Mahāsāṃghika

The Mahāsāṃghika was an early Buddhist monastic school that emerged in India and became one of the major divisions of the ancient Buddhist community.

Second Buddhist council: An early Buddhist gathering traditionally associated with disputes over monastic discipline at Vaiśālī. Later accounts connect the council’s disciplinary dispute with the community’s division and the Mahāsāṃghika’s emergence.
Saṅgha: The Buddhist community, especially the ordained community of monks and nuns. The Mahāsāṃghika was a lineage within the wider Buddhist monastic Saṅgha.
Mahāvastu: A Sanskrit Buddhist text associated with the Lokottaravāda, combining stories of the Buddha with monastic and doctrinal material. It is a major surviving work linked to a branch of the Mahāsāṃghika tradition.
Theravāda: A Buddhist tradition rooted in the Pāli lineage and preserved today in Sri Lanka and much of Southeast Asia. Its monastic lineage descends from a Sthavira tradition, not from the Mahāsāṃghika branch.
First Buddhist council: A traditional gathering of senior monks after the Buddha’s death to recite and preserve his teachings. It belongs to the remembered early communal history preceding the school’s formation.
Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya: The monastic code preserved in a Chinese translation as the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya. Its rules and procedures provide direct evidence for the school’s monastic tradition.
Śāriputraparipṛcchā: A Chinese-preserved Buddhist text that recounts the division of the early Buddhist community into schools. It gives an influential, though not universally accepted, account of the Mahāsāṃghika’s origins.
Mūlasarvāstivāda: An influential Buddhist monastic lineage whose Vinaya survives in Tibetan translation and remains in use in Tibetan Buddhism. Its distinct Vinaya tradition offers a comparison with Mahāsāṃghika monastic law.
Sthavira nikāya: An early Buddhist monastic lineage associated with the elders and later traditions that claimed Sthavira descent. Traditional accounts present it as the principal counterpart to the Mahāsāṃghika in the early division.
Lokottaravāda: A Buddhist school often treated as a branch of the Mahāsāṃghika, known for emphasizing the Buddha’s supramundane nature. This lineage illustrates doctrinal developments associated with the broader Mahāsāṃghika tradition.

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