Ah, ok, thanks for accuracy, but you know what I mean. Haha.
I don’t think I claimed that. Anyway, I am not an expert in agamas, I haven’t even finished one round of (all pali) sutta reading yet.
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Bhante Analayo quotes Horner, Stache-Rosen, Manné, Pande and Nanda in his paper which you linked.
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Arahant is a type of Buddha too. It is called “Savakabuddha”.
The Teacher is “Sammasambuddha”
The other one is “Paccekabuddha”.
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As far as I know, this is a commentarial term. It’s not something we find in the EBTs. And using the term really just muddles the general discussion in my opinion.
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A lot of them don’t use any vinaya at all. It would be confusing, for instance, to refer to a Zen Priest as dharmaguptaka, when they take no dharmaguptaka mendicant precepts, only at most 10 lay EBT precepts.
It only really makes sense to talk about the dharmaguptaka / mulasarvastivada when either (1) you really want to exclusively talk about bhikkhu(ni)s or (2) discussing history
There were, but there’s no continuous living tradition. For example, the Risshū school was likely exclusively Tipitaka-focused at its origin in 8th century Japan, but by the time the Meiji government merged it with Shingon, even the holdout Tōshōdai-ji temple (which refused the merge) was dedicated to the worship of a Cosmic Buddha.
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This is not quite correct. The Vinaya is practiced within many of monks and nuns in Asia, within Mahayana tradition.
There are special case in Tibet and Japan.
In Japan, it was because the difficulty of having full number of monks to ordain new monks. The lineage died out. There was no ordination based on vinaya after certain period in history.
They then replaced it with a set of Bodhisattva vows. This effectively made japanese order a group of laypeople with robes and shaved head.
In modern times this difference has been known, and they sometimes used the term priest rather than monk, and the talk of restoring full vinaya.
In Tibet, the vinaya is learned through summary in a brief text or commentary. And it is the last thing a monk learn after Madhyamaka, Abhisamayalankara, Logic, and Abhidharma, those four topics can last 10-20 years. Many monks can only learn first 3 topics, and not having opportunity to learn Abhidharma and Vinaya.
It was quite bizzare that Vinaya is studied last. It was said that to use full advantage of youth intelligence and energy, the difficult texts should be learned first. But this create situation that younger monks only know basic rules, and not the detail of the Vinaya.
In East Asia, China, Korea, Taiwan, and chinese buddhism in general in Asian countries, they generally know and practice Vinaya.
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Yes, I don’t mean to imply that nobody in Mahayana follows the vinaya (even in Japan, there are some surviving vinaya ordination traditions), just that additionally a lot of people are Mahayana and not associated with any vinaya tradition.
Also, in many cases not following vinaya was not because of the practical barriers to learning vinaya you describe. It is often an affirmative choice. For example, Ngagpa’s seem to be present as a distinct and dignified class in Tibetan Buddhism going far back into the mists of history. It would be strange to take a book on “Tibetan” Buddhism, or “Vajrayana” Buddhism, and replace it with “mulasarvastivada” Buddhism because Ngagpa’s aren’t mulasarvastivada, but always have been very important to Tibetan Vajrayana Buddhism.
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Has only Theravada a commentarial tradition ? Does commentarial tradition exist in Mahayana schools too ?
Actually in some suttas Buddha explains something in brief and monk ask the meaning to another monk like Ananda or sariputra and the explanation that these monks give often don’t match with what the Buddha said not only it’s longer sometimes it contains words that Buddha don’t said in his earlier brief statement, if even there’s no text containing Buddha’s approval of that lengthy statement I believe we should trust this kind of commentary too
And We don’t know whether the sutta we currently have is complete or not so maybe the commentary refers to an untraced sutta for the term “savaka Buddha”
It seems unreasonable to me that for 40 years Buddha only speaks four nikayas + udana + itthuvaka + suttanipata, in 40 years of teaching the buddha should speak something that atleast 100 times larger than the current volume of suttas
And even if we assume that Buddha practices silent nearly all the time it’s possible that the earlier commentators know the term not from Buddha but from an arahant
Now for reference this is what the commentary said about savakabuddha
Citakapūjakattheraapadānādivaṇṇanā
Tatiyāpadāne putto mama pabbajitoti
mayharṁ putto saddhāya pabbajito.
Kāsāyavasano tadāti
tasmim pabbajitakāle
kāsāyanivattho, na
bāhirakapabbajāya
pabbajitoti attho.
Soca buddhattaṁ
sampattoti so mayham
putto catūsu buddhesu
sāvakabuddhabhāvaṁ
saṁ sutthu patto,
arahattarṁ pattoti attho. Nibbuto lokapūjitoti
sakalalokehi katasakkāro
khandhaparinibbānena
parinibbutoti attho.
Vicinanto sakarṁ puttanti ahaṁ tassa gatadesam
pucchitvã sakarṁ puttarm
vicinanto pacchato
agamaṁ, anugato asmīti attho.
Nibbutassa mahantassāti
mahantehi
sīlakkhandhādīhi yuttattā
mahantassa tassa mama
puttassa arahato
ādahanatthāne citakarm
citakatthānaṁ ahaṁ
agamāsinti attho.
Paggayha añjaliṁ tatthāti
tasmim ādahanatthāne
Khuddakanikāye Nettivibhāvin
Ganthārambhakatha
Tassa naravarassā’’ti visesanavisesitabbabhāvena yojanā.
Naravaro nāma nimantitabbādiko na hoti, atha kho pūjetabbo namassitabbo evāti viseseti.
Tassa pūjetabbassa ceva namassitabbassa ca naravarassa sāsanavaranti jaññajanakabhāvena yojanā.
Sāsanavaraṁ nāma paccekabuddhasāvakabuddharājarājādīnaṁ sāsanavaraṁ na hoti, pūjetabbassa ceva namassitabbassa ca naravarassa tilokasseva sāsanavaranti niyameti.
.
Of course we can come up with all kinds of speculations and theories. But the fact remains that in the “18,000 discourses” we have that the term does not appear. Neither does the Buddha refer to Arahants as Buddha’s as far as I know—but I would love if someone could show where he does.
And I have to come back to the question, why do we need a term designating arahants as “Buddhas” of any sort? In the EBTs, the Buddha and Pacceka Buddhas, are very distinct from arahants. Why the need to say that arahants are actually just another kind of Buddha? Unless the point is to slip into an argument that we should all try and become Buddhas.
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Actually this is late commentary not earlier commentary and the term only exists in 1 commentary
So even I who always defends the commentary which were orally memorized by second generation,third generation and fourth generation arahants doubt that this term is what they really said
So I agree completely with you here, this term doesn’t exist in real sense, no arahant talks about it, I agree with you that no arahant is Buddha
What I get from this discussion is Mahayana is really a late teaching, because only later commentary speaks about arahant being a Buddha
Maybe some mahayanist knowing Buddha in Theravada only advice monk to attain arahantship convert to Theravada and start writing pali commentary saying arahant is Buddha to prove that Mahayana is right and the Mahayana movement exists in Theravada too
Well, I don’t see any reason why we should reject the term. The attainment of Lord Buddha, Paccekabuddha and Arahants, are all the same, Nibbana. By that reason, all are Buddhas (awakened ones), awakened from all defilements and delusion. There is no distinction between their Enlightenments.
Yet, the difference is there due to their aspirations, abilities and faculties.
And what Mahayana has to do with this? 🤦
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This is absolutely correct. However there is in fact a huge distinction between the three types of individuals. The actual solution to this situation is to say that they are all arahants. Why invent a third type of Buddha?
And my earlier comment was not meant to disparage the commentaries. Just to state that the term was only used in the commentaries. And I believe that @Alaray is correct that it is only used once. Of course we can’t know that the Buddha never used the term.
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I don’t even know how they differ from each other. To me to become an arahat feels like becoming a billionaire. But I don’t need a billion dollars to survive in this world. One million dollars is enough thank you very much. Mainstream Buddhism encouraging me to attain perfection pretty much feels like when I listen to contemporary songs like Bruno Mars. I don’t want to be a billionaire or an arahat. Why can’t I just enjoy the ride and journey? 