Buddhism; CCWV.LIFE

The path founded on the Buddha's awakening: the four noble truths, the eightfold path, and release from rebirth through wisdom and compassion.

Buddhism spread from the Gangetic plain across Asia and divided, over centuries, into great vehicles that share the founder and the earliest texts while differing on scripture, practice, and the goal itself. This tree models the vehicles and their schools as first-class entities.

Major divisions

The divisions most visitors need first, in the order the tradition itself presents them.

Branch Theravada The way of the elders, which keeps the Pali Canon as its scripture and the arahant as its goal, and carries the Buddhism of Sri Lanka and mainland… From the Mahayana-Theravada Divergence, 1st century BCE and after Branch Mahayana The great vehicle, which sets the bodhisattva's vow to liberate all beings above the solitary goal, and reads its own sutras beside the early… From the Mahayana-Theravada Divergence, 1st century BCE and after Branch Vajrayana The diamond vehicle, which adds tantra's initiations, mantras, and visualizations to the Mahayana path and carries the Buddhism of Tibet and the…

Branch

Branch Navayana The new vehicle proclaimed by B. R. Ambedkar in 1956: Buddhism re-founded as the path of social liberation for India's oppressed castes. Branch Secular Buddhism The modern reading that keeps the Buddha's ethics and meditation while setting aside rebirth, karma as cosmic law, and the supernatural frame of the…

The World Views

Buddhism

Major divisions

Branch

Divisions inside Buddhism

Buddhism across the site

Sources

Primary

Secondary