Sthaviravada

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First Sangha
├ Mahāsāṃghika
└ Sthaviravāda
    ├ Sarvāstivāda
    └ Vibhajjavāda
        ├ Theravāda
        └ Dharma-
             guptaka

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Sthaviravāda (Sanskrit; Chinese 上座部) literally means "Teaching Of The Elders". It was one of the two main movements in early Buddhism, the other being that of the Mahāsāṅghika. "The Elders" referred to the elder monks, who were naturally the leaders of the community, and whose voice and views carried more weight than more junior monks.

The two groups separated between the second and third Buddhist council, around 350 BCE. The Sthaviravāda were the proponents of an orthodox understanding of the Buddha's teachings. They were criticised by the Mahāsāṅghika school for adding additional rules to the Patimokkha.

The Sthaviravāda doctrine survives today in the Theravāda tradition, but "although they share the same name (Thera and Sthavira being the Pāli and Sanskrit forms of the same word meaning "elder"), there is no historical evidence that the Theravāda school arose until around two centuries after the Great Schism which occurred at the Council of Pāṭaliputra" ("Oxford Dictionary of Buddhism, Damien KEOWN, 2003). The Theravada is often recognized as being a continuation of the Sthaviravada, after the Third Buddhist Council.