Dear Robertk,

You wrote:

> And this is the root of your ideas. You do not recognize the
> Theravada as being the genuine heirs of the Buddha's teaching, and
> with this disbelief why should you not find all sects equally
> qualified.

Objectively, this is a kind of circular argument. Basically your argument
can be analyzed thus:

Only Theravada is the genuine heir of the Buddha's teaching. Why ? Because
the Theravadins say that they are the genuine heirs of the Buddha's
teaching.

[This is like the Christians who say that the Bible is the true word of God
because the Bible says that it is the true word of God; Jesus is the true
son of God because he says he is the true son of God etc etc]

Do you think that none of the other Nikayan schools did not make the same
claim ? Of course they did. So all you are doing is making a faith-based
claim -- from your comments, here and elsewhere, I assume that you have made
no substantial study of all the textual evidence such as the Vinayas etc of
the other schools. You really should try and somehow get hold of a copy of
Frauwallner's "The Earliest Vinaya and the Beginnings of Buddhist
Literature" (ISMEO 1956) -- he compares all the surviving Vianyas and it is
obvious that the differences between them in content are minimal.

Unless you are claiming some kind of divine intervention, the survival of
Theravada, but not of any of the other schools, is purely a historical and
geographical accident. Imagine that the Theravadin stronghold was in
Kashmir and the Sarvastivadin were thriving in Sri Lanka. Today we would
have no living Theravadins and you would probably be arguing that only the
Sarvastivadins were the true heirs of the Buddha's teaching because you
would base your faith on their claims. Ditto for any of the other schools
because they obviously all claim to be true heirs -- can you imagine any
school saying that they are not the true heirs of the teachings ?

> "Ten thousand of the of the Vajjiputtaka bhikkhus[after spliting
> from the good monks] seeking adherents among themselves, formed a
> school called the Mahasanghika

This is completely erroneous: the Vatsiputrikas were Pudgalavadins, the
Mahasanghikas were not -- there is absolutely no doctrinal connection
between them. The history of the derivation of the different Nikayan
schools is extremely complex due to the contradictory nature of the
surviving material. If you want to improve your understanding of this
topic, I recommend the following papers by Lance Cousins:

"The Five Points and the Origins of the Buddhist Schools" in The Buddhist
Forum vol II (1991), pp27-60
"Person and Self" in Buddhism into the Year 2000 (1995) pp15-31
"On the Vibhajjavadins - The Mahimsasaka, Dhammaguttaka, Kassapiya and
Tambapanniya brances of the ancient Theriyas" in Buddhist Studies Review 16
(2001) pp131-181

Better still, if you can read French, try Andre Bareau's Les Sectes
Bouddhiques du Petit Vehicle" (BEFEO 1955)

The only sense in which one might reasonably say that Theravada is the
genuine heir of the Buddha's teaching is because none of the other schools
survive as living traditions, but, to avoid sectarianism, I would not even
say "the genuine heir" but "the only surviving genuine heir".

Best wishes,
Stephen Hodge