passed the king’s capital within its boundaries, but later
housed the monks who authored the chronicles that we now
possess.
Another possible point for the emergence of Therava ̄da
as a civilizational religion is the reign of the Sinhala hero,
King Dut:t:haga ̄man: ̄ı (r. 161–137 BCE). According to the
fifth-century Maha ̄vam:sa account (whose preeminent hero
is Dut:t:haga ̄man: ̄ı, as opposed to the fourth-century
D ̄ıpavam:sa account, whose hero is Deva ̄nam:piyatissa),
Dut:t:haga ̄man: ̄ı sought to evict the South Indians who had
established their hegemony in northern Sri Lanka. While still
a prince he organized a campaign in which the struggle to
establish centralized rule and the struggle to establish
Therava ̄da Buddhism as the “national” religion became
closely identified. With the victory of Dut:t:haga ̄man: ̄ı and his
construction of the Maha ̄thu ̄ pa (a funerary mound that en-
shrined relics of the Buddha and formed a key monument
within the Maha ̄viha ̄ra’s monastic complex) in the capital of
Anura ̄dhapura, the civilizational character of Therava ̄da
found a powerful vehicle of expression. Certainly, by the end
of the first century BCE, after the Pali scriptures had been
committed to writing, the Therava ̄da ideal of Sri Lanka as
the Dhammad ̄ıpa, the “Island of the Dhamma,” seemed
well-developed not only in Sri Lankan religious and political
institutions, but in Sinhala identity as well.
THERAVA ̄DA BUDDHISM IN GREATER INDIA. The history of
Therava ̄da Buddhism in India and Southeast Asia during the
first millennium CE continues to be extremely obscure. We
know that Therava ̄dins held sway in a number of important
Buddhist centers in India, especially in Andhra Pradesh and
Tamil Nadu. And we also know that several of the most fa-
mous Therava ̄da scholars were of Indian origin and, among
these, some did their primary work in Indian monasteries.
In Southeast Asia, specifically among the Burmese of
Lower Burma and the Mon peoples of Lower Burma and
Thailand, the Therava ̄da tradition became firmly rooted and
exerted a significant civilizational influence. Later legends
trace the founding of this tradition to Son:a and Uttara, the
two missionaries reportedly dispatched to Suvan:n:abhu ̄ mi by
Moggaliputtatissa. The first archaeological evidence of Bud-
dhism’s presence has been found along inland and coastal
trade routes, and dates to early in the first millennium CE.
In Lower Burma inscriptions have been found that confirm
a preeminent Therava ̄da presence in Pyu/Burmese royal cen-
ters beginning from the fifth century CE, and some sort of
Therava ̄da influence is attested in Pagan somewhat later. In
Thailand, similar evidence indicates that the Therava ̄da tra-
dition was an important, perhaps central, religious element
in the Mon civilization of Dva ̄ravat ̄ı that flourished over a
wide area of central, northern, and northeastern Thailand
from the sixth to the eleventh century. Such sources notwith-
standing, information concerning the kind or kinds of
Therava ̄da Buddhism that existed among the Burmese and
Mon is virtually nonexistent. Moreover, there is little data
that illumines the relationship between the various
Therava ̄da traditions and the other schools—notably other
H ̄ınaya ̄na schools that used Sanskrit as their sacred lan-
guage—that were also very influential throughout the main-
land areas of Southeast Asia.
In Sri Lanka, literary and archaeological remains pro-
vide many more details regarding local Therava ̄da history.
According to fifth-century chronicle accounts, the first major
division within the Therava ̄da sangha in Sri Lanka occurred
soon after the Pali Tipit:aka was commited to writing, proba-
bly between 29 and 17 BCE. A famous monk named
Maha ̄tissa evidently built, with royal support, an impressive
new monastery in Anura ̄dhapura. Sometime thereafter,
monks of the long-established Maha ̄viha ̄ra fraternity (by
whose account this story is preserved) accused Maha ̄tissa of
violating the monastic discipline and tried to expel him from
the sangha. Monks loyal to Maha ̄tissa then formed the frater-
nity of the Abhayagiri monastery, which became for some
time the Maha ̄viha ̄ra’s archrival. The Abhayagiri lineage
maintained independent institutional traditions that eventu-
ally gave rise to branch monastic communities as far distant
as Java.
Like the Maha ̄viha ̄ra, the Abhayagiri came to include an
order of nuns among its residents. These nuns seem to have
been very active and were responsible for transmitting the
women’s ordination lineage to China in the fifth century.
With an extensive network of affiliated monasteries, the Ab-
hayagiri controlled its own sizable collection of wealth and
property. This new fraternity also came to possess its own
version of the Pali Tipit:aka, its own distinctive version of cer-
tain aspects of Therava ̄da doctrine, and its own interpreta-
tion of particular points of monastic discipline. In addi-
tion—in contrast to their Maha ̄viha ̄ra rivals—the Abhayagiri
nika ̄ya, like the communities that supervised the great mo-
nastic universities of India, welcomed into their midst monks
from other H ̄ınaya ̄na schools, and from various Maha ̄ya ̄na
and, later, Tantric traditions as well.
This willingness of the Abhayagiri Therava ̄dins to wel-
come Maha ̄ya ̄na adherents into their company generated,
some three centuries after its founding, a schism within its
own ranks. In the middle of the fourth century three hun-
dred monks declared their aversion to the presence of
Maha ̄ya ̄na monks at the Abhayagiri, withdrew from that fra-
ternity, and formed an independent group that came to be
known as the Jetavana fraternity. The new Jetavana nika ̄ya
acquired affiliated monasteries and also considerable land
and other wealth. But compared to the Maha ̄viha ̄ra and Ab-
hayagiri nika ̄yas, the Jetavana remained relatively small.
From time to time, it became associated with particular doc-
trinal and disciplinary interpretations of its own, but a sus-
tained distinctive orientation never emerged to compete seri-
ously with its two rivals. Although by the end of the third
century the Therava ̄da sangha in Sri Lanka had become di-
vided, certain tendencies remained common to all three
nika ̄yas. For example, the Therava ̄da scholasticism that blos-
somed during the fifth century drew scholars from the
Maha ̄viha ̄ra and from other nika ̄yas as well.THERAVA ̄DA 9147