Theravada and Mahayana Buddhism

The Buddha taught in northern India around the 5th century BCE, and after his death his followers gathered, according to tradition, to recite his teachings and the rules of the monastic order. Over the following centuries, disagreements over monastic discipline and points of doctrine divided the community into a number of schools. Buddhist sources describe a council at Vaishali about a century after the Buddha, and an early split between the Sthaviras, or Elders, and the Mahasanghikas, members of the “Great Community”. Historians debate the details, but by the time of the emperor Ashoka in the 3rd century BCE there were several schools.

Theravada, the “Teaching of the Elders”, descends from one branch of the Sthavira line that took root in Sri Lanka. According to the island’s chronicles, Buddhism arrived there with Mahinda, Ashoka’s son, and in the 1st century BCE monks wrote down the scriptures in Pali, creating the Pali Canon. From Sri Lanka, Theravada spread to Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia, where it became the dominant tradition from about the 11th–14th centuries.

Mahayana, the “Great Vehicle”, was not at first a separate sect. From around the 1st century BCE new scriptures, the Mahayana sutras, began to circulate in India, revered by their followers as the word of the Buddha and celebrating the path of the bodhisattva. Monks who embraced them often lived in the same monasteries as others and kept the same monastic rules, as Chinese pilgrims later observed. Mahayana travelled along the Silk Roads to China from the early centuries CE, and from there to Korea, Japan and Vietnam. A later Indian development, Vajrayana or tantric Buddhism, reached Tibet from the 7th–8th centuries.

Both branches teach the Four Noble Truths: that life involves suffering, that suffering arises from craving, that it can end, and that the Eightfold Path leads to its end. Both teach karma, rebirth and the absence of a permanent self. Both also preserve large collections of early discourses, in Pali in Theravada and in Chinese translation in Mahayana, which scholars find closely parallel in content. They differ in what they emphasise and in which texts they treat as authoritative.

Theravada takes the Pali Canon as its scripture, with its commentaries. Its ideal is the arhat, a person who has fully understood the Buddha’s teaching, ended craving and will not be reborn. Theravada recognises Gotama as the buddha of our age, along with buddhas of past ages and Metteyya, the buddha to come. Its philosophy, set out in the Abhidhamma, analyses experience into momentary events to show that no lasting self can be found.

Mahayana accepts much of the early teaching but adds a large body of sutras, such as the Perfection of Wisdom texts, the Heart Sutra, the Lotus Sutra and the Pure Land sutras, preserved mainly in Chinese and Tibetan. Its ideal is the bodhisattvabodhisattva In Mahayana Buddhism, one who seeks awakening for the sake of all beings and delays final nirvana to help them. Glossary, who vows to become a fully awakened buddha in order to free all beings, a path that may take countless lives. Mahayana teaches that there are many buddhas in many worlds, such as Amitabha in his Pure Land, and honours celestial bodhisattvas such as Avalokiteshvara, known in China as Guanyin. Philosophers such as Nagarjuna taught that all things are empty (shunyata) of independent existence, and many schools teach that all beings possess buddha-nature, the potential for awakening.

Practice reflects these differences. In Theravada countries, monks in saffron robes collect alms each morning, laypeople make merit by offering food and supporting temples, and meditation focuses on calm and insight. Many young men in Thailand and Myanmar ordain for a short time. In Mahayana lands, practice ranges from chanting the name of Amitabha in Pure Land Buddhism to seated meditation in Zen and devotion to the Lotus Sutra. Theravada monks eat what is offered, including meat, provided the animal was not killed for them, while Chinese monastic tradition is strictly vegetarian, and in Japan, since the late 19th century, most Buddhist priests have been allowed to marry.

By one widely cited estimate (Johnson and Grim’s World Religion Database), about 53% of the world’s Buddhists follow Mahayana traditions, about 36% Theravada and about 6% Vajrayana, though such figures are approximate, especially in China, where Buddhism mingles with Daoism and folk religion. Theravada dominates in Sri Lanka, Myanmar, Thailand, Laos and Cambodia. Mahayana is the main tradition in China, Taiwan, Korea, Japan and Vietnam, and Vajrayana in Tibet, Bhutan, Mongolia and parts of Nepal and India.

Vajrayana deserves a note of its own. It shares the Mahayana ideal of the bodhisattva and its sutras, but adds tantric texts and practices: rituals, mantras, visualisations of buddhas and the guidance of a teacher, or lama. It is the Buddhism of the Dalai Lama, and a related tantric tradition survives in Japan as Shingon. Vajrayana teachers often describe their path not as a rival to Mahayana but as a faster means to the same goal, the awakening of a bodhisattva, and Tibetan monasteries study the same Indian Mahayana philosophers, such as Nagarjuna, before tantric practice.

In the modern world the branches meet more than ever. Theravada meditation teachers inspired the global mindfulness and insight movements, while Zen and Tibetan teachers built communities in Europe and the Americas. One question under discussion is the full ordination of women, a lineage that died out in Theravada centuries ago and has been revived since the 1990s with help from East Asian nuns, though not all Theravada authorities accept it. Most Buddhists today see the branches as different paths within one tradition.