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Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana: the three vehicles of Buddhism

How Buddhism grew into three great traditions, Theravada in South and Southeast Asia, Mahayana in East Asia and Vajrayana in Tibet and the Himalaya, what each teaches and where it is practised.

In brief

  1. I.Buddhism has three main traditions, often called “vehicles”: Theravada, Mahayana and Vajrayana.
  2. II.Theravada, “the way of the elders”, preserves the Pali Canon and is the main form in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, Cambodia and Laos.
  3. III.Mahayana, “the great vehicle”, stresses the bodhisattva who seeks awakening for all beings; it is the Buddhism of China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam.
  4. IV.Vajrayana, “the thunderbolt vehicle”, adds tantric practices and is the Buddhism of Tibet, Bhutan and Mongolia.

All Buddhists take refuge in the same three jewels, the Buddha, his teaching and the community, and all aim at awakening from suffering. But as Buddhism spread from India across Asia over two thousand years, it grew into three great families of practice. Buddhists often call them vehicles, yana: different ways of crossing to the far shore.

Chapter I

Theravada: the way of the elders

Theravada claims to preserve the teaching of the earliest community of monks, the “elders”. Its scriptures are the Tipitaka The “three baskets”, the Pali canon of Theravada Buddhism: monastic rules, discourses and higher teaching. Glossary, the Pali Canon, written down in Sri Lanka in the 1st century BCE. Its ideal is the arahant, one who has reached nirvana by following the Buddha’s path of ethics, meditation and wisdom.

The monastic community is at the heart of Theravada life. Each morning in Thailand, Myanmar, Laos and Cambodia, monks in saffron robes walk with their bowls, and lay people offer them food, earning merit. Many young men spend a period as monks. Vipassana, “insight” meditation, developed in Theravada and has become popular around the world.

  • The teaching
  • Relic stupa
  • The bodhi tree

Chapter II

Mahayana: the great vehicle

Mahayana emerged in India around the turn of the common era with new scriptures, such as the Lotus Sutra and the Perfection of Wisdom sutras. Its central figure is the bodhisattva In Mahayana Buddhism, one who seeks awakening for the sake of all beings and delays final nirvana to help them. Glossary, who vows to reach awakening not only for themselves but for all beings, and who acts from boundless compassion.

Mahayana teaches that all things are empty of fixed self-nature, and that every being has the potential for Buddhahood. Its cosmos is full of Buddhas and bodhisattvas, such as Amitabha and Avalokiteshvara, Guanyin in China. Travelling along the Silk Road, Mahayana became the Buddhism of China, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, where schools such as Chan or Zen, Pure Land, Tiantai and Nichiren grew.

  • Lotus
The lotus: compassion rising in the world.

Chapter III

Vajrayana: the thunderbolt vehicle

Vajrayana developed within Mahayana in India from around the 6th century, and was carried to Tibet from the 8th. It accepts Mahayana philosophy and adds tantra: powerful practices of visualisation, mantra, ritual and meditation, passed from teacher to student, that aim to reach awakening in a single lifetime.

The teacher, the lama, is central. Tibetan Buddhism has four main schools, Nyingma, Kagyu, Sakya and Gelug, the school of the Dalai Lama. Its art, from sand mandalas to painted thangka scrolls, and its symbols, the vajra and the bell, are among the most recognisable in the Buddhist world.

  • Vajra
  • Endless knot

Chapter IV

What they share

The three vehicles differ in their scriptures, their ideals and their practices, but they hold the core of the Buddha’s teaching in common: the Four Noble Truths, the Noble Eightfold Path, the three marks of existence (impermanence, suffering and no fixed self), karma and rebirth, and the goal of liberation.

Today the vehicles also meet. Teachers from all three traditions work together in Asia and the West, and many Western Buddhists draw on more than one.

  • Pali Canon
  • Chinese canon
  • Tibetan canon
Palm-leaf, scroll and pecha: Buddhist scriptures in three of their forms.

Questions people ask

Is Zen a separate vehicle?

No. Zen (Chan in Chinese) is a school within Mahayana, stressing meditation and direct insight. Pure Land, which centres on devotion to the Buddha Amitabha, is another major Mahayana school.

Is “Hinayana” the same as Theravada?

“Hinayana”, “lesser vehicle”, was a polemical term used by Mahayana writers for early schools. It is now avoided, and Theravada is the only surviving early school.

Sources and further reading

  1. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Buddhism”
  2. Encyclopaedia Britannica, “Vajrayana”
  3. Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism (Cambridge University Press, 2nd ed. 2013)
  4. Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism (Oxford University Press, 1998)
  5. Paul Williams, Mahayana Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations (Routledge, 2nd ed. 2009)

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