The Dharmaguptaka

School

Presented by
Nattapon Preedasak & Natsit Pinyasin

Bezeklik Caves, 9th–10th century

Background

In the Sri Lankan chronicles:

● One of the missions to Aparantaka (Gujarat) was led by Yonaka Dhammarakkhita.

● Yonaka is related to ‘Ionia’, used for any Westerner, especially the Greeks.
● The words rakkhita and gupta have same meaning: ‘guarded’

Frauwallner (1995) and Przyluski (1926-28) note that the names Dhammarakkhita and
Dharmagupta could easily be interchanged. There is a connection between Dhammarakkhita and
the Dharmaguptaka school.

● Dharmaguptakas were a branch of the Vibhajjavāda that developed in the wake of Yonaka
Dhammarakkhita’s mission in the West. (Sujato, 2007)
● Sudassanavinayavibhāsā doesn’t use “Yonaka” to describe Dhammarakkhita. We can imply
that the Sudassanavinayavibhāsā has a close connection with the Dharmaguptaka school.
Background

Many Dharmaguptaka features in the Sudassanavinayavibhāsā that were discovered by

Hirakawa:

● 24 sekhiya rules dealing with the stupa, an outstanding feature of the Dharmaguptaka
Vinaya (Bapat, ?)

Some scholars (Lamotte, 1958) consider Dharmagupta to be a legendary person.

The Main Teacher

The Mahāvihāravāsin tradition, together with the archaeological find ings, support a connection
between Dhammagutta and Moggaliputtatissa, the leading Elder of the missions.

● Some say that the Dharmaguptakas were named after their founding teacher (Rockhill,
1992).
● Vasumitra said Moggallāna was the main teacher.
● The Śāriputraparipṛcchā connects the formation of the Dharmaguptakas with a Moggallāna

The Buddha’s disciple Mahāmoggallāna or the Moggaliputtatissa of the Third Council???

● Yin Shun and some scholar refer to Mahāmoggallāna since Moggaliputtatissa was unknown
in the northern sources.
● Others refer to Moggaliputtatissa the Sri Lankan sources show a straightforward relation
between Moggaliputtatissa and Dhammarakkhita.
Texts & Doctrines

● The Mahāvihāravāsin commentary classes the ‘Dhammaguttikas’ a branch of the

Mahīśāsakas, and hence they are reckoned among the 17 ‘schismatic’ or ‘heretical’ schools.
● Vasumitra records the main Dharmaguptaka doctrines (Dutt, 1998):
○ The Buddha, while living, is included in the Sangha.
○ Gifts ofered to the Buddha are more meritorious than those ofered to the Sangha.
○ Gifts made to a stupa are meritorious.
○ The liberation of the Buddhas and the two vehicles(sāvaka and pacceka-buddha) is the same,
though the path difers.
○ Non-Buddhists cannot gain the fve special knowledges (abhiññā).
○ The body of an arahant is without āsavas.
● Perhaps it was intended rather as a correction to the frst of the Mahāsaṅghika’s ‘5 points’
(Sujato, 2007).
Texts & Doctrines

● Vasubandhu says that the Dharmaguptakas agree with the Mahāvihāravāsins and is against
the Sarvāstivādins that realization of the truths happens all at once (ekābhisamaya).
● Regarding the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, it follows very closely the Pali text in most cases,
not only in numbering the series but also in contents except the ‘sekhiya’ section, in which
it adds 26 prohibitory rulesregarding the Stupa (Pachow, 2000)
● Mahāvihāravāsin and Dharmaguptaka versions of Sāmaññaphala Sutta were the closest
and stood nearest the ancient tradition (McQueen, 1988).
● Even the Dīgha Nikāya (Mahāvihāravāsin) and Dīrgha Āgama (Dharmaguptaka) are close
(McQueen, 1988).
● The Śāriputrābhidharma (Dharmaguptaka Abhidharma) shows its deep connections with
MahāvihāravāsinAbhidhamma booksincluding the Dhammasaṅgaṇī, Vibhaṅga,
Dhātukathā, and Paṭṭhāna (Frauwallner, 1995).
Texts & Doctrines

● The Gandhārī texts of the Dharmaguptakas represent a diferent textual tradition to that
preserved in Pali or the Chinese Āgama literature, but they agree closely with the existing
Chinese Dharmaguptaka texts
○ No doctrinal diferences apparent. The only really new element is the introduction of several
avadāna-type storiesrelating to local celebrities.
○ The Dharmaguptakas adapted their literature to their local culture, without however changing the
doctrine.
● the split between the Mahāvihāravāsins and the Dharmaguptakas was due to neither
Dhamma nor Vinaya, but mere geography.
○ The Dharmaguptakas were a Northwestern branch of the Vibhajjavāda, and the
Mahāvihāravāsins or Theravādins were the southern branch.
○ the Mahāvihāravāsins in a belligerent mood issued a purely formal denunciation of the
Dharmaguptakas, the texts, doctrines, and history instead reveal a close afnity.
Texts & Doctrines

● Scriptures belonging to the Dharmagupta sect or assumed to belong to this sect that
survives today, namely:
○ Vinaya translation: Buddhayaśas of Kashmir recited the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya entirely from
memory. It became the predominant vinaya in Chinese Buddhist monasticism. The name of the
Dharmaguptaka Vinaya in the East Asian tradition is the "Vinaya in Four Parts" (Chinese: 四分律;
pinyin: Sìfēn Lǜ), and the equivalent Sanskrit title would be Caturvargika Vinaya (Williams, 2004).
○ Āgama collections: 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 was translated into Chinese by Dharmanandi in 384 CE, and edited by Gautama
Saṃghadeva in 398 CE. Sujato proposed that the original text for this translation came from the
Sarvāstivādins or the Mahāsāṃghikas, but Warder concludes that the extant Ekottara Āgama is
that of the Dharmaguptakas (Warder, 2000).
Texts & Doctrines

● Scriptures belonging to the Dharmagupta sect or assumed to belong to this sect that
survives today, namely:
○ Abhidharma: The Śāriputra Abhidharma Śāstra is a complete abhidharma text that is thought to
come from the Dharmaguptaka sect. The only complete edition of this text is in Chinese. Sanskrit
fragments have been found in Bamiyan, Afghanistan, and are now part of the Schøyen Collection
(MS 2375/08). These manuscripts are thought to have been part of a monastery library of the
Mahāsāṃghika Lokottaravāda sect.
○ Additional piṭakas: The Dharmaguptaka Tripiṭaka is said to have contained two extra sections that
were not included by some other schools. These included a Bodhisattva Piṭaka and a Mantra
Piṭaka, also sometimes called a Dhāraṇī Piṭaka.
○ Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra: The Dharmaguptaka biography of the Buddha is the most exhaustive of all
classical biographies of the Buddha, and is entitled Abhiniṣkramaṇa Sūtra. Various Chinese
translations of this text date from between the 3rd and 6th century CE.
Appearance

● Robes: Between 148 and 170 CE, the Parthian monk An Shigao came to China and
translated a work which described the color of monastic robes (Skt. kāṣāya) utilized in
five major Indian Buddhist sects.
○ The Śāriputraparipṛcchā later contains a very similar passage with nearly the same information.
However, the colors for Dharmaguptaka and Sarvāstivāda are reversed. In the earlier source, the
Sarvāstivāda are described as wearing deep red robes, while the Dharmaguptaka are described as
wearing black robes. The corresponding passage found in the later Śāriputraparipṛcchā, in
contrast, portrays the Sarvāstivāda as wearing black robes and the Dharmaguptaka as wearing
deep red robes (Hino, 2004).
○ During the Tang dynasty, Chinese Buddhist monastics typically wore grayish-black robes and were
even colloquially referred to as Zīyī, "those of the black robes" (Kieschnick, 2003).
○ According to the Dharmaguptaka vinaya, the robes of monastics should be sewn out of no more
than 18 pieces of cloth, and the cloth should be fairly heavy and coarse (Kieschnick, 2003).
Language

● 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 (Heirman & Bumbacher, 2007).
● However, there is evidence that other sects and traditions of Buddhism also used
Gāndhārī, and further evidence that the Dharmaguptaka sect also used Sanskrit at times.
○ Von Hinüber (1982b and 1983) has pointed out incompletely Sanskritised Gāndhārī words in
works heretofore ascribed to the Sarvāstivādins and drew the conclusion that either the sectarian
attribution had to be revised, or the tacit dogma "Gāndhārī equals Dharmaguptaka" is wrong.
Conversely, Dharmaguptakas also resorted to Sanskrit.
● Starting in the first century of the Common Era, there was a large trend toward a type of
Gāndhārī which was heavily Sanskritized.
Fragments of the Gāndhārī Buddhist Scriptures

It was found that the Dhammagupta sect once prospered in the Gandhara area, as found in
fragments of scripture in West Pakistan to Bamiyan in Afghanistan.

The available evidence suggests that The Dharmagupta sect was the first group to propagate
Buddhism into Central Asia, such as the Kotan, as found in the Kotan Dhammapada, which uses
the Kharosthi script. and shows the influence of the Gandhari language in the Khotan language.
It is found this evidence as far away as Luoyang and Anyang in China.

Around the 3rd century, Sogdian monks came to translate the scriptures. "Karma Speech of the
Dhammagupta Discipline" to lay down the form of monks and ordination for the Chinese
disciples. It was one of the first disciplinary books to be translated into China.
Questions?