Dharmaguptaka

Blue-eyed Central Asian and East-Asian Buddhist monks, Bezeklik, 9th-10th century.

Early Buddhism

Scriptures

Pali Canon Āgamas Gandharan texts

Councils

1st Council 2nd Council 3rd Council 4th Council

Schools

First Sangha └ Mahāsāṃghika     ├ Ekavyahāraka     ├ Lokottaravāda     ├ Bahuśrutīya     ├ Prajñaptivāda     └ Caitika └ Sthaviravāda     ├ Mahīśāsaka     ├ Dharmaguptaka     ├ Kāśyapīya     ├ Sarvāstivāda     └ Vibhajyavāda         └ Theravāda

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Full bhikṣuṇī ordination is common in the Dharmaguptaka line. Vesak festival, Taiwan

The Dharmaguptaka (Sanskrit; traditional Chinese: 法藏部; pinyin: fǎzáng-bù) are one of the eighteen or twenty early Buddhist schools, depending on one's source. They are said to have originated from another sect, the Mahīśāsakas. The Dharmaguptakas had a prominent role in early Central Asian and Chinese Buddhism, and their monastic rules for bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs are still in effect in some East Asian countries to this day, including China, Vietnam, Korea, and Taiwan. They are one of three surviving vinaya lineages, along with the Mūlasarvāstivāda and Theravāda.

Doctrinal development

The Dharmaguptaka doctrine appears to have been characterized by an understanding of the Buddha as separate from Sangha so that his teaching is superior to the one given by arhats. They also emphasise the merit of devotion to stupas, which often had pictorial representation of the stories Buddha's previous life as a bodhisattva, as portrayed in the Jatakas. Consequently, they regarded the path of a bodhisattva (bodhisattvayāna) and the path of a śrāvaka (śrāvakayāna) to be separate.

The Dharmaguptaka and Mahāyāna Buddhism

The Dharmaguptaka Tripiṭaka is said to have contained two extra sections that were not included by some other schools. These included a Bodhisattva Piṭaka and a Mantra Piṭaka (Ch. 咒藏), also sometimes called a Dhāraṇī Piṭaka.^[1] According to the 5th century Dharmaguptaka monk Buddhayaśas, the translator of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya into Chinese, the Dharmaguptaka school had assimilated the "Mahāyāna Tripiṭaka" (Ch. 大乘三藏).^[2] Paramārtha, a 6th century CE Indian monk from Ujjain, unequivocally associates the Dharmaguptaka school with the Mahāyāna, and portrays the Dharmaguptakas as being perhaps the closest to a straightforward Mahāyāna sect.^[3]

It is unknown when some members of the Dharmaguptaka school began to accept the Mahāyāna sūtras, but the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa records that Kaniṣka (127-151 CE) of the Kuṣāṇa Empire presided over the establishment of Prajñāpāramitā doctrines in the northwest of India.^[4] Tāranātha wrote that in this region, 500 bodhisattvas attended the council at Jālandhra monastery during the time of Kaniṣka, suggesting some institutional strength for Mahāyāna in the northwest during this period.^[5] Edward Conze goes further to say that Prajñāpāramitā had great success in the northwest during the Kuṣāṇa period, and may have been the "fortress and hearth" of early Mahāyāna, but not its origin, which he associates with the Mahāsāṃghika branch.^[6]

According to Joseph Walser, there is evidence that the Pañcaviṃśatisāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (25,000 lines) and the Śatasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (100,000 lines) have a connection with the Dharmaguptaka sect, while the Aṣṭasāhasrikā Prajñāpāramitā Sūtra (8000 lines) does not.^[7]

Among the Dharmaguptaka Gandhāran Buddhist texts in the Schøyen Collection, is a fragment in the Kharoṣṭhī script referencing the Six Pāramitās, a central practice for bodhisattvas in Mahāyāna doctrine.^[8]

Influence on East Asian Buddhism

The Dharmaguptakas made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism outside India, to areas such as Iran, Central Asia, and China, and they had great success in doing so.^[9] Therefore, most countries which adopted Buddhism from China, also adopted the Dharmaguptaka vinaya and ordination lineage for bhikṣus and bhikṣuṇīs. According to A.K. Warder, in those East Asian countries, the Dharmaguptaka can be considered to have survived in a partial and attenuated form.^[10]

School's flourishing and demise

The Gandharan Buddhist texts, the earliest Buddhist texts ever discovered, are apparently dedicated to the teachers of the Dharmaguptaka school. They tend to confirm a flourishing of the Dharmaguptaka school in northwestern India around the 1st century CE, with Gāndhārī as the canonical language, and this would explain the subsequent influence of the Dharmaguptakas in Central Asia and then northeastern Asia. According to Buddhist scholar A.K. Warder, the Dharmaguptaka originated in Aparanta.^[11]

Scholars over the years have asserted that the Dharmaguptaka were founded by a Greek monk:

One of the major missionaries was Yonaka Dhammarakkhita. He was, as his name indicates, a Greek monk, native of ‘Alasanda’ (Alexandria). He features in the Pali tradition as a master of psychic powers as well as an expert on Abhidhamma. He went to the Greek-occupied areas in the west of India. Long ago Przyluski, followed by Frauwallner, suggested that Dhammarakkhita be identified with the founder of the Dharmaguptaka school, since dhammarakkhita and dhammagutta have identical meaning.^[12] Since that time two pieces of evidence have come to light that make this suggestion highly plausible. One is the positive identification of very early manuscripts belonging to the Dharmaguptakas in the Gandhāra region, exactly where we expect to find Yonaka Dhammarakkhita. The second is that the phonetic rendering of his name in the Sudassanavinayavibhāsā evidently renders ‘Dharmagutta’ rather than ‘Dhammarakkhita’.[2]

According to one scholar, the evidence afforded by the Gandharan Buddhist texts "suggest[s] that the Dharmaguptaka sect achieved early success under their Indo-Scythian supporters in Gandhāra, but that the sect subsequently declined with the rise of the Kusāna Empire (ca. mid-first to third century A.D.), which gave its patronage to the Sarvāstivāda sect."^[13]

The Dharmaguptaka vinaya was translated into Chinese by Buddhayasas in the early fifth-century, and thereafter became the predominant vinaya in Chinese Buddhist monasticism. When Xuanzang traveled in Asia during the 7th century however, he reported that the Dharmaguptakas had almost completely disappeared from India and Central Asia.^{[citation needed]} In the 7th century CE, Xuanzang and Yijing recorded that the Dharmaguptakas were located in Oḍḍiyāna and Central Asia, but not on the mainland of India.^[14]

Vinaya legacy

The Dharmaguptaka vinaya, or monastic rules, are still followed today in Taiwan, China, Vietnam and Korea, and its lineage for the ordination of nuns has survived uninterrupted to this day. The name of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya in this traditions is the Four-Part Vinaya (Ch. 四分律 sìfēnlǜ), and the equivalent Sanskrit title is the Caturvargika Vinaya.^[15]

Ordination under the Dharmaguptaka vinaya only relates to monastic vows and lineage, and does not conflict with the actual Buddhist tradition one follows.

See also

• Early Buddhist Schools
• Schools of Buddhism

References

1. ^ Baruah, Bibhuti. Buddhist Sects and Sectarianism. 2008. p. 52
2. ^ Walser, Joseph. Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. 2005. pp. 52-53
3. ^ Walser, Joseph. Nāgārjuna in Context: Mahāyāna Buddhism and Early Indian Culture. 2005. p. 52
4. ^ Ray, Reginald. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. 1999. p. 410
5. ^ Ray, Reginald. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. 1999. p. 410
6. ^ Ray, Reginald. Buddhist Saints in India: A Study in Buddhist Values and Orientations. 1999. p. 426
7. ^ Williams, Paul. Mahāyāna Buddhism: The Doctrinal Foundations. 2008. p. 6
8. ^ "Eurasia Episode III - Gandhara, the Renaissance of Buddhism". Presenters: Patrick Cabouat and Alain Moreau. Eurasia. France 5 / NHK / Point du Jour. 2004. No. 3. 11:20 minutes in.
9. ^ Warder, A.K. Indian Buddhism. 2000. p. 278
10. ^ Warder, A.K. Indian Buddhism. 2000. p. 489
11. ^ Indian Buddhism by A.K. Warder Motilal Banarsidass: 2000. ISBN 81-208-1741-9 pg 278^[1]
12. ^ In Pali, "Dhamma-rakkhita" literally means "Dhamma-protector" while "Dhamma-gutta" means "Dhamma-guard." In this context, "Dhamma" could be translated as either "Truth" or "teaching." "Gutta" is a Pali cognate for the Sanskrit "gupta." In the Pali Canon, the term dhammagutta can be found, e.g., in SN 11.4 (translated as "guarding the dhamma" by Andrew Olendzki, 2005).
13. ^ "The Discovery of 'the Oldest Buddhist Manuscripts'" Review article by Enomoto Fumio. The Eastern Buddhist, Vol NS32 Issue I, 2000, pg 161
14. ^ Baruah, Bibhuti. Buddhist Sects and Sectarianism. 2008. p. 52
15. ^ Williams, Jane, and Williams, Paul. Buddhism: Critical Concepts in Religious Studies, Volume 3. 2004. p. 209

• Foltz, Richard, Religions of the Silk Road, Palgrave Macmillan, 2nd edition, 2010 ISBN 978-0-230-62125-1

Literature

• Heirmann. Rules for Nuns According to the Dharmaguptakavinaya. ISBN 81-208-1800-8. 
• Ven. Bhikshuni Wu Yin (2001). Choosing Simplicity. Snow Lion Publications. ISBN 1-55939-155-3. 

External links

• The Gandharan texts and the Dharmaguptaka
• Sects & Sectarianism - The origins of Buddhist Schools