62 CHAPTER THREEAs for the Vibhajyavadins, who retained the name of the Sthaviravada,
they were united chiefly during the Council of Pataliputra by their opposition
to the Sarvastivadins, but soon they too broke into subschools. One of these,
the Mahisasakas, was situated in the Narbada Valley (between Sanchi and
Ajanta), from where it spread south to the Deccan and coastal Andhra. By the
fifth century c.E. its monks, having gradually taken to the Mahayana, had lost
their original sectarian identity.
The Dharmaguptakas separated from the Mahisasakas quite early and ap-
parently were centered chiefly in northwest India and Serindia (central Asia),
whence they became influential in China, where large portions of their canon
are extant. They specialized in the art of dhiirarti) or mantra (protective incanta-
tion), which must have proven popular among those traveling along danger-
ous trade routes. In this respect they developed a practice that plays a very
minor part in the early Siitras but that burgeoned with the rise of Tantrism
(see Chapter 6).
What was left of the original Sthaviravadin group remained powerful in
the Ganges Valley until the thirteenth century c.E. The only surviving group
of its lineage, or of any Hinayana lineage for that matter, is an archaic group of
Vibhajyavadins (retaining the Pali version of the original name, Theravadins)
that became established in Sri Lanka, at the Great Monastery of Anuradha-
pma, about 240 B.C. E. For most of the second century B.C. E., Sri Lanka was
ruled by the non-Buddhist Tamils who had invaded from south India, cutting
the island off from developments in India. By the time Sri Lanka became in-
dependent again, Theravadin Buddhism was confirmed in the archaistic cast it
has since retained.
The tables of school names, deceptively similar to grammatical paradigms,
convey an impression of orderliness and exclusiveness that is contrary to fact.
In the early years, when canons had to be memorized, a monk belonged ex-
clusively to the school whose texts he had memorized. Beginning with the
first and second centuries C.E., however, as written culture supplanted oral
culture and the texts were written down, monks and monasteries were freed
to study and even to adopt specific tenets of rival schools without risking ex-
pulsion from their own. Inscriptions reveal that monasteries "belonged" to
specific schools, but any one monastery would frequently house members of
different schools living side by side and would give temporary shelter to trav-
eling monastics of all persuasions. Although scholastic affiliations may have
been important to scholarly monks, they probably made little difference to
monks and nuns who devoted themselves to a quiet life of meditation.
3.3 ASOKA
In 321 B.C.E., roughly when the Mahasanghikas and the Sthaviras were divid-
ing, Candragupta Maurya succeeded to the throne of Magadha. His primary
adviser, Kautalya, was the author of a treatise on political power that, because
of its amoral approach to the acquisition and maintenance of power, has earned