Mahishasaka school
Mahishasaka school
化地部・弥沙塞部 (Skt; Jpn Keji-bu or Misha-soku-bu)
An offshoot of the Sarvastivada school and one of the so-called twenty Hinayana schools. According to The Doctrines of the Different Schools, the Mahishasaka school was formed out of the Sarvastivada school in the third one-hundred-year period after Shakyamuni Buddha's death. Other offshoots of the Sarvastivada school were the Vatsiputriya, Kashyapiya, and Sautrantika schools. The Mahishasaka school acknowledged the reality of the present, but denied the reality of past and future, though its parent, the Sarvastivada school, recognized the reality of past, present, and future. The Fivefold Rules of Discipline is the vinaya text, or the text of monastic rules, of the Mahishasaka school. The Dharmagupta school eventually branched off from the Mahishasaka school.
