Early Buddhism
The term Early Buddhism can refer to:
- Pre-sectarian Buddhism, which refers to the Teachings and monastic organization and structure, founded by Gautama Buddha.
- The Early Buddhist schools, into which pre-sectarian Buddhism split (without formal schisms, in the sense of Vinaya).
The period of Pre-sectarian Buddhism lasted until about 150 years after the death of Gautama Buddha. The various splits within the monastic organization went together with the introduction and emphasis on Abhidhammic literature by some schools. This literature was specific to each school, and arguments and disputes between the schools were often based on these Abhidhammic writings. However, actual splits were originally based on disagreements on vinaya (monastic discipline), though later on, by about 100 CE or earlier, they could be based on doctrinal disagreement.[1] Pre-sectarian Buddhism, however, did not have Abhidhammic scriptures, except perhaps for a basic framework, and not all of the early schools developed an Abhidhamma literature.
Several hundreds of years after the advent of Mahayana Buddhism (in the fifth century CE), the early Buddhist schools entered a period of decline in India, while Mahayana Buddhism became stronger. The seventh-century Chinese pilgirm Xuanzang reports, however, that non-Mahayana Buddhists continued to comprise a substantial majority of Buddhists in India at that time, and it is likely that this was the case right up to the end of Buddhism in India altogether.
Timeline
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Timeline: Development and propagation of Buddhist traditions (ca. 450 BCE – ca. 1300 CE) | |||||||||||||||||||
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| Early Buddhist schools | Mahayana | Vajrayana | |||||||||||||||||
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| Theravada Buddhism |
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[[Buddhism in Central Asia|Central Asia]] |
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Tibetan Buddhism | ||||||||||||||||
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| Chán, Tiantai, Pure Land, Zen, Nichiren | |||||||||||||||||||
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| 450 BCE | 250 BCE | 100 CE | 500 CE | 700 CE | 800 CE | 1200 CE | |||||||||||||
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Common biases of research according to Bikkhu Sujato
According to Bhikkhu Sujato, biases beset most commonly scholarly research on early buddhism: "I find myself unable to accept many of the findings of the modern [researcher]s, any more than I could accept the traditions of the schools. It seems to me that much of the modern work, while it has accomplished a great deal, is hampered by the problems that bedevil Buddhist studies in general: uncritical acceptance of textual evidence over archeological findings; bias in favour of either the southern or the northern traditions; reliance on inaccurate or mistaken readings from secondary works and translations; simplistic and unrealistic notions of religious life in general and monastic life in particular; lack of understanding of the Vinaya; backreading of later situations into earlier times; and perhaps most importantly, a lack of appreciation of myth, so that 'historical' information is divorced from the mythic context that gave it meaning."[2]
