page_title: Theravada
section_title: Origins
hierarchical_section_title: Theravada / History / Origins
caption_attribution_description: 14 King Asoka at the Third Council, at the Nava Jetavana, Shravasti Photograph of murals in the Nava Jetavana temple, Jetavana Park, Shravasti, Uttar Pradesh, taken by Anandajoti.
context_page_description: Theravāda is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed Theravādins, have preserved their version of Gautama Buddha's teaching in the Pāli Canon. The Pāli Canon is the most complete Buddhist canon surviving in a classical Indian language, Pāli, which serves as the school's sacred language and lingua franca. For over a millennium, theravādins have endeavored to preserve the dhamma as recorded in their school's texts. In contrast to Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, Theravāda tends to be conservative in matters of doctrine and monastic discipline.
  Modern Theravāda derives from the Mahāvihāra sect, a Sri Lankan branch of the Vibhajjavādins, a sub-sect of the Indian Sthavira Nikaya, which began to establish itself on the island from the 3rd century BCE onwards. It was in Sri Lanka that the Pāli Canon was written down and the school's commentary literature developed.
  From Sri Lanka, the Theravāda Mahāvihāra tradition subsequently spread to the rest of Southeast Asia. It is the dominant religion in Cambodia, Laos, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and Thailand and is practiced by minorities in India, Bangladesh, China, Nepal, and Vietnam.
context_section_description: The name Theravāda comes from Sthāvirīya, one of the early Buddhist schools from which Theravādins trace their school's descent. The Sthavira nikāya emerged from the first schism in the Buddhist sangha (literally "Community"). At issue was its adherents' desire to add new Vinaya rules tightening monastic discipline, against the wishes of the majority Mahāsāṃghika. According to its adherents' accounts, the Theravāda school derives from the Vibhajjavāda "doctrine of analysis" group, which was a division of the Sthāvirīya.
  Damien Keown denies that there is historical evidence of the Theravāda school's existence before around two centuries after the Great Schism, which occurred at the Third Council. Theravadins'  own accounts of their school's origins mention that it received the teachings that were agreed upon during the putative Third Buddhist council  held around 250 BCE under the patronage of Indian Emperor Ashoka. These teachings were known as the Vibhajjavāda. Emperor Ashoka is supposed to have assisted in purifying the sangha by expelling monks who declined to agree to the terms of Third Council. The elder monk Moggaliputta-Tissa chaired the Third council and compiled the Kathavatthu ("Points of Controversy"), a refutation of various opposing views which is an important work in the Theravāda Abhidhamma.
  Later, the Vibhajjavādins, in turn, is said to have split into four groups: the Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya, Dharmaguptaka in the north, and the Tāmraparṇīya in South India. The Tambapaṇṇiya (later Mahāvihāravāsins), was established in Sri Lanka (at Anuradhapura) but active also in Andhra and other parts of South India (Vanavasa in modern Karnataka) and later across South-East Asia. Inscriptional evidence of this school has been found in Amaravati and Nagarjunakonda. According to Buddhist scholar A. K. Warder, the Theravāda.
  spread rapidly south from Avanti into Maharashtra and Andhra and down to the Chola country (Kanchi), as well as Sri Lanka. For some time they maintained themselves in Avanti as well as in their new territories, but gradually they tended to regroup themselves in the south, the Great Vihara (Mahavihara) in Anuradhapura, the ancient capital of Sri Lanka, becoming the main centre of their tradition, Kanchi a secondary center and the northern regions apparently relinquished to other schools.
caption: Ashoka and Moggaliputta-Tissa at the Third Council, at the Nava Jetavana, Shravasti
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