Paññāsikhara wrote:
Because then one would have to say either "Buddhists" - but the Mahayanists are Buddhists, too, so it doesn't make the necessarily distinction; or say "Theravadins-Sarvastivadins-Vatsiputriyas-Mahisasakas-Dharmaguptas-Kasyapiyas-Bahusrutiyas-Aparasailiyas-Purvasailiyas-Prajnaptivadins-Lokottaravadins" all the time, and that is a huge mouthful!
Unless you have some other term we could use?
Maybe you are just thinking of "Theravadins", but my point is, the two categories of "Theravadins" and "Mahayanists" does not exhaust all of the Buddhists, there are still a heck of a lot more. How do we refer to all the non-Mahayanists?
Mahayana is an umbrella term itself for several different schools, if one is being referred to specifically then that name is used! other possibility for non-Mahayana schools could be early Buddhist schools.
that would be place/group specific wouldn't it? say mainstream Buddhism here it automatically refers to Theravada, say it anywhere else mainstream refers to the majority group, or group the forum is about!
I am not sure what you mean by "here", on DhammaWheel Forum?
Here or anywhere, mainstream indicates the norm, the main current of accepted thought or behaviour, and majority, but would always be within a context when referring to something, and would change when in a time and place. at one time Sri Lanka was a mahayana country, so the context or mainstream would change when refering to the history of Buddhism there, and be confusing when it is so closely related to Theravada today.
As Tilt has pointed out, for most of Buddhist history up until maybe the Pala period, after which Buddhism went into decline in India, all the non-Mahayana groups were the "majority". Hence, it is an appropriate term in general.
If the place had some particular school, out of the many non-Mahayana schools, as it's majority, then in that case, one could just use the name of the school. eg. the Sarvastivada in Kasmir / Gandhara, the Theravada in Sri Lanka.
But I am referring to Indian Buddhism in general. Hence, not one single school with it's "own name".
in context of history that would be correct, but we don't always talk in the historical context. mahayana being a term which can be used in both present and historical context and understood accurately, and 100 years after the Buddha there started being recognisably different schools so mainstream would be different even in the pre-schism period to after the splits.
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