The Beginning of the Buddhist Schools

In early Buddhism, the ultimate goal of religious striving was to reach the state of arhat, a "worthy" or "saint," one who has overcome desire; passed beyond samsara, the world of suffering and cyclical birth and death; and entered nirvana. But as the monastic community labored in the centuries following the Buddha's demise to systematize his teachings and clarify points upon which, perhaps intentionally, his pronouncements had been vague, a number of doctrinal problems arose. Just what were the characteristics of an arhat, of a Buddha, or of the state of nirvana? What is the exact nature of the dharmas, the myriad objects and phenomena that make up the world as we know it through the senses? If, as the Buddha taught, there is no such thing as an individual self or ego, then what is it that is the recipient of karmic retribution? The members of the order, in their efforts to settle questions such as these, became increasingly occupied with codification of the tenets and doctrinal issues, and the religious body split up into a number of sects or schools that differed in matters of interpretation and practice.

---Burton Watson---