The Sautrāntika or Sutravadin (Sanskrit: सौत्रान्तिक, Suttavāda in Pali; Chinese: 經量部\ 說經部; pinyin: jīng liàng bù\ shuō jīng bù; Vietnamese: Kinh lượng bộ, Thuyết chuyển bộ; Japanese: 経量部, romanized: Kyōryōbu) were an early Buddhist school generally believed to be descended from the Sthavira nikāya by way of their immediate parent school, the Sarvāstivādins.
[2] The name Sautrāntika indicates that unlike other North Indian Sthaviras, this school held the Buddhist sutras as central to their views, over and above the ideas presented in the Abhidharma literature.
[5] It is also possible that the name 'Dārṣṭāntika' identifies a predecessor tradition, or another related, but distinct, doctrinal position; the exact relationship between the two terms is unclear.
[6] The founding of the Sautrāntika school is attributed to the elder Kumāralāta (c. 3rd century CE),[8] author of a "collection of dṛṣtānta" (Dṛṣtāntapaṅkti) called the Kalpanāmaṇḍitīkā.
[9] According to Chinese sources, Harivarman (250-350 CE) was a student of Kumāralāta who became disillusioned with Buddhist Abhidharma and then wrote the Tattvasiddhi-śāstra in order to "eliminate confusion and abandon the later developments, with the hope of returning to the origin".
[5] As explained by Jan Westerhoff, this doctrine of momentariness holds that each present moment "does not possess any temporal thickness; immediately after coming into existence each moment passes out of existence" and that therefore "all dharmas, whether mental or material, only last for an instant (ksana) and cease immediately after arising".