Dear Robert,


Gosh, i do seem to have struck a sensitive nerve here...To respond
to your statments:

> Dear Venerable Sujato,
> I gather from what you said here and to Thomas that you feel the
> Dhammagupta(sp?) Mahayana sect

There is no Dharmagupta Mahayana sect. There is a tradition of
bhikkhus and bhikkhunis whose ordination lineage springs from the
Dharmaguptaka, and whose doctrines are primarily Mahayana.



is close enough to Theravada that

> only ignorant conservative monks would see a distinction?

No, i did not say that. Obviously there are differences. As a good
Vibhajjavadin, I have tried to point out carefully what is the
distinction and what is not.

That any

> bhikkhuni ordained by a quorum of dhammagupta bhikkhus is thus

both

> a Theravada Bhikkhuni and a Dhammagupta bhikkhuni?

A bhikkhuni is a bhikkhuni. The bhikkhuni lineage was established by
the Buddha, and derives its authenticity from him, not from any
sect. No Vinaya or ordination procedure mentions the
words 'Theravada', 'Dharmagupta', 'Mahayana', etc. And as far as i
am aware, the kammavacas and other essentials of the ordination
procedure are the same in all traditions.

>
> However, the Theravada order has always being conservative, and in
> fact they considered matters of ordination and schism and all
> offical acts within the sangha extremely important.

All other schools also regard ordination and schism and sanghakammas
as extremely important.

Well worthy of

> focusing attention on.
> Take the case of the Abhayagiri sect (whose beliefs and practcices
> would be much closer to Theravada than Dhammagupta: in fact
> Abhayagirai even considered themselves Theravadan)

This is incorrect. The doctrines of the Abhayagiri school are
largely unknown; all we know about them is the reports by their
enemies. Since these reports are often of a less than gentlemanly
and scientific nature, we might suspect how reliable they are.

Be that as it may, it seems likely that the Abhayagirivasins were to
some extent influenced by 'Mahayana' ideas. If such was the case,
they would be further from the Theravadins than the Dharmaguptakas,
since i know of no source that suggests the Dharmaguptakas were ever
influenced by the Mahayana. As the Mahayana gained popularity in
China, the Dharmaguptaka faded away there.

As i mentioned above, the difference between the Theravada and the
Dharmaguptaka probably arose merely because of Vinaya, not through
any doctrinal cause; whereas the schism from the Abhayagirivasins
was clearly due to matters of doctrine and practice.

In any case, the question we were considering was one of ordination
lineage, not degree of conformity to Theravada doctrines and
practices. The success or otherwise of a sanghakamma does not depend
on either the doctrinal views, or the adherence to rules of the
bhikkhus participating. As long as the bhikkhus are not parajika,
they may be counted towards completing the quorum.

> The mahavamsa notes (p267 -268)p264 that a King helped to purify

the

> sasana by
> suppression of a heresy.

This is an interesting episode in Theravada history, and frankly i
don't think anyone comes out of it well. The Abhayagirivasins were
accused of being kuladusaka. This is a serious accusation, and if it
is correct it justifies the Theravadin position. But it does not
justify acting in the same way towards monks/nuns of other
traditions.

>
> Another case:
> At the
> Second Council the Vajjiputtaka reformists(i.e mahayana prototypes)

There is little or no direct evidence for any particular connection
between Vajjiputtakas and the Mahayana. Yes, the Vajjiputtakas are
sometimes (but only sometimes) identified with the Mahasamghika, and
the Mahasamghika has been seen by some modern scholars as a
forerunner of the Mahayana.

But the Mahasamghika ideas that are thought to influence the
Mahayana are not the lax Vinaya issues as such. They are, firstly,
that the Mahasamghika developed a 'transcendentalist' conception of
the Buddha; and secondly, that they questioned the authority of the
Theras (although this latter is very dubious: in fact the Mahayana
has strong authoritarian tendencies).

It seems more likely that the Mahayana was a movement that emerged
from certain tendencies nascent in the early schools, rather than
deriving from any one particular school.

I do not know of any particular evidence that the Indian Mahayanists
were any more lax in the Vinaya than their Theravadin brothers,
although it seems that at the time when the Mahayana emerged the
level of Vinaya and practice was declining generally.

This may be seen in the Theravada tradition, too, when for example
the Theravadins decided that study of the texts was more important
than practice of their contents. Or again, when a Theravadin teacher
consoled a King that the thousands he had slaughtered in war was
hardly a violation of the first precept: since only one of those he
killed had gone for refuge and one had taken five precepts, he had
only killed one and a half humans! This astounding episode,
incidentally, is recorded in the Theravadin's own texts
(Mahavamsa?), so it seems they were quite proud of it.

> had the backing of the
> householders of Vesali. When they walked into the town people would
> praise
> them for being so friendly and jolly, and for helping teh
> townspeople. But when venerable Yasa and his fellow conservative
> monks (Theravada monks)

It is anachronistic to claim that Yasa and his friends were
Theravadin. After all, the second council and subsequent schism had
not yet occured, so the Theravada school did not exist. All that
existed then was the unified followers of early, pre-sectarian
Buddhism. This is why, according to the Theravadin account, the
Vinaya disputes at that council were able to be resolved by
reference to the Vinaya itself, since the Vinaya was held in common
by all participants, even though they differed in practice and
interpretation.

I am trying to suggest that through emphasizing the common ground
between the Vinayas of the different schools, we can in a similar
way encourage Sangha of all schools to develop a greater regard for
authentic Vinaya practice.

Even after the first schism, the ancestor of the Theravada group of
schools (for which there is no convenient name) took some time to
split further. One might as well say that Yasa was a 'Sarvastivadin'
(as no doubt the Sarvastivadins asserted). The split in the ancient
Vibhajjavada, resulting in the Theravada and Dharmaguptaka, etc.,
happened many years later.

Incidentally, the term Theravada is not used in the same way in the
Northern texts. They usually refer to the Sri Lankan school as the
Tambapanniyas, or the Tamrasatiyas, etc. These are not identical
with the 'Theravadins' emerging from the second council, they are
simply the Sri Lankan branch of that group of schools.

> walked
> into Vesali the townsfolk called them uptight fools and threw
> cowdung at them.
> Yet, in my opinion, it was the conservative Theravadans who were

the

> heroes who refused to modify the Vinaya despite public sentiment
> being firmly against them.

I agree that those through the past ages who have upheld the Vinaya
and have passed it down to us must be regarded as heroes. This is
why i try to uphold the Vinaya and teach and encourage others to do
so.

This is also why i resist attempts to modify the Vinayas by imposing
sectarian biases on them, when the Vinayas themselves are
refreshingly free of such agendas.

yours in Dhamma-Vinaya

Bhante Sujato