Home›Buddhism›Parent DenominationBrowse ByParent DenominationThis page groups denominations by the older denomination they split off from. Wikipedia describes the Druze faith as having "developed out of Isma'ilism" before separating entirely, a pattern that also plays out at the smaller scale of one denomination splitting from another. Browsing by parent denomination lets a visitor trace a denomination back to the body it broke away from.FactsLearn MoreParent DenominationSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0)FactsOverviewWhat Defines This GroupingWell-attestedThe vehicles and schools of Buddhism, distinguished by which scriptures are authoritative, by the ideal held out to the practitioner, by the status accorded the Buddha and by the means to awakening - and geographically, each vehicle having taken its own route out of India. 2OriginsWhose Classification This IsWell-attestedThe three-vehicle scheme is a Mahayana classification of Buddhism, not a neutral one: Hinayana, the lesser vehicle, is a polemical term for a set of schools that never used it of themselves and whose surviving representative calls itself Theravada. 3DirectoryCategoryWell-attestedDenominations 1Learn MoreThe schools of Buddhism This group holds the major traditions and schools of Buddhism, which spread from its Indian origin across Asia and adapted deeply to each culture it entered. Rather than denominations in the Christian sense, these are lineages and vehicles distinguished by canon, practice and philosophical emphasis. The browser will find the three great vehicles (Theravada, the older tradition of Sri Lanka and Southeast Asia; Mahayana, the broad northern tradition with its bodhisattva ideal; and Vajrayana, the tantric path prominent in Tibet), together with their many schools, such as Zen, Pure Land, Tiantai, Nichiren and the Tibetan orders. The entries describe each school's texts, practices and lineage.Parent DenominationFilter Results4 entriesAlso Known AsAllSometimes called Lamaism in older Western writing, a term now considered outdated and to some degree a colonial mischaracterisation. (1)Ban or Official WatchlistAllChina: State Religious Affairs Bureau Order No. 5 (2007) requires government approval of every reincarnated lama (1)Basis of the Membership FigureAllIndependent Survey (1)National Census (1)Scholarly or Demographic Estimate (1)Defining Doctrinal PositionAllA staged curriculum from the first motivation to buddhahood (1)Awakening by tantric means (Vajrayana) (1)Awakening by tantric means (Vajrayana) (1)Buddhahood realised in this very body and lifetime (1)Mahamudra: the great seal (1)One vehicle: every teaching leads to a single buddhahood (1)Shentong: buddha-nature empty only of what is extraneous to it (1)Universal liberation by the path of the bodhisattva (2)FounderAllMarpa (1012-1097), Milarepa (1040-1123) and Gampopa (1079-1153). (1)No founder (1)No founder. (1)No single founder. Buddhism was established in Tibet through the eighth century mission of the Indian tantric master Padmasambhava, the monk-scholar Shantarakshita, and the patronage of King Trisong Detsen. (1)The Tibetan transmission is attributed to Padmasambhava, Santaraksita and Vimalamitra (1)GovernanceAllAuthority in recognised reincarnate lineages (3)Authority through monastic ordination lineage and its seats (2)No central authority (1)How the Expectation Is EnforcedAllCustomary Norm (2)Key TextAllThe Kangyur, the translated word of the Buddha, and the Tengyur, the translated Indian commentarial treatises. (1)Liturgical LanguageAllClassical Chinese (read in Sino-Japanese where used in Japan) (1)Classical Tibetan (3)Sanskrit (2)Membership Figure As OfAll2010-01-01 (1)2020-01-01 (1)2022-01-01 (1)2025-01-01 (1)Membership Over TimeAllA different scale entirely: a 2025 survey by the Russian Public Opinion Research Center (VCIOM) found about 1.4 million people, roughly 1.0 percent of Russia's population, identified as Buddhist, concentrated in the traditionally Buddhist republics of Buryatia, Kalmykia and Tuva, all practicing Tibetan Buddhism in its Gelug form. (1)Bhutan, whose constitution names Buddhism the state's spiritual heritage and whose Buddhism is practiced in its Vajrayana (Tibetan) form, was estimated by Pew Research Center's 2010 Global Religious Landscape study at 74.8 percent Buddhist, a scholarly estimate rather than a census, since Bhutan does not field a religion census of its own. (1)By 2022, the U.S. State Department's religious freedom report put Bhutan's Buddhist share at a near-identical 74.7 percent, showing genuine stability across the twelve-year span rather than either growth or decline. (1)Mongolia's 2020 national census, an actual census count, recorded 51.7 percent of the total population as Buddhist, overwhelmingly the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism; among only the 59.4 percent of Mongolians aged 15 and older who reported any religious identity at all, Buddhists made up 87.1 percent. (1)OrdinationAllA full female ordination lineage continues (1)Celibacy required of the ordained (1)Non-celibate tantric practitioners alongside monastics (1)Ordination is into a monastic order, not to a congregation (4)The full female ordination lineage is held lapsed; revival contested (1)Origin PeriodAllTransmitted to Tibet from the eighth (1)Origin Period End YearAll100 (1)779 (1)800 (1)1150 (1)Origin Period Start YearAll100 BCE (1)600 (1)755 (1)1050 (1)Place of OriginAllEastern India and Tibet (1)Southern and central Tibet (1)The Indian subcontinent (1)Tibet, reached through the transmission of Indian Buddhist monasticism and tantra across the Himalayas. (1)Practice StatusAllMahayana sutras are extensively published and studied, and Mahayana teaching is generally offered openly to lay practitioners and outside scholars, with no closed initiatory core across the tradition as a whole; specific esoteric lineages within it are recorded separately. (1)Tibetan Buddhist philosophy, ethics and sutra teaching are published and taught openly, including to non-Buddhist scholars, but its Vajrayana tantric practices require a formal empowerment, known as abhisheka, from a qualified lama before being taught or, in some cases, before the relevant texts may even be read, a documented structural requirement of the tradition rather than an incidental restriction. (1)Vajrayana's philosophical background is published and studied academically, but its tantric practices themselves are traditionally given only through a formal empowerment, known as abhisheka, conferred by a qualified teacher; practitioners are asked not to practise a given tantra, or in some cases even read its text, without having received that transmission. This is a documented, structural requirement of the tradition rather than an incidental custom. (1)Relation to the StateAllPrivileged Never Established (1)Separation or DivergenceAllNo schism (2)No schism; a new transmission lineage brought from India by Marpa (1)The distinction is doctrinal, not institutional (1)The Kagyu itself divided into numerous sub-lineages from the twelfth century (1)The Mahayana sutras circulated within the existing monastic communities, the vinaya lineages were not divided, and monks of both orientations lived in the same monasteries (1)The tantric vehicle was received within Mahayana Buddhism and its practitioners kept the same monastic ordination (1)Standing Giving ExpectationAllMahayana giving carries the same underlying dana ethic already recorded here for Theravada Buddhism, giving to the sangha with no fixed rate, but East Asian Mahayana tradition frames it through a distinct merit economy, traced by historian Matthew Mitchell to the practice of Buddhist temples lending donated funds and using the interest to fund upkeep, so that a donor "continually earned merit as long as the temple earned interest income from their offering." Religious studies professor Jeff Wilson documents the same framework operating today at Cham Shan Temple, one of the largest Chinese Tiantai Buddhist networks in Canada: lay givers are motivated by devotion, the wish to see the teachings spread, "the social pressure they feel to conform to the expected models of generosity," and the wish to share in the merit monastic activity produces, an exchange Wilson calls "the exchange of economic support for spiritual assistance" at the heart of the lay-monastic relationship. The same dana model, giving as the mechanism itself rather than a fixed price, carries into Western Zen, a Mahayana school: Zen Mountain Monastery's own program page offers teachings "by donation so that everyone can participate," naming suggested rather than required contribution levels. None of these is a codified due with a stated rate or a stated penalty; the norm is customary, sustained by social expectation and the wish to share in merit rather than by institutional enforcement. (1)Vajrayana carries the same uncounted dana ethic already recorded on this axis for Mahayana and Theravada, but adds a giving practice genuinely distinct in kind: the mandala offering, one of the four (or five) standard ngondro preliminary practices alongside refuge and prostration, Vajrasattva purification and guru-yoga. Dr. Alexander Berzin's own teaching transcript states the target directly: "Normally, what we try to do is 100,000 repetitions of each of these practices," describing the mandala offering's own logic as symbolically giving "the whole universe, everything" for the benefit of others. Unlike ordinary dana, this is a formally counted practice with a set numerical target rather than an open-ended expectation of size or frequency. A second, independent Vajrayana teaching organization, the Buddhist Studies Institute, corroborates ngondro's own standing as "the pre-requisite for the great practices of the Vajrayana tradition," and general accounts of the Nyingma lineage describe completing the ngondro repetitions as a genuine precondition a teacher requires before conferring empowerment or pointing-out instruction, though practice varies by teacher and program: the Buddhist Studies Institute's own course, by contrast, integrates empowerment within its training rather than gating it strictly beforehand. No fixed percentage of income is asked, matching the shape already used for Mahayana and Theravada on this axis. (1)Status TodayAllLiving tradition, practised today (4)BrowseCompareKagyuParent Denomination1 entryMahayanaParent Denomination3 entriesTibetan BuddhismParent Denomination5 entriesVajrayanaParent Denomination2 entriesSources1. Divinity Atlas Directory Taxonomy, First Edition Category Treetier 12. An Introduction to Buddhism: Teachings, History and Practices, 2nd editiontier 1Peter Harvey, Cambridge University Press, 2013View the Source3. The Princeton Dictionary of Buddhismtier 1Robert E. Buswell Jr. and Donald S. Lopez Jr., Princeton University Press, 2014s.v. HinayanaView the SourceDivinity Atlas Directory Prose, First Edition Category Descriptionstier 1Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.