Thomas Law wrote:

> In the history of Indian Buddhism the term, Mahayana, was used as a
> reaction (or a movement) against the highly ecclesiastic, and
> allegedly self-motivated Buddhism of the time. [snip] Thus, I do not
> think "it
> sounded very arrogant".

One should also note that there are a number of accounts in early Mahayana
sutras relating that monks who were followers of Mahayana AND zealous
observers of the Vinaya were physically attacked, beaten up or even murdered
by non-Mahayana monks. There seems to be a consistent pattern in these
accounts which leads one to think that they describe actual events.
Regarding the slur that Mahayana monks were more lax, it seems that they
were attacked precisely because they were strict in their observance of the
Vinaya and this earned them the wrath of their erstwhile co-religionists.

> Similarly, the southern Buddhist tradition is historically only one
> of the early Buddhist schools (so-called Hinayana Buddhism by the
> Mahayana)

In fact the ways in which non-Mahayana followers are viewed and labelled in
various Mahayana sutras are much more complicated that people might think.
While it is true that the unfortunate term "Hinayana" is used -- perhaps in
reaction to the violent hostility they encountered, one also frequently
encounters Shravaka instead. Or again, to confuse matters, one also finds
Mahayana Shravakas mentioned while their counterparts are just Shravakas who
do not follow the Mahayana. I don't know if I can make myself clear, but I
think we should also distinguish between "mahayana" and "Mahayana" (with
capital M) in the development of that form of Buddhism. In other words, the
line dividing Mahayana followers from non-Mahayana was much more vague and
gradual and the way in which Mahayana emerged as a distinct movement is far
more subtle than many believe.

There was some mention of the Dhammakayo movement here (thanks for the
replies). I presume that those bhikkhus follow the Theravada Vinaya and
observe it at least as well as anybody else does in Thailand. However, the
founder of the movement had an apparently new, though not unreasonable,
understanding of doctrinal matters which to me looks as though he accidently
arrived at quasi-Mahayana doctrines by himself. This might provide us with
a good model for understanding the way in which Mahayana initially developed
as we have here a situation where there has been no change in the Vinaya,
merely a slight shift in doctrinal and meditational matters. I presume that
there is nothing about these doctrinal changes that put them out of
communion, as it were, with other Theravadin monks as far as the Vinaya is
concerned.

> There are different schools in Tibetan Buddhism. Some schools do not
> follow the Vinaya rules.

No, this not true. All monks in the Tibetan tradition follow the Vinaya.
In fact, the often maligned Nyingmapas are stricter in their observance of
the Vinaya than the reformist Gelukpas. The confusion arise because people
don't realize that Tibetans recognize a separate category of religious
"professionals" -- the yogins and mantrins. All Tibetans know that these
people are not monks, even though they wear distinctive robes that may
superfically look like mionastic robes to the uninformed but they are not.

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge