Talk:Mahasamghika

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Is there any way to change the head-word ? It is spelt wrongly -- I have corrected other mispelt occurences in this and other entries.--Stephen Hodge 17:25, 25 Nov 2004 (UTC)

Yeah, there is a "move page" option, which is on the left of my screen (not sure where it is on the standard display). Of course, this should be used carefully. Since this is the first time you're using it, why not run the change past the rest of us on this talk page first? Thanks for your attention and welcome to Wikipedia! - Nat Krause 05:25, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

What do you mean by misspelled? It's true that it lacks correct diacritics, but it's not always advisable to use them in article names, since the en wikipedia doesn't have proper unicode support yet, and the iso character set can't really do the proper diacritics. Are you thinking it should be spelled with an "I"? because there's a common misconception about how to spell sect names; the I-based spellings should only to be used for members of the sects, not the sects themselves; a "Madhyamika", for example, is one who espouses "Madhyamaka", and it should work similarly for this. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽ 23:26, 26 Nov 2004 (UTC)

I have just noticed this comment. I believe you are mistaken in your explanation for -ika / aka: in this usage, they have the same meaning. If it is a "common misconception", perhaps you could explain why the -ika form is used in forming the names of several schools listed in Section 274 of the Mahavyutpatti or why no scholar that I know of has ever followed the usage you suggest ? I believe the Mahaa-saa.mghika form also occurs epigraphically. Should you not be able to provide convincing authority beyond your own opinion on this matter, I suggest we change to the -ika form that everybody esle uses.--Stephen Hodge 02:55, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

No, you're right--well, sort of. It's sort of like "nucular": yeah, it's wrong, but it's also pretty normal, and I'm sure that retroactive language reform is outside the scope of WP. -- कुक्कुरोवाच|Talk‽

Well, I think that I'm might be a bit more than "sort of right". I would say that the v.rddhi + ika form is pretty much standard and correct in Sanskrit for schools etc. If not, could you explain, for example, the name of the famous Indian school of philosophy which is derived from vi`se.sa. The school itself is a neuter noun and the followers masculine noun. I suspect that is how the difference is made rather than your -aka / -ika theory. If you disagree, do you have a bona fide grammatical reference -- a rule from Panini might be helpful.

The only form I can find in Monier-Williams' Sanskrit dictionary is mahāsāṃghika, so dropping the diacritics from that, I'm moving the article to Mahasamghika. Angr (talk • contribs) 20:24, 26 April 2006 (UTC)

Hi, I just did some major editing on this article. At least the section headings will be useful. At this stage I have not provided many direct references, partly because I don't have all the books yet, and partly because since I haven't read them all I'm not sure how to summarise and evaluate what they say succinctly. The list in the bibliography which begins "This article should also reference these in the future..." is the ones I don't have yet. So this is just a preliminary and provisional improvement. According to BS's research the association between the Mahasanghikas and the bad Mahadeva (there are probably at least two Mahadevas) is almost certainly a spurious sectarian smear-campaign, and further may have nothing to do with the Mahasanghikas. The Location sub-heading obviously needs expanding, I can't imagine it could really be this simple and uncontraversial! --Bhikkhu Santi 22:55, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

Contents 1 Origin of Mahasamghika 2 Verification 3 Mahasamgika practices 4 Vocabulary

[edit] Origin of Mahasamghika

The opening section of this article states: "It split from the Sthaviravāda (Elders) school". This suggests a pro-Sthavira stance which is intrinsically illogical. If the Mahasamghika school was, as its name states, the "Great[er] sangha", how can the majority split from a minority. It should be the other way around: the followers of the Sthaviravada were the ones who split from the majority. Moreover, it is only later Theravadin accounts which suggest that the Mahasanghikas caused the split. According to non-Sthaviravada sources including the Mahasanghika Vinaya, the Mahasanghikas were the conservative, traditionalist grouping, while the Sthaviravadins were a revisionist group who wanted to make the Vinaya even stricter in the same spirit as Devadatta is reported to have wished during the lifetime of the Buddha. Some of this should be reflected in the opening section.--Stephen Hodge 03:08, 24 Apr 2005 (UTC)

They were minority in Sangha. However, if you count lay, they may have represented majority buddhist view. Another point. It is well sourced that the disputes were about vinaya. However, I'm not sure about the part "including lay practitioners and non-enlightened monks at the communal meetings". Where is the source on this? It looks like someone speculating origin of mahayana being Mahasamghika. Attributing the origin of Mahayana to Mahasamghika is common in the West but even Mahayan tradition doesn't claim this in scriputre because Mahasamghika are part of Nikaya. FWBOarticle

Implying that one side split or forked out from the Sangha is probably not NPOV. So why just say Sangha was split into two. FWBOarticle

The issue of schism is complex, and what 'schism' normally means in English would not necessarily technically be a 'sanghabheda' according to the Vinaya (so far I've only researched the Pali Vinaya in detail, a tiny bit the Dharmaguptaka, but I think very likely to be the same in the others, will check in the future). When the Dipavamsa, for example, says "-bheda", I'm sure that it doesn't always equal 'sanghabheda'. I.e. basically nikayabheda doesn't always imply sanghabheda, but sanghabheda always imlies nikayabheda. I'm supposed to be presenting a paper on Schism in Nov for the AABS based on just the Pali Vinaya, and will try to compare all the other Vinaya recensions later before publishing.

Also, I'm quite sure that Stephen's statement above "a revisionist group who wanted to make the Vinaya even stricter in the same spirit as Devadatta is reported to have wished during the lifetime of the Buddha" is mistaken. The Pali Vinaya (at least) is very explicit that Devadatta's intention was not for genuine reform, but that he deliberately contrived the five points for the purpose of creating a schism in a harmonious Order (i.e. harmonious in the sense of agreeing on Dhamma as Dhamma, Vinaya as Vinaya, etc. up to the eighteen points) while actually not following at least one of them himself (eating at invitations by lay followers). He is presented as deliberately, deceitfully, maliciously contriving the issues for the express purpose of creating a schism out of personal megalomania. This is not at all the same as raising a genuine issue in the Sangha for the sake of trying to resolve it and then that discussion leading to a schism which was not one's direct intention. As I understand it, only the former situation would be covered by Sanghadisesa 10&11 (in the Pali numbering), and not the latter. Further, according to the Mahasanghika account, they divided not over a dispute about the eighteen points, but merely the matter of a redaction or edition of the Vinaya which according to them was equally valid, i.e. meant the same. This is why I said in the article that it's not clear that this division was a sanghabheda, because sanghabheda by definition has to be based on an unresolved dispute over one or more of the eighteen points

I've never read anything about the Mahasanghikas including lay people in formal meetings, sounds spurious to me.

The question of including only enlightened monks or both enlightened and non-enlightened at a Council seems to be based on the story of the First Council. Perhaps if there is a Mahasanghika account it doesn't make this distinction, perhaps this is where someone got it from? However, according to most scholars the story of the first council should be understood as mythological rather than historical. I.e. it has a meaning which is not specific to any particular place or time, so it is not 'historically' true, but is trying to make a different kind of point about the validity of the transmission of the Vinaya. Basically, that the council of five hundred Arahant direct disciples of the Buddha provided the starting point for the lineages of Dhammadhara and Vinayadhara transmission which validated the Suttas and Vinaya in a similar way to the Vedas and Upanisads. In the Upanisads each one apparently is suffixed with the original teacher, the place and provenance, and then the lineage of transmission. Without a definitive starting point for this lineage the Vinaya would have been subject to criticism. This is consistent with the fact that the various Vinaya recensions are much more inconsistent about the story of the first Council than the story of the second, which would be very strange if the first was supposed to be history.

--Bhikkhu Santi 23:12, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Verification

"and also asserted that the historical Buddha was a manifestation of a transhistorical Buddha, and phenomena are illusory and empty.

The Mahasamghaka are often regarded as one of the sources of Mahāyāna doctrines."

Sorry but I invoke verifiability policy. The above part could be fanciful historical revisionism. FWBOarticle

There's a good looking section on Mahasanghika doctrines in Paul Williams' intro to Buddhism, and probably more in his other books. From what I remember of skimming that section, it seems the Mahasamghikas did not all believe in Lokuttaravada, only the Mahasamghika-Lokuttaravadins, and also the detailed meaning of 'lokuttaravada' is uncertain but probably not the same as the later Mahayana doctrines about the Trikaya. If anyone else has the book and has time, please read that section and input the ideas there briefly here. Thanks. --Bhikkhu Santi 22:59, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Mahasamgika practices

"The Mahāsāṃghikas differed from the elders in including lay practitioners and non-enlightened monks at the communal meetings which constituted the governmental body for each saṃgha, allowing monks to use gold and silver and eat twice a day."

As far as I am knowledgeable about the Theravadin Pali Scriptures, most of the these statements are wrong, but if Stephen Hodge has access to the Mahasamghika Vinaya he could come up with som evidence to corroborate these stamenents. I have heard that the Vinayas differ very little between the early buddhist schools; I would be very interested in the Nisaggiya Pacittiyas on using/receiving money in the Mahasanghika Vinaya. Are they there? In the Theravadin Suttapitaka there is some mention of the unsuitability of money for monks, also. So this would be another interesting thing: are these Suttas present in the Mahasanghika Suttapitaka also in the same form? I have the following points on these statements:

1. In the Theravada Vinaya no distinction is made between Enlightened and non-enlightened monks in communal meetings. Both have a vote of 1, and both have thus a veto-right as in the intial stages everything has to be decided unanimously. Even elightened monks have to make compromises! Later this can become majority-based (if unanimity turn out to be reall impossible - as happened during the Second Buddhist Council), and even then both kins of monks both have just one vote. The only time I am aware of where this was not applied is in the First Buddhist council, where it was commonly known who was an Arahant, and who not (Buddha would reveal this information on his monks himself).
2. It is true that lay-people do not have a place in the communal (Theravadin) monk-meetings when are held according to the Vinaya. Vinaya in the Pali Canon is specifically set up for monks only, not for laypeople - these laws of the Vinaya are only relevant for those who are bound by their status as a monk to follow them. It's just like a government for footballers like FIFA, if you're not playing football in a FIFA-registred team, there's no need to join in their meetings and their voting procedures. But if one would set up another governmental body (a Buddhist Society or Buddhist Organization or Buddhist Ministry or something), including both monks and laypeople and called that a Sangha, then of course this Sangha would be for both monks and laypeople, as the society would be outside of the monks' Vinaya. These kinds of organizations are very common nowadays, both inside and outside of Theravada. And these organizations are mostly ok from a Vinaya point of view. For example there's National Budhist Organizations, Buddhist TV channels, Buddhist meditation groups, this kind of thing. So to recap, only this section on laypeople possibly has some validity, and even then it has to be checked in the Mahasamghika Vinaya what their practices really were like.
3. Theravadin Vinaya also allows for two meals a day, but it does not allow for money (gold and silver). As far as a know all Vinayas have these same policies (maybe exepting Mahasamghika in the case of money)

Greetings, Sacca 07:10, 16 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi Sacca, again. As far as I know, none of those statements are true of the Mahasanghikas -- definitely not the gold/silver/money item. I am coincidentally getting a paper by Nattier & Prebish covering current scholarly views regarding the Mahasanghikas -- generally, the Theravadin accounts are slanderous.--Stephen Hodge 00:16, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

PS: I do have access to the MahaS Vinaya: it covers hundreds of pages of untranslated Chinese.--Stephen Hodge 00:17, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Hello Stephen, is this real Chinese or Sanskrit using Chinese characters? I read a some writing claiming that the Mahasanghikas did not come out of the Second Buddhist Council, and that there was another 'unrecorded' issue/meeting/conflict from in between the Second and Third Councils from which the Mahasanghikas came forth. If this were true it would mean that the '9 practices' which the 'bad monks' were accused to be undertaking (in the Second Buddhist Council) are not to be associated with the Mahasanghikas. If the Vinaya of the Mahasanghikas contains the rules against using money, I would say the Mahasanghikas probably did not arise as a result of the Second Buddhist Council - which was just a settlement of a conflict concerning Vinaya. There's also a teachers' name associated with the arising of the Mahasanghika's - if I can find it I will report it back to you. Greetings, Sacca 10:49, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

Hi, Sacca. Not sure what your first question means. Who would bother converting Sanskrit phoentically into hundreds of pages of Chinese ? The only times the Chinese transliterated Sanskrit was to deal with mantras. So no, the MahaS Vinaya is a straight translation into Chinese, done around 416CE by Faxian and Buddhabhadra. The idea that the emergence of the Mahasanghikas did not occur at the time of the Vaishali (= Second) Council is widely accepted amongst scholars. For one thing, all the accounts of this council state that the dispute ended in reconcilation. When exactly the Mahasanghikas and the Sthaviras did split is unclear, but it must have been some time between the Vaishali Council and the Third Council. One reason for this is that the Mahasanghika Vinaya is evidently older than the Vibhajjavadin -- Theravadin etc -- Vinayas. The name of the teacher you think is associated with the emergence of the Mahasanghikas is probably Mahadeva, but this is also suspect -- there seems to have been a conflation of two events involving just one Mahadeva, which concern the so-called five theses regarding arhats.--Stephen Hodge 17:22, 17 August 2006 (UTC)

"The Mahāsāṃghikas differed from the elders in including lay practitioners and non-enlightened monks at the communal meetings which constituted the governmental body for each saṃgha, allowing monks to use gold and silver and eat twice a day."

I'm also sure that both points are incorrect. The Mahasamghika-Lokuttavadin Bhiksu Nihsargika-Pacattika-dharma 18 = Bhiksuni no.4 equivalent to Theravada Bhikkhu-NP 18 = Theravada Bhikkhuni NP 21 states: yā puna bhikṣuḥ svahastaṃ jātarūpa-rajataṃ udgṛhṇeya vā udgṛhṇāpeya vā antamasato iha nikṣipehīti vā vādeyya upanikṣiptaṃ vā sādiyeya niḥsargika-pācattikaṃ [Bhu Prāim (Mā-L) MS 21 re 3-4, cv. Pachow Mishra p.18; quoted in Roth's edition of the Bhiksuni-Vinaya.] This translates as: "Should any monk, with his own hand accept, or cause to be accepted, even to the extent of saying 'put it here', or consent to the deposit of gold or money, that is to be forfeited and confessed." The phrase "...even to the extent of saying 'put it here'" is not found in the Pali rule formulation but it is found in the Pali explanation (vibhanga). This phrase is even more explicit than the Pali about the uncompromising standard that monks should not accept ownership or direct control of money in any way. The question of laypeople "at the communal meetings which constituted the governmental body for each saṃgha" is prohibited by the first of the seven Adhikarana-samatha-dhammas (Issue Settling Procedures), sammukha-vinaya - the 'in the presence of procedure' found in all the Vinayas, including the Mahasanghika. The Pali Vinaya is relatively less explicit on this point than some of the others, such as the closely related Dharmaguptaka. As a result, in the commentaries it was inferred from Pc80 that 'in the assembly' meant within armsreach (hatthapasa), and 'not in the assembly' meant out of arms reach. In my opinion, 'in the assembly' (parisayato) and 'in the presence of' (sammukha) mean the same thing, but I am still debating this one with Ven. Aggacitta. So in popular Theravada tradition it's considered ok to have laypeople present at Sanghakammas (and adhikarana-samatha kammas with less than four monks) as long as they're out of armsreach, but this doesn't agree with the implicit definition of "in the presence of" in the Vinaya itself (Dharmaguptaka recension) which states that it means "within sight and hearing range", which is a definition used in other places in the Pali Vinaya too, implying to me that it is more ancient.

"When exactly the Mahasanghikas and the Sthaviras did split is unclear, but it must have been some time between the Vaishali Council and the Third Council." (Stephen.)

The second phrase is not sure, I don't know of any reason why the Mahasamghika's own account that they divided after the third council couldn't be true. In fact, it's easy to imagine how it might have happened the way they describe: the prestigious, powerful leaders of the Third Council, all Elders, and with the support of the Emporer, compose a new, beautiful redaction of the Vinaya, which everyone agrees is essentially the same in meaning to the old redaction. However, it's much longer - the young monks can't cope with memorising the damn thing, beautiful as it is! So they complain that they prefered the old, simple version structured according to the old matika. After a few generations when the movement to go back to/ retain the old redaction has gathered enough momentum and some of it's leaders are now Elders themselves, then they respectfully object to their older generation of Elders' redaction that they find too long and ornate to memorise, and at a meeting convened with the King present (which also implies that they didn't consider it for resolving a dispute-issue in the technical sense, so it couldn't have been a "schism") they agree that one group will learn and follow the old redaction, and the group following the previous generation of Elders will follow the new redaction. I'm not sure if it's strictly provable, but at least it's historically plausible.

Also, btw, this description of the yebhuyyasika procedure is wrong: "Later this can become majority-based (if unanimity turn out to be reall impossible - as happened during the Second Buddhist Council), and even then both kins of monks both have just one vote." The yebhuyyasika (majority) procedure is not democratic, in the sense that the verdict of the majority is only valid if it agrees with Dhamma-Vinaya. The purpose of the procedure according to the Pali is in order to convince (saññapetāya) all the monks, and is particular suitable (acc. to the Parivara) when many of the monks are ignorant but sincere and will follow the verdict of the majority; but the Vinaya is extremely emphatic that this procedure should only be used when the 'verdict' of the majority will be correct according to Dhamma-Vinaya and the remainder of the monks will accept it. Otherwise the issue would be unresolved and that would either be or probably soon become a schism. I say "be or become" because I'm not totally sure yet how to make sense of the two descriptions of at what point a schism formally occurs in the Vinaya. --Bhikkhu Santi 23:54, 1 September 2006 (UTC)

You say, "The second phrase is not sure, I don't know of any reason why the Mahasamghika's own account that they divided after the third council couldn't be true". To what Mahasanghika source are you referring apart from the Shariputra-pariprccha ? Are you unhappy with the Nattier & Prebish hypothesis that the split ocurred during the reign of Kalashoka ? I think Bareau also suggest this in his Premier Counciles.

You also mention the different coloured robes worn by the monks of various schools. I think this might be factual, since Xuanzang mentions this, I believe.

Still, it is good to see the Mahasanghikas getting fair treatment at last. As for the conservative nature of the MahaS Vinaya, I think this might apply by extension to their Agama collection. True, there is only their Ekottara-agama surviving in Chinese translation and this has some quasi-Mahayana contamination, but several of the individual sutras thatI have had time to compare with their Pali counterparts suggest that these versions are more primitive.--Stephen Hodge 00:55, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

I have only read bits of Bhante Sujato's new book on Sects and Sectarianism, Frauwallner and Sharpe; we're waiting for Nattier & Prebish's articles to arrive. I was referring to BS's translation of the Shariputra-pariprccha, begginning at: 《 舍 利 弗 問 經 》 「 復 聽 多 家 數 數 食 」 (CBETA, T24, no. 1465, p. 900, a7-8). I got the name of the King wrong: Pushyamitra was the one who did the persecuting, and it was the next King who they say was supportive of Buddhism and he convened the meeting. So I checked BS's translation again and it definetly says that it was the king after Pusyamitra who convened the meeting which lead to the Mahasanghikas and Sthaviras going their seperate ways. So this would be several generations after Ashoka. I think either BS has deleted the next bits of the translation since i first read it, or else the bits about the colours of the robes came from somewhere else. I will try to encourage BS to write this article when he's finished. This is really his speciality now. He expects to finish before the end of Vassa (7thOct), since after that he will be too busy. If you would like to get a soft copy as soon as its finished I suggest you drop him an email at sujato AT gmail DOT com. With metta,

Bhikkhu Santi 21:57, 2 September 2006 (UTC)

Hi Bhante ! Lots to talk about. See my reply to your message on my talk page. Nattier and Prebish concur with Bareau (Premiers Counciles Bouddhique) that it was under Kalashoka that the split ocurred -- a couple of decades after Vaishali.--Stephen Hodge 02:00, 3 September 2006 (UTC)

[edit] Vocabulary

Hi, all. I edited the article for consistency and spelling. I was also wondering if it were possible to use a word other than "recension" in the introductory paragraphs, as it's quite an obscure word outside of religious contexts. I understand that it might be English Buddhist canon to use the word, but if so, it should (I think) be defined/explained. Though I understand the word, I don't feel comfortable defining it in the context of Buddhist history. Thanks --Storkk 20:08, 14 March 2007 (UTC)

Thanks for polishing this article. But I disagree with you about the word "recension". It is not confined to religious contexts by any means, but is part of the standard vocabulary for textual criticism or editing, so it is not that obscure. There is a stub of an entry elsewhere on Wiki for "recension" which needs to be expanded. That done, a link could be provided here for those too lazy to use a dictionary. If you really think it should be dumbed down, then how about "textual variant" or similar.--Stephen Hodge 01:02, 16 March 2007 (UTC)