Dharmaguptaka
The Dharmaguptaka (Sanskrit: धर्मगुप्तक; Chinese: 法藏部; pinyin: Fǎzàng bù; Vietnamese: Pháp Tạng bộ) are one of the eighteen or twenty early Buddhist schools, depending on the source.
[9] These twelve divisions are: sūtra, geya, vyākaraṇa, gāthā, udāna, nidāna, jātaka, itivṛttaka, vaipulya, adbhūtadharma, avadāna, and upadeśa.
kāṣāya) utilized in five major Indian Buddhist sects, called Da Biqiu Sanqian Weiyi (Chinese: 大比丘三千威儀).
[14] A consensus has grown in scholarship which sees the first wave of Buddhist missionary work as associated with the Gāndhārī language and the Kharoṣṭhī script and tentatively with the Dharmaguptaka sect.
Now all other manuscripts from Khotan, and especially all manuscripts written in Khotanese, belong to the Mahāyāna, are written in the Brāhmī script, and were translated from Sanskrit.A number of scholars have identified three distinct major phases of missionary activities seen in the history of Buddhism in Central Asia, which are associated with the following sects, chronologically:[18] In the 7th century CE, Xuanzang and Yijing both recorded that the Dharmaguptakas were located in Oḍḍiyāna and Central Asia, but not in the Indian subcontinent.
[19] The Dharmaguptakas made more efforts than any other sect to spread Buddhism outside India, to areas such as Iran, Central Asia, and China, and they had great success in doing so.
They appear to have carried out a vast circling movement along the trade routes from Aparānta north-west into Iran and at the same time into Oḍḍiyāna (the Suvastu valley, north of Gandhāra, which became one of their main centres).
In the early 8th century, Dao An gained the support of Emperor Zhongzong of Tang and an imperial edict was issued that the sangha in China should use only the Dharmaguptaka vinaya for ordination.
[24] The Gandhāran Buddhist texts (the oldest extant Buddhist manuscripts) are attributed to the Dharmaguptaka sect by Richard Salomon, the leading scholar in the field, and the British Library scrolls "represent a random but reasonably representative fraction of what was probably a much larger set of texts preserved in the library of a monastery of the Dharmaguptaka sect in Nagarāhāra Afghanistan.
"[25][26] Among the Dharmaguptaka Gandhāran Buddhist texts in the Schøyen Collection, is a fragment in the Kharoṣṭhī script referencing the Six Pāramitās, a central practice for bodhisattvas in Mahāyāna doctrine.
The Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, or monastic rules, are still followed today in China, Vietnam and Korea, and its lineage for the ordination of monks and nuns has survived uninterrupted to this day.
A complete version of the Dīrgha Āgama of the Dharmaguptaka sect was translated by Buddhayaśas and Zhu Fonian (竺佛念) in the Later Qin dynasty, dated to 413 CE.
The Ekottara Āgama ("Incremental Discourses," 增壹阿含經 Zēngyī Āhán Jīng) (T. 125) corresponds to the Anguttara Nikāya of the Theravāda school.
It is unknown when some members of the Dharmaguptaka school began to accept the Mahāyāna sūtras, but the Mañjuśrīmūlakalpa records that Kaniṣka (127–151 CE) of the Kuṣāṇa Empire presided over the establishment of Prajñāpāramitā doctrines in the northwest of India.
[34] Tāranātha wrote that in this region, 500 bodhisattvas attended the council at Jālandhra monastery during the time of Kaniṣka, suggesting some institutional strength for Mahāyāna in the northwest during this period.
[34] Edward Conze goes further to say that Prajñāpāramitā had great success in the northwest during the Kuṣāṇa period, and may have been the "fortress and hearth" of early Mahāyāna, but not its origin, which he associates with the Mahāsāṃghika branch.
It describes a monastic community in which scriptures concerning the bodhisattva path were accepted as legitimate canonical texts (and their memorization a viable monastic specialty), but in which only a certain subset of monks were involved in the practices associated with the Bodhisattva Vehicle.The Mahāyāna Ratnarāśivyākaraṇa Sūtra, which is part of the Mahāratnakūṭa Sūtra, is believed by some scholars to have a Dharmaguptaka origin or background, due to its specific regulations regarding giving to the Buddha and giving to the Saṃgha.
He translated the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, the Dīrgha Āgama, and Mahāyāna texts including the Ākāśagarbha Bodhisattva Sūtra (虛空藏菩薩經 Xūkōngzàng Púsà Jīng).
[33] The Dharmaguptakas were said to have had two extra sections in their canon:[8] In the 4th century Mahāyāna abhidharma work Abhidharmasamuccaya, Asaṅga refers to the collection which contains the Āgamas as the Śrāvakapiṭaka, and associates it with the śrāvakas and pratyekabuddhas.
