The Concise Oxford Dictionary of World Religions (464 page)

ri Lank
and India.

 
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Buddhism in Tibet
:

see
TIBETAN RELIGION
.

 
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Buddhist Councils
:

see
COUNCILS, BUDDHIST
.

 
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Buddhist lineages
:

see
BUDDHIST SCHOOLS
.

 
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(sometimes referred to as ‘sects’). These are felt by Buddhists to be primarily a matter of lineage more than credal confession. A Buddhist is a
Bauddha
(Skt., ‘Follower of
Buddha
’) and takes refuge in the
Three Jewels
, thus becoming a part of the
sa
gha
with a particular interpretation of the
dharma
, and will often refer to a particular person as ‘my teacher’. This teacher will have been certified by another teacher in a lineage which, if complete, can be traced back to the Buddha. Controversies then arise over the authenticity of a lineage and/or the correctness or completeness of its understanding of the dharma. Since divisions over the interpretation of dharma have often impressed scholars as philosophical, they have been called schools rather than sects, or the neutral term ‘tradition’ may be used. Within Tibetan Buddhism the theoretical divisions called
siddh
nta
(Skt., ‘finality’, ‘explanation’) have been translated as ‘system’ although they come closest to being philosophical schools. No one term in Buddhism corresponds to any of these divisions, and for convenience the word ‘lineage’ will be used here.
There are two major lineage groups:
Therav
da
and
Mah
y
na
.
Vajray
na
is sometimes counted as a third grouping and sometimes as a subset of Mah
y
na. Therav
da is most simply viewed as a single major lineage. Mah
y
na is a family of lineages that may be grouped into two main cultural types: Tibeto-Mongol and Sino-Japanese. Tibeto-Mongol Buddhism sees itself as the inheritor of later Indian Mah
y