

whose texts were studied, were the Dharmaguptakas, Mahsakas, Kyapyas, Sarvstivdins, and theMahsghikas.[16]

Texts

Gandhran Buddhist texts

The Gandhran Buddhist texts (the oldest extant Buddhist manuscripts) are attributed to the Dharmaguptaka sect by Richard Salomon,the leading scholar in the field, and the British Library scrolls "represent a random but reasonably representative fraction of what was

probably a much larger set of texts preserved in the library of a monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect in Nagarhra."[17][18]


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Bhikus performing a traditionalBuddhist ceremony in Hangzhou,

Zhejiang province, China

Among the Dharmaguptaka Gandhran Buddhist texts in the Schyen Collection, is a fragment in the Kharoh script referencing theSix Pramits, a central practice for bodhisattvas in Mahyna doctrine.[19]

Vinaya translation

In the early 5th century CE, Dharmaguptaka Vinaya was translated into Chinese by the Dharmaguptaka monkBuddhayaas ()of Kashmir. For this translation, Buddhayaas recited the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya entirely from memory, rather than reading it from awritten manuscript.[20] After its translation, the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya became the predominant vinaya in Chinese Buddhist

monasticism. The Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, or monastic rules, are still followed today in Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Korea, and its

lineage for the ordination of monks and nuns has survived uninterrupted to this day. The name of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya in this

tradition is the Si Fen L (), orFour-Part Vinaya, and the equivalent Sanskrit title would be Caturvargika Vinaya.[21]

Ordination under the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya only relates to monastic vows and lineage (Vinaya), and does not conflict with the actual

Buddhist teachings that one follows (Dharma).

gama collections

TheDrgha gama ("Long Discourses," Chng Ahnjng Taish 1)[22] corresponds to theDgha Nikya of the Theravadaschool. A complete version of theDrgha gama of the Dharmaguptaka sect was translated by Buddhayaas and Zhu Fonian ()in the Later Qin dynasty, dated to 413 CE. It contains 30 stras in contrast to the 34 suttas of the TheravadinDgha Nikya.

Additional piakas

The Dharmaguptaka Tripiaka is said to have contained two extra sections that were not included by some other schools. These includeda Bodhisattva Piaka and a Mantra Piaka (Zhu Zng), also sometimes called a Dhra Piaka.[23] According to the 5th centuryDharmaguptaka monk Buddhayaas, the translator of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya into Chinese, the Dharmaguptaka school hadassimilated the "Mahyna Tripiaka" (Dchng Snzng).[24]

bhinikramaa Stra

The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive of all classical biographies of the Buddha, and is entitled

Abhinikramaa Stra. Various Chinese translations of this text date from between the 3rd and 6th century CE.

Relationship to the Mahyna

Paramrtha, a 6th century CE Indian monk from Ujjain, unequivocally associates theDharmaguptaka school with the Mahyna, and portrays the Dharmaguptakas as being perhapsthe closest to a straightforward Mahyna sect.[25]

It is unknown when some members of the Dharmaguptaka school began to accept the Mahynastras, but theMajurmlakalpa records that Kanika (127-151 CE) of the Kua Empirepresided over the establishment ofPrajpramit doctrines in the northwest of India.[26]

Trantha wrote that in this region, 500 bodhisattvas attended the council at Jlandhramonastery during the time of Kanika, suggesting some institutional strength for Mahyna inthe northwest during this period.

[27]Edward Conze goes further to say that Prajpramit had

great success in the northwest during the Kua period, and may have been the "fortress andhearth" of early Mahyna, but not its origin, which he associates with the Mahsghikabranch.[28]

According to Joseph Walser, there is evidence that thePacaviatishasrik Prajpramit Stra (25,000 lines) and theatashasrik Prajpramit Stra (100,000 lines) have a connection with the Dharmaguptaka sect, while theAashasrik

Prajpramit Stra (8000 lines) does not.[29]

See also

Buddhism in Central AsiaSchools of Buddhism

Silk Road transmission of Buddhism

Notes

^ Baruah, Bibhuti.Buddhist Sects and Sectarianism. 2008. p. 521.

^ ab Hino, Shoun. Three Mountains and Seven Rivers. 2004. p. 552.

^ab

Hino, Shoun. Three Mountains and Seven Rivers. 2004. pp. 55-563.


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^ Kieschnick, John. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. 2003. pp. 89-904.

^ Kieschnick, John. The Eminent Monk: Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography. 1997. p. 295.

^ Kieschnick, John. The Impact of Buddhism on Chinese Material Culture. 2003. pp. 91-926.

^ Warder, A.K.Indian Buddhism. 2000. p. 2787.

^ Bhikkhu Sujato. "Abstract: Sects & Sectarianism. The Origin of the three existing Vinaya lineages: Theravada, Dharmaguptaka, and

Mulasarvastivada" (http://www.congress-on-buddhist-women.org/index.php?id=62) . http://www.congress-on-buddhist-women.org

/index.php?id=62.

8.

^ In Pali, "Dhamma-rakkhita" literally means "Dhamma-protector" while "Dhamma-gutta" means "Dhamma-guard." In this context, "Dhamma"

could be translated as either "Truth" or "teaching." "Gutta" is a Pali cognate for the Sanskrit "gupta." In the Pali Canon, the term

dhammagutta can be found, e.g., in SN 11.4 (translated as "guarding the dhamma" by Andrew Olendzki, 2005).

(http://www.accesstoinsight.org/tipitaka/sn/sn11/sn11.004.olen.html)

9.

^ "The Discovery of 'the Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts'" Review article by Enomoto Fumio. The Eastern Buddhist, Vol NS32 Issue I, 2000,

pg 161

10.


^ Yijing. Li Rongxi (translator).Buddhist Monastic Traditions of Southern Asia. 2000. p. 1912.



^ Warder, A.K.Indian Buddhism. 2000. pp. 280-28115.


^ "The Discovery of 'the Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts'" Review article by Enomoto Fumio. The Eastern Buddhist, Vol NS32 Issue I, 2000,

pg 160

17.

^ Richard Salomon.Ancient Buddhist Scrolls from Gandhra: The British Library Kharosth Fragments, with contributions by RaymondAllchin and Mark Barnard. Seattle: University of Washington Press; London: The British Library, 1999. pg 181

18.

^ Presenters: Patrick Cabouat and Alain Moreau (2004). "Eurasia Episode III - Gandhara, the Renaissance of Buddhism". Eurasia. Episode

3. 11:20 minutes in. France 5 / NHK / Point du Jour International.

19.

^ Scharfe, Harmut.Education in Ancient India. 2002. pp. 24-2520.

^ Williams, Jane, and Williams, Paul.Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, Volume 3. 2004. p. 20921.

^ Muller, Charles. Digital Dictionary of Buddhism, entry on (http://www.buddhism-dict.net/cgi-bin/xpr-ddb.pl?96.xml+id('b963f-542b-7d93'))

22.


^ Walser, Joseph.Ngrjuna in Context: Mahyna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. 2005. pp. 52-5324.^ Walser, Joseph.Ngrjuna in Context: Mahyna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. 2005. p. 5225.^ Ray, Reginald.Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. 1999. p. 41026.

^ Ray, Reginald.Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. 1999. p. 41027.

^ Ray, Reginald.Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. 1999. p. 42628.

^ Williams, Paul.Mahyna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 2008. p. 629.

References

Foltz, Richard,Religions of the Silk Road, Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010 ISBN 978-0-230-62125-1

Heirmann.Rules for Nuns According to the Dharmaguptakavinaya. ISBN 81-208-1800-8.

Ven. Bhikshuni Wu Yin (2001). Choosing Simplicity. Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-155-3.

External links

The Gandharan texts and the Dharmaguptaka (http://www.ebmp.org/)

Sects & Sectarianism - The origins of Buddhist Schools (http://sectsandsectarianism.googlepages.com/home)

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