Mahāsāṃghika Four Great References

[ronnymarsh]

You probably consider Ekotara Agama to be from the Mahasanghikas under the influence of Bikkhu Sujato's positions, as it is in the Theravada context.

AFAIK it's doctrinal content that makes scholars associate EĀ with Mahāsāṃghikas. Particularly, it has a huge focus on buddhānusmṛti, including the claim that this one practice is a "one-vehicle path" to Bodhi, that seems very Mahāsāṃghika-like. Ven Sujāto is hardly the only one. It is, AFAIK, the dominant mainstream consensus among those who study EĀ closely. Warder is of course free to dissent.

In the "Releasing of the Flaming Mouths," the celebrant wears blue, a Mahīśāsaka colour to have your robe. In the "goma" (fire sacrifice) of the Tendai and Shingon sects, the celebrant wears purple. The Dharmarāja of Koyasan always wears purple. Tendai priests wear light tan robes often, but if you're fancy you get green and blue elements added to it. So, yes, Dharmaguptaka Buddhism still exists as rubrics, vinaya rubrics, and practices like the black robes, but not all East Asian Buddhism is traceable as coming mostly from the Dharmaguptakas. IMO it's more the case that they are the only ordination lineage to survive the ages. There used to be more in East Asia.

Here, the abbot of Koyasan on the left is in his purple vestments. The abbot of Enryakuji is in orange.
gettyimages-97480747-1024x1024.jpg

Here, you can see a Mahīśāsaka-derived blue robe still used for certain functions:
buddhist-monks-wearing-unicolored-orange-grey-or-blue-robes-gathered-in-a-monastery-courtyard.jpg

Lastly, this is from the Yamāntaka pūja during the goma carried out by the Shingon sects (I think). You can see purple and green used:P1010069.jpg

Originally Japanese monastic ordination was required to be carried out in the Ritsu (Vinaya) school, however, after Dengyo Daishi, Japanese Buddhism ordination takes place through the bodhisattva precepts of the Bhramajala Sutra. There is no longer any ordination in Japanese Buddhism that is heir to the original sramana ordination, especially in the more popular forms of Buddhism.
The colors of the "monastic" garments of Japanese ministers come from the Taoist-Confucian influence. Almost all Japanese schools wear purple clothing, and the reason for this is that purple is the auspicious color of Taoism.

In China the traditional vinaya has not been abandoned and is still a requirement for ordination. However, the Chinese tradition today also adopted elements from its own Taoist-Confucian culture, in terms of demonstrating the hierarchy of the sangha through the color of the costumes. However, even in this structure, the monks when initially ordained wear black. Then they get colored robes, but in the beginning always black.

[Coëmgenu]

The colors of the "monastic" garments of Japanese ministers come from the Taoist-Confucian influence. Almost all Japanese schools wear purple clothing, and the reason for this is that purple is the auspicious color of Taoism.

Out of curiousity, do you know where this claim comes from? I've read it in numerous places online, but I've yet to find any actual proof that it comes from Daoism.

As for another claim of yours, yes, you are very right that Dengyō Daishi eliminated vinaya-observance from his sect. That is why Tendai has mostly priests and a small minority of comparatively-recent full monks. Priests instead of bhikṣus have been the norm in Tendai for a while, even before the emperor outlawed the vinaya and forced all monks in Japan to become priests. Shingon still observes their version of a monastic abhiṣeka. I'm sure that it's not valid from a Theravādin perspective that is also a rigourist Theravādin perspective, but they do observe vinaya. Supposedly, while it was outlawed, Shingon preceptors would observe the vinaya in secret out in the woods and in the mountains, supported by village-folk from mountain hamlets and hidden communities, where they wouldn't be reported by do-gooders.

The Japanese anti-vinaya crackdown is weirdly like the film "Goya's Ghosts." In that film, the Inquisition was looking for "Judaizers," meaning converts to Christianity who were still secretly practicing their old Judaism. They used to look for people at banquets not eating the pork. There were similar hunts for vinaya-upholders in Japan at one time. It was an imperial initiative called "haibutsu kishaku," 廃仏毀釈, and means "abolish the Buddhas and destroy Śākyamuni."

[Coëmgenu]

Something else of note that I found I will mention, and then I will end this robe tangent I inadvertently started. Venerable Asaṁga, one of the three saints of Yogācāra, would have worn a blue robe because he was ordained under the Mahīśāsaka vinaya. I don't actually know why Ven Xuánzàng has the blue robe, because I can't find any mention of a significant connection between him and the Mahīśāsakas. It will be embarrassing if it turns out to be something mythological like the blue robe of the fire rat. He is also a character in "Journey to the West," which at least some of those medieval illustrations were from.

There is a possible Yogācāra connection with blue robes. In Sri Lanka, during the reign of Sena I of Anuradhapura in the 800s, a seemingly-Vajrayāna sect established themselves in Sri Lanka, coming from the Indian mainland, called the Nīlapaṭadarśana. They also wore blue robes. It is difficult to find non-Yogācārin Tantra in Tibet. Some Tibetan Tāntrikas wear blue robes to this day. I'm wondering if Ven Asaṁga is the connection. Anyways, back to Mahāsaṁghikas.

[ronnymarsh]

The colors of the "monastic" garments of Japanese ministers come from the Taoist-Confucian influence. Almost all Japanese schools wear purple clothing, and the reason for this is that purple is the auspicious color of Taoism.

Out of curiousity, do you know where this claim comes from? I've read it in numerous places online, but I've yet to find any actual proof that it comes from Daoism.

As for another claim of yours, yes, you are very right that Dengyō Daishi eliminated vinaya-observance from his sect. That is why Tendai has mostly priests and a small minority of comparatively-recent full monks. Priests instead of bhikṣus have been the norm in Tendai for a while, even before the emperor outlawed the vinaya and forced all monks in Japan to become priests. Shingon still observes their version of a monastic abhiṣeka. I'm sure that it's not valid from a Theravādin perspective that is also a rigourist Theravādin perspective, but they do observe vinaya. Supposedly, while it was outlawed, Shingon preceptors would observe the vinaya in secret out in the woods and in the mountains, supported by village-folk from mountain hamlets and hidden communities, where they wouldn't be reported by do-gooders.

The Japanese anti-vinaya crackdown is weirdly like the film "Goya's Ghosts." In that film, the Inquisition was looking for "Judaizers," meaning converts to Christianity who were still secretly practicing their old Judaism. They used to look for people at banquets not eating the pork. There were similar hunts for vinaya-upholders in Japan at one time. It was an imperial initiative called "haibutsu kishaku," 廃仏毀釈, and means "abolish the Buddhas and destroy Śākyamuni."

Buddhism in Japan began with the adoption of the religion by Prince Shotoko, and from the beginning he was not very fond of monastic forms, even though he was not opposed to it either.

The prince elected three texts to serve as guardian of the country, they are the Lotus Sutra, the Queen Srimala Sutra and the Vimalakirti Sutra.

In the Vimalakirti Sutra and Queen Srimala's Sutra the preachers are laymen (which give their name to the Sutras), and in the Lotus Sutra there is the scene of the Original Portal where Shakyamuni Buddha (Gotama) "replaces" the monastics and the bodhisattvas of the transitory portal by the Earth Bodhisattvas (as in this Sutra the Buddha attained enlightenment in the remote past, and made millions of disciples, these earth bodhisattvas - the adherents of Buddhism - no longer need to cultivate good karma, be ordained, and all the rest as they are already on the verge of becoming Buddhas).

Thus, Buddhism in Japan was established based on lay practice, but at first it did not become popular until Dengyo and later in the Kamakura period.

The Kamakura period has two main elements in the formulation of those Buddhist schools. The first are the founding masters, such as Honen, Shinran, Dogen and Nichiren, however, the kickoff came from the Hijiri.

The Hijiri were people of great knowledge of Buddhism and teachings of Taoist origin, and also of accomplishments in the practices, however, they were not formally ordained, and they lived pilgrimages in the mountains. The place of support of a large part of the movement was precisely Mount Koya, which is the foundation of Shingon Buddhism.

When Honen started the process and formation of the Pure Land school in Japan, he even renounced the bodhisattva ordination of the Tendai school and became a Hijiri.

It was the Hijiri who popularized the practice of Nembutsu in Japan, and with it Buddhism, and this is the main root of the general rejection of Vinaya in the country.

The general idea is as follows: we are in the mappo era, where there is no longer any way to receive the precepts.

Aside from Zen/Chan Buddhism, the Sino-Japanese Mahayana orthodox view of the Tendai, Kegon and Shingon schools, like their Jodo and Nichiren derivatives, is that the Buddha's lineage lasted only until the patriarch Simhabodhi.

In Southern Theravada Buddhism there is no such notion of a lineage of the Buddha, but in Northern Buddhism there was a lineage starting with the Buddha, who was replaced by Mahakassapa, then by Ananda, and so on to the 24th successor, Simhabodhi, who he was murdered without being able to transmit the heritage of the Dharma.

So when that happens the world stops living the "age of Dharma validity" and enters the "age of Dharma formality", and then the "age of the end of Dharma", when Buddhism does not even exist in formality, and so there is no way for people to fully receive the precepts, as there is no such patriarchal structure of substitutes for the Buddha.

Zen presented an unorthodox approach where it literally created six patriarchs between Simhabodhi and Bodhidharma to legitimize itself, but these are only accepted in this context. As in China, the only school that survives is Zen, so they still keep Vinaya, as they don't believe that the era of the end of Dharma has entered.

But in Japan this is different. Priests do not keep vinaya as there is no legitimacy for transmission, only precepts that do not require a rigid traditional structure, such as the 10 bodhisattva precepts or the single precept of faith in Amitabha.

So, no matter what the ordination, in general terms none of the traditional schools (with the exception of Zen) considers any precept transmission lineage to be authentic, precisely because of this idea that the lineage ended with Simhabodhi.

However, during the Edo-Tokugawa period the government forced the monks to keep the precepts, even without having received them. So on the outside they looked like monks but actually weren't, and several priestly families were formed that controlled temples and everything.

In the Meiji Era, the government simply removed government obligations and set the priests free.

In short, this is not exactly an obligation that the Japanese government placed on the Sangha, but an obligation that the "sangha" itself imposes on itself to conform to its fundamental beliefs that there are no longer authentic lineages from Gautama to that authentic ordinations can be performed.

Notice how these Buddhism all try to find a way out of this situation:
- in the pure land as it is not possible to establish a relationship with Shaka Nyora, one must awaken faith in Amitabha so that he fulfills his original vow to take her to Sukhavati, where he can be ordained and practice according to the Dharma there.
- in Nichiren one must abandon all sutras and rely solely on the Honmon part of the Lotus Sutra, which is preached by the Cosmic Buddha of which all are originally disciples as earthly bodhisattvas.
- in Shingon the practice of tantra does not require ordination, but initiation, as it is a teaching that does not come from the lineage of Gautama, but transmitted from Mahavairocana to the Vajrasatva, thus not being limited by the temporality of the other lineage