The Branches of Buddhism

This page describes Buddhism's main branches and some of the schools within them. How they arose is told on the History page.

What are the main branches of Buddhism?

Buddhism's three major branches are Theravada, Mahayana, and Vajrayana, which is sometimes called Tibetan Buddhism. Some scholars count only two, treating Vajrayana as part of Mahayana.¹ The Pew Research Center counted 324 million Buddhists in 2020.² Most censuses and surveys do not ask which branch people follow, so the branches' sizes are not reliably known; Pew describes only their likely order.¹

Branch	Size	Where it is concentrated	What sets it apart
Theravada	Not reliably known. Pew calls it the second largest.1 Access to Insight, a Theravada website, estimated in 2005, from 2004 data, that Theravada Buddhists number well over 100 million worldwide3.3	Thailand, Myanmar, Sri Lanka, Laos, and Cambodia1	The Pali canon as scripture; the goal of becoming an arahant, a "worthy one" freed from rebirth3
Mahayana	Not reliably known. Pew writes that it is widely believed to be the largest.1	China, Japan, South Korea, and Vietnam1	The goal of buddhahood for all beings, and further scriptures called Mahayana sutras45
Vajrayana	Not reliably known. Pew calls it the smallest of the three.1	Tibet, Nepal, Bhutan, and Mongolia1	Tantric methods that its texts teach can bring buddhahood in a single lifetime6

What do the names of the branches mean?

The names come from old debates, and some carry a judgment. A movement that called itself Mahayana, the great vehicle, called the other schools Hinayana, the lesser vehicle. Access to Insight, a Theravada website, notes that many now avoid both terms because of that tone and speak of "Southern" and "Northern" Buddhism instead.³

The Dalai Lama, a teacher of the Gelug school, prefers to speak of a Pali tradition, found in Myanmar, Sri Lanka, and nearby lands, and a Sanskrit tradition, rooted in India. He says the old terms lead some Mahayana followers to look down on others, and lead others to doubt that the Mahayana is the Buddha's teaching.⁷⁸

What is Theravada Buddhism?

Theravada, the "teaching of the elders," is the branch that takes the Pali canon as its scripture. Access to Insight, a Theravada website, describes it as the sole survivor of the early schools that did not become Mahayana, and as the main religion of Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia for many centuries.³

Paul Harrison, a scholar of the Buddhist canons, notes that the Pali canon is the only early school's canon to survive complete; other schools' canons survive in parts. Harrison adds that parts of many Indian schools' canons survive in Chinese or Tibetan translation, and Lewis Lancaster notes that Chinese translators preserved hundreds of texts lost elsewhere.⁹¹⁰ Theravada sees itself as continuing the Sthaviras, or elders, one side of the first great split in the early community.¹¹

Theravada teachers describe the path as a series of stages of awakening. At the last stage, a person becomes an arahant, a "worthy one," in whom craving has ended and for whom no rebirth remains.³ Kate Crosby writes that much of its practice centers on the three refuges: the Buddha, his teaching (the dhamma), and the monastic community (the sangha). Making merit, good deeds that bear good fruit, is a main focus. The festival of Vesak, in April or May, marks the Buddha's birth, awakening, and death.¹¹

What is Mahayana Buddhism?

Mahayana is the branch that sets buddhahood for all beings as the goal. Gregory Schopen, a historian of Indian Buddhism, writes of a rough consensus among scholars that, if Mahayana has one defining mark, it is this goal: full awakening, or buddhahood, for all.⁴ In Chinese Buddhism, Stephen Teiser writes, the person on that path is a bodhisattva, a being dedicated to becoming a buddha, who takes formal vows to do so.¹²

Mahayana Buddhists accept further sutras alongside the early collections. Its scriptures do not seem to have been gathered into a closed canon in India, and Luis Gomez writes that even the collections made in China and Tibet were never closed.⁵ In East Asia, it formed schools such as Chan (Zen in Japanese), Pure Land, Tiantai, and Huayan. Stephen Teiser notes that Buddhists of every school drew on ideas from the others, and that strict school boundaries were never universal.¹²

Pew names Zen, Nichiren, and Pure Land among the schools of the Mahayana tradition, and its 2012 study counted members of Soka Gakkai.¹ Soka Gakkai describes itself as a community in 192 countries and territories who practice Nichiren Buddhism.¹³

Zen

Zen, called Chan in China, traces its teachers in a line of succession back to the Buddha.¹²¹⁴ Japan's Soto Zen school, brought from China about 800 years ago by Dogen, teaches that seated meditation, zazen, is the foundation of its practice. Its form of zazen is shikantaza, which the school explains as to sit single-mindedly¹⁵. Zazen, it teaches, is not a means to some goal: the posture is itself the form of a buddha.¹⁵¹⁴

Pure Land

Pure Land Buddhists look to Amitabha (Amida in Japanese), a buddha who presides over a realm of bliss in the west, the Pure Land.¹² In Japan's separate Pure Land schools, Jodo Shu and Jodo Shinshu, reciting the Name of Amida, Namu Amida Butsu, came to eclipse all other practices.¹⁶

Jodo Shu describes itself as the first independent Pure Land school in Japan, founded by Honen in 1175, with the nembutsu, the recitation of the Name, at the center of its practice.¹⁷ Shinran, who learned from Honen, founded Jodo Shinshu, the True Pure Land school, in which Amida's Primal Vow promises enlightenment to all beings.¹⁸ An introduction by Kenryu T. Tsuji, published by the Seattle Betsuin Buddhist Temple, explains that followers recite the Name in gratitude for salvation that is assured, and that faith itself is a gift from Amida.¹⁸

What is Vajrayana Buddhism?

Vajrayana, the "vehicle of the thunderbolt," keeps the Mahayana goal of buddhahood and adds the methods of the tantras, its scriptures of ritual and meditation. Ronald Davidson, a scholar of Indian Buddhism, explains one way its texts frame this. The path of the perfections takes three incalculable ages to reach buddhahood; the path of mantras, sacred formulas recited aloud, can reach it in a single life.⁶

Teachers of Tibet's orders describe the path in their own terms. The Dalai Lama, a teacher of the Gelug school, teaches the same contrast: sutra texts speak of three countless ages, tantric texts of reaching buddhahood in one life in the one body¹⁹. He describes the Tibetan custom of holding three sets of vows, monastic, bodhisattva, and tantric.¹⁹⁸

Orgyen Trinley Dorje, a teacher in the Kagyu tradition, stresses the guru, the tantric teacher. Entry to the tantric path begins with an empowerment, a rite of initiation that only a guru can give, and in the Kagyu tradition, he teaches, the guru's blessings are extremely important: whether one gains realization depends on the guru.²⁰

Tantric Buddhism also reached Japan. The monk Kukai studied esoteric, or tantric, Buddhism in China and returned in 806 with its scriptures and ritual implements, founding the Shingon lineage.²¹ Koyasan Shingon teaches that in esoteric practice the Buddha and the practitioner work on each other until the distinction between them disappears, a state Kukai described as the Buddha enters me and I enter the Buddha²².²²

Tibetan Buddhism has several orders, among them the Nyingma, Sakya, Kagyu, and Gelug. The Nyingma honors treasure texts that, it holds, the Indian master Padmasambhava hid for later discovery. The Sakya order was founded in 1073, and the Kagyu descends from the disciples of the translator Marpa. The Gelug grew from the monastery of Ganden, founded by Tsongkhapa in 1409. The title Dalai Lama was given in 1578 to Sonam Gyatso, a Gelug leader.²³

What divides the branches?

The branches differ most over which scriptures hold the Buddha's word, over the goal of practice, and over method. Theravada holds to the Pali canon.³ Mahayana and Vajrayana teachers also accept the Mahayana sutras and the tantras. The Dalai Lama describes the Mahayana sutras as the Buddha's second and third rounds of teaching, given to smaller gatherings, and calls the third the basis of tantric practice.¹⁹ Historians' dating of those texts is on the History page.

On the goal, Theravada teachers describe the arahant, while Mahayana sets buddhahood for all.³⁴ Monastic discipline differs too. Tibetan monks follow the code of the Indian Mulasarvastivada school, and the Dalai Lama notes that the name Theravada itself marks one line of monastic discipline.²³⁷

They also share a common core. The Dalai Lama calls the four noble truths the basis of all Buddhist teachings, and Access to Insight calls them the framework on which all the Buddha's later teachings were based.¹⁹³

What about newer movements?

Some Buddhist movements of the modern era do not fit neatly into the three branches. Pew's 2012 study counted groups such as Hoa Hao that identify as Buddhist.¹ In India, the Ambedkar Buddhists of Maharashtra trace their movement to B. R. Ambedkar's mass conversion in 1956.⁵ Outside Asia, new Western Buddhist orders have formed beside the older traditions.²⁴