has become a somewhat promiscuous category applied to various ritu-als not easily classified.”86 The word “tantra” is not used in Southeast Asian Buddhism to describe either texts or practices (and the adjective tāntrika is equally unknown). There is no problem in drawing paral-lels (if there are any): that is our job. But when we place Khmer or Southeast Asian practice within a category alien to it, then, inevitably, everything else about tantra is associated with it, and confusion reigns.
many to mention for discussions in the intervening years. I especially thank Giuliana Martini for her comments on and corrections to the final draft.
Note: “Sanskrit” and “Prakrit,” rather than “Saṃskṛta” or “Prākṛta,”
have been widely accepted in Indological writing for decades. I see no reason to persist with the use of “Pāli” and “Gāndhārī,” and I therefore use “Pali”
and “Gandhari” throughout. In addition, taking into account the compelling evidence presented by Gouriswar Bhattacharya, I write “bodhisatva” rather than “bodhisattva”: see Gouriswar Bhattacharya, “How to Justify the Spelling of the Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Term Bodhisatva?” in From Turfan to Ajanta:
Festschrift for Dieter Schlingloff on the Occasion of his Eighteenth Birthday, ed. Eli Franco and Monika Zin (Rupandehi: Lumbini International Research Institute, 2010), 35–50.
2. See, for example, John Clifford Holt, Jacob N. Kinnard, and Jonathan S.
Walters, eds., Constituting Communities: Theravāda Buddhism and the Religious Cultures of South and Southeast Asia, SUNY Series in Buddhist Studies (Albany:
State University of New York Press, 2003). The standard monograph remains Richard F. Gombrich, Theravāda Buddhism: A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo (1988; 2nd ed., London: Routledge, 2006). The title is prob-lematic insofar as it implies that “Theravāda” began in “ancient Benares,”
that is, the Deer Park at Sarnath: however, the sermon at Sarnath is the foun-dation of all that later became Buddhism—not only Theravāda, but all schools.
3. Kevin Trainor, ed., Buddhism: The Illustrated Guide, rev. ed. (London: Duncan Baird, 2004), 120–131.
4. Other nikāyas seem to be grouped under the general name ācariyavāda, a term not used, as far as I know, in other Buddhist schools. Another term met with in Pali is nikāyantara, which is also used in Sanskrit texts. Further research is needed to determine how “Theravāda” has viewed the “Other”
through its long history, during which it has been in constant interaction with other religions and practices.
5. I refer to the research paper of Todd Perreira presented at the XVth Congress of the International Association of Buddhist Studies (Emory University, Atlanta, Georgia, June 2008), to be included in Jason Carbine and Peter Skilling, eds., How Theravāda Is Theravāda? (Taipei: Dharma Drum Publishing Corp., forthcoming). Guruge states that “Resulting from the reaction of Buddhists of South and Southeast Asia to the use of the rather pejorative term ‘Hīnayāna’ to designate the form of Buddhism practiced in the region, the term ‘Theravāda’
came to be applied to it around mid-twentieth century.” See Ananda W. P.
Guruge, “Does the Theravāda Tradition of Buddhism Exist Today?” in Buddhist and Pali Studies in Honour of the Venerable Professor Kakkapalliye Anuruddha, ed.
K. L. Dhammajoti and Y. Karunadasa (Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, 2009), 97.
6. For a lucid and reliable account of the Pali canon and Pali literary tradi-tions, see Oskar von Hinüber, “Pali, Buddhist Literature in,” in Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr., 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), 2:625–629.
7. Steven Collins, Nirvana and Other Buddhist Felicities: Utopias of the Pali Imagi-naire, Cambridge Studies in Religious Traditions 12 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1998). See now the abridged version, Steven Collins, Nirvana:
Concept, Imagery, Narrative (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2010).
8. Kevin Trainor, ed., Buddhism: The Illustrated Guide, rev. ed. (London: Duncan Baird, 2004), 120.
9. Note that it is not true that the Theravāda is the only school that has “sur-vived into the present day,” since up to the present a Sarvāstivāda monastic lineage is followed in Tibet and a Dharmaguptaka lineage is followed in East Asia.
10. Dīpavaṃsa 4:6, therehi katasaṃgaho theravādo ’ti vuccati.
11. P. A. Payutto, Phra traipidok: sing thi chao phut tong ru / The Pali Canon: What a Buddhist Must Know (Bangkok: privately printed, BE 2546 = CE 2003), 17. I prefer, however, to translate “thera” as “senior” or “senior monks” rather than “elder.”
12. One significant distinction is that the Theravāda tradition maintained that it preserves the original redaction, while in north India it was admitted that the original redaction (mūlasaṃgīti) was no longer extant: see Peter Skilling,
“Scriptural Authenticity and the Śrāvaka Schools: An Essay towards an Indian Perspective,” The Eastern Buddhist 41, no. 2 (2010): 1ff.
13. Mahāvaṃsa 3:40cd, thereh’ eva katattā ca theriyāyaṃ paraṃparā; 5:1, yā mahākassapādīhi mahātherehi ādito, katā saddhammasaṃgīti theriyā ti pavuccati.
14. I am not certain when or by whom the term Sthaviravāda was coined. It is already used by Lamotte, and might have been given currency by A. K. Warder in his Indian Buddhism (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1970), passim. There is no equivalent—*Gnas brtan smra ba’i sde?—in Tibetan. Sometimes “Sthaviravāda”
is reconstructed in European translations from the Chinese, but on investiga-tion the Chinese turns out to be something like *Sthavira-nikāya. The key point is the absence of the suffix –vāda.
15. Keisho Tsukamoto, A Comprehensive Study of the Indian Buddhist Inscriptions, part 1 (Kyoto: Heirakuji-Shoten, 1996), I: Bihar 1.5, I: Bodh-Gayā 21, and III:
Ajaṇṭa 68.6. For feminine forms of the term see Peter Skilling, “A Note on the History of the Bhikkhunī-saṅgha (I): Nuns at the Time of the Buddha,” World Federation of Buddhists Review 31, nos. 2–3 (April–September BE 2537 = CE 1994):
47–55.
16. Claudine Bautze-Picron, The Art of Eastern India in the Collection of the Museum
für Indische Kunst, Berlin: Stone and Terracotta Sculptures, Monographien zur in-dischen Archäologie Kunst und Philologie, Band 12 (Berlin: Dietrich Reimer Verlag, 1998), no. 305.
17. The Peking edition of the Mahāvyutpatti has Ārya-sthābirāḥ (’phags pa gnas brtan pa); see Daisetz T. Suzuki, ed., The Tibetan Tripitaka, Peking Edition—Kept in the Library of the Otani University, Kyoto, vol. 144 (Tokyo–Kyoto: Tibetan Tripitaka Research Institute, 1957), ṅo mtshar bstan bcos, go, 305b1. The Sanskrit index of Ryōzaburō Sakaki’s edition of the Mahāvyutpatti (orig. pub.
1925; repr., Tokyo: Suzuki Research Foundation, Reprint Series 1, 1962, Index volume, 162) gives the form sthāvira, but the text (§9095) gives Ārya-sthaviraḥ, which is presumably a misprint (see note at Franklin Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, Dictionary [orig. pub., New Haven:
Yale University Press, 1953; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1972], 105b, s.v.
“Ārya-sthāvira”). N. D. Mironov’s edition (Mahāvyutpatti, Bibliotheca Buddhica XIII [orig. pub. 1911; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992], § 275.18) and the edition of Yumiko Ishihama and Yoichi Fukuda (A New Critical Edition of the Mahāvyutpatti, Sanskrit-Tibetan-Mongolian Dictionary of Buddhist Terminology [Tokyo: The Toyo Bunko, 1989], §9032) have Ārya-sthāvirāḥ.
18. See Edgerton, Buddhist Hybrid Sanskrit Grammar and Dictionary, Vol. II, Dictionary, 105b.
19. D. L. Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra: A Critical Study, London Oriental Series, vol. 6 (orig. pub. 1959; repr., London: Oxford University Press, 1980), II 5, 68.
20. Bu ston Chos ’byuṅ (Kruṅ go bod kyi śes rig dpe skrun khaṅ, 1988), 133.13.
The phrasing of ’Jam-dbyaṅs Bźad-pa is slightly different: gnas brtan ’phags pa’i rigs yin par ston pas gnas brtan pa (’Jam-dbyaṅs Bźad-pa’i-rdo-rje, Grub mtha’i rnam bśad kun bzaṅ źiṅ gi ñi ma [Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khaṅ, 1992], 264.10).
21. See Mori Sodō, “Ariyavaṃsa and Ariyavaṃsa-kathā,” in Studies on Buddhism in Honour of Professor A.K. Warder, ed. N. K. Wagle and F. Watanabe (Toronto:
University of Toronto, Centre for South Asian Studies, 1993) (South Asian Papers, no. 5), 100–112.
22. Śramaṇa Yijing, Buddhist Monastic Traditions of Southern Asia: A Record of the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Seas, translated from the Chinese (Taishō Volume 54, Number 2125) by Li Rongxi (Berkeley: Numata Center for Buddhist Translation and Research [BDK English Tripiṭaka 93-I], 2000), 11. The four-school model is vouchsafed by Indian sources for, at any rate, the seventh century on. Chinese sources also know a five-school model which seems to reflect the situation in the Northwest. This model deserves further atten-tion, given that it includes the Dharmaguptakas, with whom many of the recently discovered Gandhari manuscripts are believed to be associated.
For sources and for the historiography of the study of the four- and five-school models in European scholarship up to about 1945, see Lin Li-Kouang,
Introduction au Compendium de la loi (Dharma-Samuccaya): L’aide-mémoire de la vraie loi (Saddharma-Smrtyupasthāna-sūtra): recherches sur un sūtra développé du Petit Véhicule, introduction by P. Demiéville (Publications du Musée Guimet, Bibliothèque d’études, t. 54) (Paris: Adrien-Maisonneuve, 1949), 176–216.
23. Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra, I, 49; II, 5–6, 90, 149, and 156; Ch. Willemen, The Chinese Hevajratantra: The Scriptural Text of the Ritual of the Great King of the Teaching, the Adamantine One with Great Compassion and Knowledge of the Void (Leuven: Uitgeverij Peeters, 1983), 38–39, 97–98; G. W. Farrow and I. Menon, The Concealed Essence of the Hevajra Tantra with the Commentary Yogaratnamala (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1992), 20–21, 225. The four philosophical schools are also mentioned in Snellgrove, The Hevajra Tantra, part II, p. 156. In dPa’-bo Gtsug-lag-phreṅ-ba’s (1504–1566) Chos ’byuṅ mkhas pa’i dga’ ston (Mi rigs dpe skrun khaṅ, 1986), part I, p. 71 there is an interesting note—originally inter-linear?—on this:
’di la gnas brtan pa kho na sde pa’i rtsa bar ’dod pa daṅ thams cad yod smra rtsa bar ’dod pa sogs bśad lugs maṅ du yod kyaṅ gsaṅ sṅags su dgyes rdor daṅ sambhuṭar rtsa ’khor lo bźi la sde pa bźi’i miṅ du gsuṅs pa daṅ dus ’khor du źal bźi las sde pa bźi spros pa sogs yod pas rtsa ba’i sde bźi kho nar ’thad pa yin no.
Herein, because the Sthaviras want [their school] alone to be the root nikāya, the Sarvāstivāda want [their school alone] to be the root nikāya, there are many methods of explanation [of the emergence and relations of the schools]; in the Mantra [system] the Hevajra and Sampuṭa [tantras] apply the names of the four main nikāyas to the cakras, while the Kālacakra [system] applies them to the four faces, only the four main nikāyas are accepted.
24. Many of these sources are preserved in Tibetan translation, which uses gnas brtan for sthavira, and gnas brtan sde for *Sthāvira-nikāya or, perhaps,
*Sthāvariya, etc.
25. See Peter Skilling, “Theravādin Literature in Tibetan Translation,” Journal of the Pali Text Society 19 (1993): 154–155. Yijing refers to three divisions of the Sthāviras without naming them.
26. See Heinz Bechert, “The Nikāyas of Mediaeval Sri Lanka and the Unification of the Sangha by Parākramabāhu I,” in Studies on Buddhism in Honour of Professor A.K. Warder, ed. N. K. Wagle and F. Watanabe (Toronto: University of Toronto, Centre for South Asian Studies, 1993) (South Asian Papers, no. 5), 11–21.
27. Go-rams-pa Bsod-nams-seṅge, “Sdom gsum rab dbye’i rnam bśad rgyal ba’i gsuṅ rab kyi dgoṅs pa gsal ba,” in Sdom pa gsum gyi rnam gźag ston pa’i gźuṅ gces btus (New Delhi: Institute of Tibetan Classics, 2009) (Bod kyi gtsug lag gces btus vol. 12), 152.4.
28. ’Jam-dbyaṅs Bźad-pa’i-rdo-rje, Grub mtha’i rnam bśad kun bzaṅ źiṅ gi ñi ma (Kan su’u mi rigs dpe skrun khaṅ, 1992), 267, penult.
29. This means that it is the same as that of the Sāṃmitīyas, described as snam phran ñer gcig nas lṅa yan chad. According to Bu-ston (Bu ston chos ’byuṅ, 133.14), both number of panels and insignia are shared with the Sāṃmitīyas (snam phran daṅ brtags maṅ pos bkur ba daṅ mthun par grag go). The phrase snam phran has been misunderstood in previous translations (Obermiller uses “fringe” of the “mantle” in Bu-ston Rin-chen-grub, History of Buddhism [Chos-ḥbyung] by Bu-ston, trans. E. Obermiller [Heidelberg: In Kommission bei O. Harrassowitz, 1931–1932], II, 99–100; Vogel, “strips” of the “waist-cloth” in Claus Vogel,
“Bu-ston on the Schism of the Buddhist Church and on the Doctrinal Tendencies of Buddhist Scriptures,” in Zur Schulzugehörigkeit von Werken der Hīnayāna-Literatur, Erster Teil, ed. Heinz Bechert, Symposien zur Buddhismusforschung, III, 1 [Göttingen: Vandenhoeck & Ruprecht, 1985], 107–108). The Sanskrit terminology may be gleaned from the Vinaya-sūtra: khaṇḍasaṃghāṭyāṃ nava prabhṛtyā pañcaviṃśater yugmavarjam = snam sbyar gyi snam phran dag ni dgu yan chad ñi śu rtsa lṅa man chad de zuṅ ma gtogs so (reference from J. S. Negi, Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary, vol. 7 [Sarnath, Varanasi: Central Institute of Higher Tibetan Studies, 2001], 3243b). These are the dimensions given for the Sarvāstivādins by Bu-ston and ’Jam-dbyaṅs Bźad-pa. For Thai tradition see Somdet Phra Mahā Samaṇa Chao Krom Phrayā Vajirañāṇavarorasa, The Entrance to the Vinaya, Vinayamukha, vol. 2 (Bangkok: Mahāmakut Rājavidyālaya Press, BE 2516 = CE 1973), 13–18, esp. 15: “A cīvara must have not less than five khaṇḍa, but more than this can be used provided that the numbers of them are irregular—seven, nine, eleven. Many khaṇḍa may be used when a bhikkhu cannot find large pieces of cloth.”
30. Sakya Pandita Kunga Gyaltshen, A Clear Differentiation of the Three Codes:
Essential Distinctions among the Individual Liberation, Great Vehicle, and Tantric Systems, trans. Jared Douglas Rhoton, ed. Victoria R.M. Scott (Albany: State University of New York Press, 2002), vv. 173–175 (for the Tibetan text see p.
287). For a “quintessential summary” in prose, see Sa pan’s “Letter to the Buddhas and Bodhisattvas of the Ten Directions,” ibid., p. 244. For Gorampa’s commentary, see Go-rams-pa Bsod-nams-seṅge, “Sdom gsum rab dbye’i rnam bśad rgyal ba’i gsuṅ rab kyi dgoṅs pa gsal ba,” 150ff.
31. Sarva-darśana-saṃgraha of Sāyana-Mādhava, ed. Mahāmahopādhyāya Vasudev Shastri Abhyankar, 3rd ed. (Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Re-search Institute, 1978), chap. 2 line 41: te ca bauddhāś caturvidhayā bhāvanayā paramapuruṣārthaṃ kathayanti. te ca mādhyamika-yogācāra-sautrāntikavaibhāṣikasaṃjñābhiḥ prasiddhā bauddhā.
32. See Katsumi Mimaki, La réfutation bouddhique de la permanence des choses (sthirasiddhidūṣaṇa) et la preuve de la momentanéité des choses (kṣaṇabhaṅgasiddhi), Publications de l’Institut de Civilisation Indienne, Fascicule 41 (Paris: Institut
de Civilisation Indienne, 1976), 67–69 for a list of sources—Indian Buddhist, Indian non-Buddhist, Tibetan Buddhist, and Tibetan Bon po—for the four schools. These and other sources are cited in ’Jam-dbyaṅs Bźad-pa’i-rdo-rje, Grub mtha’i rnam bśad kun bzaṅ źiṅ gi ñi ma, 246–248.
33. For Kālacakra, see Vesna A. Wallace, The Kālacakratantra: The Chapter on the Individual Together with the Vimalaprabhā (New York, NY: American Institute of Buddhist Studies, 2004), 241–247; and citations in Khedrup Norsang Gyatso, Ornament of Stainless Light, An Exposition of the Kālacakra Tantra (Boston: Wisdom Publications, 2004), 570–573.
34. Mimaki, La réfutation bouddhique, 69.
35. Perhaps the earliest notice of the four philosophical schools to be pub-lished in a European language was that presented by the pioneering Hungarian scholar Alexander Csoma de Kőrös in his “Notices on the Different Systems of Buddhism Extracted from the Tibetan Authorities,” Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal 7, no. 1 (1838): 142; reprinted in Alexander Csoma de Kőrös, Tibetan Studies, Being a Reprint of the Articles Contributed to the Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal and Asiatic Researches, ed. E. Denison Ross (orig. pub. 1912;
repr., New Delhi: Gaurav Publishing House, 1991), 73–79. For doxographic literature see Katsumi Mimaki, Blo gsal grub mtha’: Chapitres IX (Vaibhāṣika) et XI (Yogācāra) édités et Chapitre XII (Mādhyamika) édité et traduit (Kyoto: Zinbun Kagaku Kenkyusyo, Université de Kyoto, 1982); Jeffrey Hopkins, “The Tibetan Genre of Doxography: Structuring a Worldview,” in Tibetan Literature: Studies in Genre, ed. José Ignacio Cabezón and Roger R. Jackson (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 1996), 170–186. For translations of works in this genre see Geshe Lhundup Sopa, Practice and Theory of Tibetan Buddhism, trans. Jeffrey Hopkins (London:
Rider and Company, 1976) (Part Two gives a translation of Dkon-mchog-’jigs-med-dbang-po’s [1728–1791] Precious Garland of Tenets).
36. ’Jam dbyaṅs bźad pa’i rdo rje, Grub mtha’i rnam bśad kun bzaṅ źiṅ gi ñi ma, root-text, 8.8, commentary, 246–248; translation from Daniel Cozort and Craig Preston, Buddhist Philosophy: Losang Gönchok’s Short Commentary to Jamyang Shayba’s Root Text on Tenets (Ithaca, NY: Snow Lion, 2003), 143 v. 1.
37. I doubt whether Sautrāntika in particular ever represented a historical body or even lineage. It represented, perhaps, a hermeneutic stance. Can we compare the term to, for example, “Marxist”? Some historians identify their approach as Marxist; others criticize or condemn Marxist historiography:
that is, the term can be positive, negative, or neutral. Marxist historiogra-phy has evolved and changed considerably with time. Historians who consider themselves Marxist may disagree on fundamental points, they do not belong to any formal school, and they may be professionally associated with a variety of unrelated institutes. For Sautrāntika see the collection of essays devoted to the school in the special issue of the Journal of the International Association of
Buddhist Studies 26, no. 2 (2003), and Collett Cox, Disputed Dharmas: Early Buddhist Theories on Existence: An Annotated Translation of the Section on Factors Dissociated from Thought from Saṅghabhadra’s Nyāyānusāra, Studia Philogica Buddhica Monograph Series XI (Tokyo: The International Institute for Buddhist Studies, 1995), 37ff.
38. Peter Skilling, “The Saṃskṛtāsamskṛta-viniścaya of Daśabalaśrīmitra,” Bud-dhist Studies Review 4, no. 1 (1987): 3–23; Peter Skilling, “Theravādin Literature in Tibetan Translation,” Journal of the Pali Text Society 19 (1993): 69–201.
39. See the examples connected with the indriyas in Peter Skilling, “Discourse on the Twenty-Two Faculties Translated from Śamathadeva’s Upāyikā-ṭīkā,”
in Dharmapravicaya: Aspects of Buddhist Studies, ed. Lalji ‘Shravak’, Prof. N. H.
Samtani Felicitation Volume (New Delhi: Buddhist World Press, forthcoming).
40. See for example Y. Karunadasa, The Dhamma Theory: Cornerstone of the Abhi-dhamma Philosophy, Wheel Publication 412/413 (Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1996).
41. This is, however, something that warrants further investigation. My de-scription of pramāṇa as a concern of North Indian Buddhists may be an over-statement, given the epistemological material in the Tamil Maṇimekhalai and the importance of epistemology in Indian thought in general, including the noteworthy Jaina contributions.
42. Fortunately recent research reconstructs at least some of the scope of Buddhism in the south: see for example Anne E. Monius, Imagining a Place for Buddhism: Literary Culture and Religious Community in Tamil-Speaking South India (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001).
43. Our sources for the Vibhajyavāda are inconclusive and contradictory. For recent studies see L. S. Cousins, “On the Vibhajjavādins: The Mahiṃsāsaka, Dhammaguttaka, Kassapiya and Tambapaṇṇiya Branches of the Ancient Theriyas,” Buddhist Studies Review 18, no. 2 (2001): 131–182; and Y. Karunadasa, The Theravāda Abhidhamma: Its Inquiry into the Nature of Conditioned Reality (Hong Kong: Centre of Buddhist Studies, The University of Hong Kong, 2010), Appendix: “Theravāda and Vibhajjavāda,” 282–293. Oliver Abeynayake, “The Theravāda Tradition: Its Identity,” Journal of Buddhist Studies, Centre for Buddhist Studies Sri Lanka 7 (2009): 90–100, generally follows Karunaratne. The phrase vibhajjavādimaṇḍalaṃ otaritvā, rendered by Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli as “one who keeps within the circle of the Vibhajjavādins,” as the first of a series of qual-ifications of the attitude of who explains dependent origination is intrigu-ing if inconclusive. See Visuddhimagga of Buddhaghosâcariya, ed. Henry Clarke Warren, revised by Dharmananda Kosambi, Harvard Oriental Series, Volume 41 (orig. pub., Cambridge: Harvard University Press, 1950; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass Publishers Private Limited, 1989), § XVII, 25; Bhikkhu Ñāṇamoli, trans., The Path of Purification (Visuddhimagga) by Bhadantācariya Buddhaghosa
(Kandy: Buddhist Publication Society, 1975), § XVII, 25.
44. Vinaya (Pali Text Society edition) II 72.27.
45. I follow the Syāmraṭṭha edition (vol. 6, 298) in reading -vadānaṃ. The Pali Text Society and Chaṭṭhasaṅgīti editions read -padānaṃ: Chaṭṭhasaṅgīti, Cullavaggapāḷi, 187.10 with footnote that Sīhala editions read vibhajjavādīnaṃ.
46. This is a rare example of an explicit statement of school affiliation in a colophon. As far as I know it is the only case in the Pali scriptures. The only North Indian texts that identify their school affiliation are those of the Mahāsāṃghika-Lokottaravādins.
47. For a brief report see Indian Archaeology 1997–98: A Review (New Delhi:
Archaeological Survey of India, 2003), 206–207. The inscriptions were pub-lished in B. S. L. Hanumantha Rao et al., Buddhist Inscriptions of Andhradesa (Secunderabad: Ananda Buddha Vihara Trust, 1998), copper plates of Siri Ehāvala Chāntamūla, 191–193 and Pl. VI (c); also, and better, Journal of the Epigraphical Society of India 25 (1999): 114–121, copper plates of Mādhavavarma, 207 foll. Another inscription also mentions mahavihāra, but this seems to be a local monastery.
48. For examples see Cousins, “On the Vibhajjavādins.”
49. R. A. L. H. Gunawardana, “The World of Theravāda Buddhism in History:
Relevance of a Territorial Category as a Conceptual Tool in the Study of History,” in Asanga Tilakaratne et al., eds., Dhamma-Vinaya: Essays in Honour of Venerable Professor Dhammavihari (Jotiya Dhirasekera) (Colombo: Sri Lanka Association for Buddhist Studies, 2005), 55–89.
50. See the entries by H. Durt and A. Forte, s.v. “Daiji” (mahāvihāra), in Hôbôgirin:
Dictionnaire encyclopédique du bouddhisme d’après les sources chinoises et japo-naises, Sixième fascicule: Da–Daijizaiten (Paris: Librairie d’Amérique et d’Orient Adrien-Maisonneuve and Tokyo: Maison Franco-Japonaise, 1983), 679–711.
51. Stephen C. Berkwitz, South Asian Buddhism: A Survey (London and New York:
Routledge, 2010), 147–148. One of the curiosities of Buddhist studies is that Ceylon is often located in Southeast Asia—presumably because of its putative Theravādin status (for which we turn to Dīpavaṃsa, Mahāvaṃsa, and the Pali texts, rather than to the distinctive archeological record, which has its own trajectory, not adequately integrated into current “Sri Lankan history”). This logical anomaly is rather like situating the Philippines in Southern Europe because it is predominantly Roman Catholic. See, for example, the “Timeline of Buddhist History” for Southeast Asia in Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr., 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), 2:935–936, which in its general unreliability undoes the good done by the better entries in the Encyclopedia. One is grateful to Berkwitz for relocating Sri Lanka in South Asia, and for putting the category of “South Asian Buddhism” back on the table.
52. For the lateness of Theravāda in relation to Mahāyāna see, for example, Peter Skilling, “Mahāyāna and Bodhisattva: An Essay towards Historical Understanding,” in Phothisatawa barami kap sangkhom thai nai sahatsawat mai [Bodhisattvaparami and Thai Society in the New Millennium], ed. Pakorn Limpanusorn and Chalermpon Iampakdee, Chinese Studies Centre, Institute of East Asia, Thammasat University (proceedings of a seminar in celebra-tion of the fourth birth-cycle of Her Royal Highness Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn held at Thammasat University, 21 January 2546 [2003]) (Bangkok:
Thammasat University Press, BE 2547 = CE 2004), 139–156.
53. Note the recent establishment of Association of Theravāda Buddhist Universities (ATBU).
54. I doubt that in any nikāya the monks and nuns as a whole subscribed to the
“particular school of thought” of their nikāya: the relations between ordina-tion, belief, and thought is another point that needs serious consideration.
55. R. A. L. H. Gunawardana, Robe and Plough: Monasticism and Economic Interest in Early Medieval Sri Lanka, Association for Asian Studies: Monographs and Papers, No. 35 (Tucson: University of Arizona Press, 1979), 85–86.
56. Wilhelm Geiger, ed., Cūlavaṃsa, Being the Most Recent Part of the Mahāvaṃsa (orig. pub. 1925, 1927; repr., London: The Pali Text Society/Routledge and Kegan Paul, 1980), 42:17: theriyānaṃ tapassinaṃ. Cf. also 41:99. I prefer to follow the manuscripts in calling the whole work Mahāvaṃsa rather than to follow the European convention of calling the later parts Cūlavaṃsa.
57. Ibid.,52:46.
58. Ibid., 54:46.
59. Ibid., 54:47: upassayaṃ karitvāna mahāmallakanāmakaṃ, theravaṃsamhi jātānaṃ bhikkhunīnaṃ adāpayī.
60. Peter Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990), 143. Every sentence in the paragraph contains errors, most of them major.
61. D. G. E. Hall, A History of South-East Asia, 4th ed. (orig. pub. 1955; repr., London: Macmillan, 1985), 158–161.
62. Harvey, An Introduction to Buddhism, 144.
63. See Peter Skilling, “The Advent of Theravāda Buddhism to Mainland South-east Asia,” Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 20–21 (1997):
93–107; Peter Skilling, “The Place of South-East Asia in Buddhist Studies,”
Buddhist Studies (Bukkyō Kenkyū) 30 (2001): 19–43; Peter Skilling, Buddhism and Buddhist Literature of South-East Asia: Selected Papers by Peter Skilling, ed. Claudio Cicuzza (Bangkok and Lumbini: Fragile Palm Leaves, 2009 [Materials for the Study of the Tripiṭaka Volume 5]); and esp. Prapod Assavavirulhakarn, The
Ascendancy of Theravāda Buddhism in Southeast Asia (Chiang Mai: Silkworm Books, 2010).
64. For Sūrya see Peter Skilling, “A Recently Discovered Sūrya Image from Thailand,” in Prajñādhara: Essays on Asian Art, History, Epigraphy and Culture in Honour of Gouriswar Bhattacharya, ed. Gerd J. R. Mevissen and Arundhati Banerji (New Delhi: Kaveri Books, 2009), 455–465 and pls. 46.1–10. For the hybrid nature of “Thai religion” see Peter Skilling, “Worship and Devotional Life: Buddhist Devotional Life in Southeast Asia,” in Encyclopedia of Religion, ed.
Lindsay Jones, 15 vols., 2nd ed. (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA/Thomson Gale), 14:9826–9834; Peter Skilling, “King, Saṅgha, and Brahmans: Ideology, Ritual and Power in Pre-modern Siam,” in Buddhism, Power and Political Order, ed. Ian Harris (London and New York: Routledge, 2007), 182–215.
65. Skilling, “King, Saṅgha, and Brahmans.”
66. Andrew Skilton, A Concise History of Buddhism (Birmingham: Windhorse Publications, 1994), 156.
67. For the intricacies of Siamese Buddhism, see Peter Skilling, “Geographies of Intertextuality: Buddhist Literature in Pre-modern Siam,” Aséanie - Sciences humaines en Asie du Sud-est 19 (June 2007): 91–112. For Thai Buddhism in the Ratanakosin or Bangkok period see Peter Skilling, “For Merit and Nirvāṇa:
The Production of Art in the Bangkok Period,” Arts Asiatiques 62 (2007): 76–94;
Peter Skilling, “Similar Yet Different: Buddhism in Siam and Burma in the Nineteenth Century,” in Emerald Cities: Arts of Siam and Burma, 1775–1950, ed.
Forrest McGill (San Francisco: Asian Art Museum, Chong-Moon Lee Center for Asian Art and Culture, 2009), 46–73.
68. The problem for any synthetic writing on Southeast Asian Buddhism—that is, on over two thousand years of prehistory and history in a dozen cultures over a vast and diverse ecological and cultural landscape—is the dearth of reliable materials in European languages and the persistence of outdated in-formation and frameworks. The thumbnail sketch is difficult if not impossible to achieve, and most fail, scuppered on the reefs of overgeneralization and inaccuracy. Recent sources that give more reliable and perceptive accounts include (for the early period) Prapod Assavavirulhakarn, The Ascendancy of Theravāda Buddhism in Southeast Asia; Kate Crosby, “Theravāda,” in Encyclopedia of Buddhism, ed. Robert E. Buswell, Jr., 2 vols. (New York: Macmillan Reference USA, 2004), 2:836–841; Robert L. Brown, “Southeast Asia, Buddhist Art in,” in ibid., 2:782–788; Bonnie Brereton, “Theravāda Art and Architecture,” in ibid., 2:841–844; and (the very brief) Rupert Gethin, The Foundations of Buddhism (Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, 1998), 256–257. For the dy-namics of regional developments on the broader global canvas, see Victor Lieberman, Strange Parallels: Southeast Asia in Global Context, c. 800–1830, Volume 1: Integration on the Mainland (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2003).
69. For “Buddhism” see John Ross Carter, On Understanding Buddhists: Essays on the Theravāda Tradition in Sri Lanka (Albany: State University of New York Press, 1993), especially chaps. 1 and 2.
70. See C. A. F. Rhys Davids, “Sāsana,” in Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, ed.
James Hastings, 12 vols. (New York: Charles Scribner’s Sons, 1922), 11:200–201.
The early use in Western scholarship of the word “dispensation” for śāsana is intriguing, and smacks of biblical influences.
71. After Piriya Krairiksh, “Towards a Revised History of Sukhothai Art:
A Reassessment of the Inscription of King Ram Khamhaeng,” in The Ram Khamhaeng Controversy: Collected Papers, ed. James R. Chamberlain (Bangkok:
The Siam Society, 1991), 78.
72. Chareuk lanna phak 1 lem 1: Chareuk changwat Chiang Rai Nan Phayao Phrae/
Lanna Inscriptions Part I, Volume I: Inscriptions from Chiang Rai, Nan, Phayao and Phrae: Texts (Bangkok: Amarin Printing Group Ltd. [published by James H. W.
Thompson Foundation on the auspicious occasion of the third birth-cycle of HRH Princess Maha Chakri Sirindhorn], BE 2534 = CE 1991), Inscription Chiang Rai 4. For plate see ibid., Part I, Volume II, plate 7.
73. A. P. Buddhadatta, Jinakālamālī (London: Pali Text Society, 1962), 95.2, 119.15.
74. Yuan Phai v. 76, in Photchananukrom sap wannakhadi thai samai ayutthaya:
khlong yuan phai (Bangkok: Rājabanditayasathan [The Royal Academy], BE 2544
= CE 2001), 100; A. B. Griswold and Prasert ṇa Nagara, “A Fifteenth-Century Siamese Historical Poem,” in Southeast Asian History and Historiography: Essays Presented to D. G. E. Hall, ed. C. D. Cowan and O. W. Wolters (Ithaca and London:
Cornell University Press, 1976), 144. Griswold and Prasert translate the phrase choen chuay song phu phaew kaletklai as “to invite a saintly monk,” but given that Thai nouns have no plural form, and that an ordination requires a chap-ter of five to ten monks, I prefer to inchap-terpret song (= Pali saṅgha) as plural here. It seems more logical that, in order to lend authority to the ordination, a number of revered Lankan monks would have been invited to conduct the ceremony together with local monks.
75. Other monastic categories from Ceylon, such as paṃsukūlika, do not seem to have been introduced to Siam, although there was a brief paṃsūkulika lin-eage in Tibet.
76. G. Cœdès, in Recueil des Inscriptions du Siam, Première partie, Inscriptions de Sukhodaya (Bangkok: Bangkok Times Press, 1924), takes the liberty of adding the word “sect” where the Thai has simply upasampada nai gāmavāsī, upa-sampada nai arañavāsī: Inscr. 9, Wat Pa Daeng, p. 136: “[il] eut reçu l’ordination dans la secte des Gāmavāsis en sakkarāja 705 . . . il reçut l’ordination dans la secte des Araññavāsis en sakkarāja 710. . . .”