Caitika - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

The Caitika was an early Buddhist school, and was a sub-sect of the Mahāsāṃghika

Mahasamghika

The ' , literally the "Great Saṃgha", was one of the early Buddhist schools in ancient India.The origins of the sect of Buddhism are still extremely uncertain, and the subject of debate among scholars. One reason for the interest in the origins of the school is that their Vinaya recension appears...

school. They were also known as the Caityaka sect. The Caitikas proliferated throughout the mountains of southern India

India

India , officially the Republic of India , is a country in South Asia. It is the seventh-largest country by geographical area, the second-most populous country with over 1.2 billion people, and the most populous democracy in the world...

, from which it derives its name.

History

The Caitikas branched off from the main Mahāsāṃghika school in the 1st or 2nd century BCE. Epigraphic evidence of the Mahāsāṃghikas in the Mathura region dates to the first century BCE, and the dates the formation of the Caitikas to 300 years after the Buddha.

The Caitikas gave rise to the Aparaśailas and Uttaraśailas (also called Pūrvaśailas). Together, they comprised an important part of the Mahāsāṃghika located in southern India. Two other sub-sects associated with the Caitikas include the Rājagirikas and the Siddhārthikas, both of which emerged from the Āndhra region, around 300 CE.

The Caitikas are said to have had in their possession the Great Stūpa

Stupa

A stupa is a mound-like structure containing Buddhist relics, typically the remains of Buddha, used by Buddhists as a place of worship....

at Sāñchī

Sanchi

Sanchi is a small village in Raisen District of the state of Madhya Pradesh, India, it is located 46 km north east of Bhopal, and 10 km from Besnagar and Vidisha in the central part of the state of Madhya Pradesh. It is the location of several Buddhist monuments dating from the 3rd...

. The Great Stūpa was first commissioned by Aśoka the Great

Ashoka

Ashok Maurya or Ashoka , popularly known as Ashoka the Great, was an Indian emperor of the Maurya Dynasty who ruled almost all of the Indian subcontinent from ca. 269 BC to 232 BC. One of India's greatest emperors, Ashoka reigned over most of present-day India after a number of military conquests...

in the 3rd century BCE, and became known as a Buddhist pilgrimage

Buddhist pilgrimage

The most important places of pilgrimage in Buddhism are located in the Gangetic plains of Northern India and Southern Nepal, in the area between New Delhi and Rajgir. This is the area where Gautama Buddha lived and taught, and the main sites connected to his life are now important places of...

site. In the Ajaṇṭā Caves, the only epigraphic reference to an early Buddhist sect is to that of the Caitikas, which is associated with an iconic image in Cave 10. The Mahāsāṃghikas were generally associated with the early veneration of anthropomorphic Buddha images.

When Xuanzang

Xuanzang

Xuanzang was a famous Chinese Buddhist monk, scholar, traveler, and translator who described the interaction between China and India in the early Tang period...

visited Dhānyakataka, he wrote that the monks of this region were Mahāsāṃghikas, and mentions the Pūrvaśailas specifically. Here, he studied the Mahāsāṃghika Abhidharma

Abhidharma

Abhidharma or Abhidhamma are ancient Buddhist texts which contain detailed scholastic and scientific reworkings of doctrinal material appearing in the Buddhist Sutras, according to schematic classifications...

with several Mahāsāṃghika bhikṣus, who he in turn tutored on the Mahāyāna sūtras

Mahayana sutras

Mahāyāna sutras are a broad genre of Buddhist scriptures that are accepted as canonical by the various traditions of Mahāyāna Buddhism. These are largely preserved in the Chinese Buddhist canon, the Tibetan Buddhist canon, and in extant Sanskrit manuscripts...

Doctrine

The southern Mahāsāṃghika schools such as the Caitikas advocated the ideal of the bodhisattva

Bodhisattva

In Buddhism, a bodhisattva is either an enlightened existence or an enlightenment-being or, given the variant Sanskrit spelling satva rather than sattva, "heroic-minded one for enlightenment ." The Pali term has sometimes been translated as "wisdom-being," although in modern publications, and...

(bodhisattvayāna) over that of the arhat (śrāvakayāna), and they viewed arhats as being fallible and still subject to ignorance. The main Caitika school, along with the Aparaśailas and Uttaraśailas, all emphasized the transcendental and supernatural character of the Buddha

Gautama Buddha

Siddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...

.

Xuanzang considered the Mahāsāṃghika doctrine of a mūlavijñāna ("root consciousness") to be essentially the same as the Yogācāra

Yogacara

Yogācāra is an influential school of Buddhist philosophy and psychology emphasizing phenomenology and ontology through the interior lens of meditative and yogic practices. It developed within Indian Mahāyāna Buddhism in about the 4th century CE...

doctrine of the ālāyavijñāna ("store consciousness"). He also noted that the doctrine of the mūlavijñāna was contained in the āgamas of the Mahāsāṃghikas.

And Mahāyāna

A.K. Warder holds that the Mahāyāna

Mahayana

Mahāyāna is one of the two main existing branches of Buddhism and a term for classification of Buddhist philosophies and practice...

"almost certainly" first developed from the southern Mahāsāṃghika schools of the Āndhra region, among monastic communities associated with the Caitikas and their sub-sects.

A number of scholars have proposed that the Mahāyāna Prajñāpāramitā

Prajnaparamita

Prajñāpāramitā in Buddhism, means "the Perfection of Wisdom." The word Prajñāpāramitā combines the Sanskrit words prajñā with pāramitā . Prajñāpāramitā is a central concept in Mahāyāna Buddhism and its practice and understanding are taken to be indispensable elements of the Bodhisattva Path...

teachings were first developed by the Caitika subsect of the Mahāsāṃghikas. They believe that the originated amongst the southern Mahāsāṃghika schools of the Āndhra region, along the Kṛṣṇa River

Krishna River

The Krishna River , is one of the longest rivers in central-southern India, about . It is also referred to as Krishnaveni in its original nomenclature...

. These Mahāsāṃghikas had two famous monasteries near the Amarāvati

Amaravati

Amaravati may refer to:* Amaravati, a Pali word meaning 'Abode of the Deathless' referring to nirvana* Amaravathi, surname, see Raju surnames* Amaravathi , a 1993 Tamil language film* Amaravathi , a Telugu language film...

and the Dhānyakataka, which gave their names to the schools of the Pūrvaśailas and the Aparaśailas. Each of these schools had a copy of the in Prakrit

Prakrit

Prakrit is the name for a group of Middle Indic, Indo-Aryan languages, derived from Old Indic dialects. The word itself has a flexible definition, being defined sometimes as, "original, natural, artless, normal, ordinary, usual", or "vernacular", in contrast to the literary and religious...

. Guang Xing also assesses the view of the Buddha given in the as being that of the Mahāsāṃghikas. Edward Conze

Edward Conze

Eberhart Julius Dietrich Conze was an Anglo-German scholar probably best known for his pioneering translations of Buddhist texts.-Life and work:...

estimates that this sūtra originated around 100 BCE.

Brian Edward Brown, a specialist in Tathāgatagarbha doctrines, writes that it has been determined that the composition of the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra occurred during the Īkṣvāku Dynasty

Andhra Ikshvaku

The Andhra Ikshvakus were one of the earliest recorded ruling dynasties of Andhra Pradesh and are said to have been the first Kshatriya rulers in the Andhra region. They ruled the eastern Andhra country along the Krishna river during the later half of the 2nd century CE. . Their capital was...

in the 3rd century CE, as a product of the Mahāsāṃghikas of the Āndhra region (i.e. the Caitika schools). Wayman has outlined eleven points of complete agreement between the Mahāsāṃghikas and the Śrīmālā, along with four major arguments for this association. After its composition, this text became the primary scriptural advocate in India for the universal potentiality of Buddhahood

Buddhahood

In Buddhism, buddhahood is the state of perfect enlightenment attained by a buddha .In Buddhism, the term buddha usually refers to one who has become enlightened...

. Sree Padma and Anthony Barber also associate the earlier development of the Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra
Tathagatagarbha Sutra
The Tathāgatagarbha Sūtra is an influential and doctrinally striking Mahayana Buddhist scripture which treats of the existence of the "Tathagatagarbha" within all sentient creatures. The Buddha reveals how inside each person's being there exists a great Buddhic "treasure that is eternal and...

with the Mahāsāṃghikas, and conclude that the Mahāsāṃghikas of the Āndhra region were responsible for the inception of the Tathāgatagarbha doctrine

Tathagatagarbha doctrine

In Mahāyāna, The "Tathāgatagarbha Sutras" are a collection of Mahayana sutras which present a unique model of Buddha-nature, i.e. the original vision of the Buddha-nature as an ungenerated, unconditioned and immortal Buddhic element within all beings. Even though this collection was generally...

.

In the 6th century CE, Bhāvaviveka speaks of the Siddhārthikas using a Vidyādhāra Piṭaka, and the Aparaśailas and Uttaraśailas (Pūrvaśailas) both using a Bodhisattva

Bodhisattva

Piṭaka, implying collections of Mahāyāna texts within these Caitika schools. During the same period, Avalokitavrata speaks of the Mahāsāṃghikas using a "Great Āgama Piṭaka", which is then associated with Mahāyāna sūtras such as the Prajñāparamitā and the Daśabhūmika Sūtra.

According to the Theravādin Nikāyasaṅgraha, the large Mahāyāna collection called the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra
Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra
The Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra is an ancient collection of Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtras.-Overview:The Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra contains 49 texts of varying length, which are termed "assemblies" by tradition. This text was translated into Chinese by Bodhiruci in the 8th century, between 707 and 713 CE...

(Taishō Tripiṭaka 310) was composed by the "Andhakas", meaning the Caitika schools of the Āndhra region. This collection includes the Śrīmālādevī Siṃhanāda Sūtra, the Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sutra
Infinite Life Sutra
The Infinite Life Sūtra, or Longer Sukhāvatīvyūha Sūtra is a Mahāyāna Buddhist sūtra, and the primary text of Pure Land Buddhism. It is the longest of the three major texts of Pure Land Buddhism...

, the Akṣobhyavyūha Sūtra, a long text called the Bodhisattva Piṭaka, and others. The Mahāratnakūṭa collection totals 49 Mahāyāna sūtras, divided into 120 fascicles in the Chinese translation.

And Theravāda

In the Mahāvihara

Mahavihara

The Mahavihara was for several centuries the center of Theravada Buddhism in Sri Lanka. It was founded by king Devanampiya Tissa in his capital Anuradhapura. The Mahavihara was the place where Theravadin orthodoxy was established by monks such as Buddhaghosa...

tradition of the Theravāda

Theravada

Theravada ; literally, "the Teaching of the Elders" or "the Ancient Teaching", is the oldest surviving Buddhist school. It was founded in India...

school, Buddhaghoṣa

Buddhaghosa

Bhadantācariya Buddhaghoṣa（Chinese: 覺音）was a 5th-century Indian Theravadin Buddhist commentator and scholar. His best-known work is the Visuddhimagga, or Path of Purification, a comprehensive summary and analysis of the Theravada understanding of the Buddha's path to liberation...

grouped the Caitika schools in the Āndhra region, such as the Rājagirikas and the Siddhārthikas, as the "Andhakas". These Caitika schools rejected the post-Ashoka

Ashoka

n texts that were in use by the Mahāvihara tradition, such as the Parivara

Parivara

Parivara is the third and last book of the Theravadin Vinaya Pitaka. It includes a summary and multiple analyses of the various rules identified in the Vinaya Pitaka's first two books, the Suttavibhanga and the Khandhaka, primarily for didactic purposes...

, the six books of Abhidharma

Abhidharma

, the Patisambhida, the Niddesa

Niddesa

The Niddesa is a Buddhist scripture, part of the Pali Canon of Theravada Buddhism. It is included there in the Sutta Pitaka's Khuddaka Nikaya. It is in the form of a commentary on parts of the Suttanipata. The tradition ascribes it to the Buddha's disciple Sariputta...

, some Jātakas, some verses, and so on. Works such as the Kathavatthu

Kathavatthu

Kathāvatthu , translated as "Points of Controversy", is a Buddhist scripture, one of the seven books in the Theravada Abhidhamma Pitaka...

show that Mahāvihara polemics were directed overwhelmingly at these "Andhakas" in India.

One such dispute recorded in the Kathavatthu between the Mahāviharavasins and the Andhakas was a fundamental matter concerning the interpretation of the Buddha's teachings. The Andhakas are said to have held that the Buddha's actions and speech were supramundane, but some may only perceive the conventional or mundane interpretation. For the Mahāsāṃghika branch of Buddhism, the ultimate meaning of the Buddha's teachings was "beyond words", and words were merely a conventional exposition of the Dharma. The Theravāda Mahāviharavasins, in contrast, argued that the literal interpretations of the Buddha's teachings were best.

History

Doctrine

And Mahāyāna

And Theravāda

See also