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Theravada is one of the eighteen (or twenty) Nikāya schools that formed early Buddhism. These
developed in India during the century subsequent to the passing away of the Buddha. The
name of the sect implies the meaning of "those supporting the teachings of the elders" which means that this was a school that
had conservative tendencies—an attempt to conserve the original teachings of the Buddha. It is the longest surviving of the
original twenty sects, and for many centuries Theravada has been the predominant religion of continental Southeast Asia (parts of south west China, Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Thailand) and Sri Lanka. Today Theravada Buddhists number over 100 million worldwide, and in recent
decades Theravada has begun to take root in the West.
During the reign of Emperor Asoka in India,
the third Council was held in
Pataliputta (308 BC). The existing heresies and deviations in the religion were expelled and a volume containing the
teachings of the council was compiled. This book — the Kathavatthu — contained the "Teachings of the Elders"
or Theravada. These books were sent to different parts of India and Sri Lanka.
Theravadins claim to follow the earliest forms of Buddhist practice, with the main goal being the achievement of the state of
Arahant (lit. "worthy one", "winner of Nirvana").
Therevada Buddhism focuses on Meditation and understanding. By meditating, a
practitioner can gain valuable insight on himself/herself as well as understanding the concepts of Dhamma better. Meditation techniques include:
Buddha Purnima is the highest religious festival in Theravada.
Many Buddhisms, One Dhamma-vinaya
The Buddha called the religion he founded Dhamma-vinaya, "the doctrine and discipline" (Pali Dhamma or Sanskrit Dharma for short). To provide
a social structure supportive of the practice of Dhamma, and to preserve these teachings for posterity, the Buddha established
the order of bhikkhus (monks) and bhikkhunis (nuns) — the Sangha — who
continue to this day to pass his teachings on to subsequent generations of laypeople and monastics, alike. But within two
centuries after the Buddha's passing, as the Dhamma spread across much of India, several
different interpretations of some of the Buddha's original teachings arose, leading to schisms within the Sangha and the
emergence of as many as eighteen distinct sects of Buddhism.
Pali: The Language of Theravada Buddhism
The language of the Theravada canonical texts is known as Pali (lit., "text"), which is
based on a dialect of Middle Indo-Aryan that was probably spoken in central India during the Buddha's time. Most of the sermons
(suttas) the Buddha delivered were memorized by Ven. Ananda, the Buddha's cousin and close personal attendant; those
sermons at which Ananda was not present are said to have been repeated to him later on. Shortly after the Buddha's death (ca.
480 BCE), five hundred of the most senior monks — including Ananda —
convened to recite and verify all the sermons they had heard during the Buddha's forty-five year teaching career. Most of these
sermons therefore begin with the disclaimer, Evam me sutam — "Thus have I heard."
The teachings were passed down orally within the monastic community, in keeping with an oral tradition that long predated the
Buddha. By 250 BCE the Buddha's teachings had been systematically arranged and
organized into three basic divisions: the Vinaya Pitaka (the "basket of discipline"; the texts concerning the rules and
customs of the Sangha), the Sutta Pitaka (the "basket of discourses"; the sermons and utterances by the Buddha and his
close disciples), and the Abhidhamma Pitaka (the "basket of higher [or special] doctrine"; a detailed philosophical and
psychological analysis of the Dhamma). Taken together these three are known as the Tripitaka — the "three baskets". In the 3rd
century BCE Sri Lankan monks began compiling a series of detailed commentaries to the Tripitaka that were finally collated
and translated into Pali beginning in the fifth century CE. The Tripitaka plus the post-canonical Pali texts (commentaries,
chronicles, etc.) together constitute the complete body of classical Theravada texts.
Pali was originally a spoken language with no alphabet of its own. It wasn't until about 100 BCE that the Tripitaka was first fixed in writing, by Sri Lankan scribe-monks writing the Pali phonetically in
their own Sinhala alphabet. Since then the Tripitaka has been transliterated into
many different scripts (Devanagari, Thai, Burmese, Roman, Cyrillic, to name a few). Although English translations of the most popular Tripitaka texts abound, many
students of Theravada find that learning the Pali language — even just a little bit here and there — greatly deepens
their understanding and appreciation of the Buddha's teachings.
Of course, no one can prove that the Tripitaka contains any of the actual words uttered by the historical Buddha. But
practicing Buddhists have never found this problematic. Unlike the scriptures of many of the world's other great religions, the
Tripitaka is not meant to be taken as gospel, containing unassailable statements of
divine truth, revealed by a prophet, to be accepted purely on faith. Instead, its teachings are meant to be assessed firsthand, to be put into practice in one's life so that
one can find out for oneself if they do, in fact, yield the promised results. It is the truth towards which the words in the
Tripitaka point that ultimately matters, not the words themselves. Although scholars will undoubtedly continue to speculate about
the authorship of passages from the Tripitaka for years to come (and thus miss the point of these teachings entirely), the
Tripitaka will quietly continue to serve — as it has for centuries — as an indispensable guide for millions of
followers in their quest for Awakening.
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