The Eighteen Schools
It is commonly said that there were eighteen schools of Buddhism in this period. What this actually means is more subtle. First, although the word "school" is used, there was not yet an institutional split in the saṅgha. The Chinese traveler Xuanzang observed even when the Mahāyāna were beginning to emerge out of this era that monks of different schools would live side by side in dormitories and attend the same lectures. Only the books that they read were different. Secondly, no historical source can agree what the names of these "eighteen schools" were. The origin of this saying is therefore unclear.
What follows are the lists given by each of the different sources.
Read more about this topic: Early Buddhist Schools
Famous quotes containing the words eighteen and/or schools:
“I am fifty-two years of age. I am a bishop in the Anglican Church, and a few people might be constrained to say that I was reasonably responsible. In the land of my birth I cannot vote, whereas a young person of eighteen can vote. And why? Because he or she possesses that wonderful biological attribute—a white skin.”
—Desmond Tutu (b. 1931)
“I lay my eternal curse on whomsoever shall now or at any time hereafter make schoolbooks of my works and make me hated as Shakespeare is hated. My plays were not designed as instruments of torture. All the schools that lust after them get this answer, and will never get any other.”
—George Bernard Shaw (1856–1950)