Caitika

[3] However, the ancient Buddhist sites in the lower Kṛṣṇa Valley, including Amarāvati Stupa, Nāgārjunakoṇḍā and Jaggayyapeṭa "can be traced to at least the third century BCE, if not earlier.

[11] A. K. Warder holds that the Mahāyāna "almost certainly" first developed from the southern Mahāsāṃghika schools of the Āndhra region, among monastic communities associated with the Caitikas and their sub-sects.

"[13] Some early Mahāyāna sūtras reference wealthy female donors and provide evidence that they were developed in the Āndhra region, where the Caitika were predominant.

The Mahāyāna Mahāmegha Sūtra, for example, gives a prophecy about a royal princess of the Śatavāhana dynasty who will live in Āndhra, along the Kṛṣṇa River, in Dhānyakaṭaka, seven hundred years after the parinirvāṇa of the Buddha.

[14] Several scholars such as Étienne Lamotte, and Alex and Hideko Wayman, associate the Āndra Ikṣvāku dynasty with patronage of Mahāyāna sūtras.

[15] Guang Xing states, "Several scholars have suggested that the Prajñāpāramitā probably developed among the Mahāsāṃghikas in southern India, in the Āndhra country, on the Kṛṣṇa River.

[15] 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 Āndra Ikṣvāku dynasty in the 3rd century CE as a product of the Mahāsāṃghikas of the Āndhra region (i.e. the Caitika schools).

[21] 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 Ten Stages Sutra.

[23] According to the Theravādin text Nikāyasaṅgraha, the large Mahāyāna collection called the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra (Taishō Tripiṭaka, 310) was composed by the "Andhakas", meaning the Caitika schools of the Āndhra region.

[28] The Caitika schools rejected the post-Asokan texts that were in use by the Anuradhapura Maha Viharaya tradition such as the Parivara, the six books of Abhidharma, the Patisambhidamagga, the Niddesa, some Jataka tales, some verses, and so on.