Vibhajjavada

Vibhajyavāda (Sanskrit; Pāli: Vibhajjavāda; traditional Chinese: 分別說部; ; pinyin: fēnbiéshuō-bù) was a group of Sthavira Buddhist schools of early Buddhism, who rejected the Sarvastivada teachings at the Third Buddhist council (ca. 250 BCE).

The word Vibhajyavāda may be parsed into vibhajya, loosely meaning "dividing", "analyzing" and vāda holding the semantic field: "doctrine", "teachings". According to Andrew Skilton, the analysis of phenomena (Skt. dharmas) was the doctrinal emphasis and preoccupation of the Vibhajyavādins.

The Vibhajyavādins are a group of early Buddhist schools, who rejected the Sarvastivada teachings at the third Buddhist council (ca. 250 BCE). The name means "those who make distinctions," and include the Kāśyapīya, Mahīśāsaka and Dharmaguptaka. The Vibhajyavādins were strongly represented in south India, where they called themselves Theravada. They survived until the seventeenth century in south India, and are still extinct at Sri Lanka.

The Vibhajyavādins rejected the Sarvastivada claim that all dhammas exist in the past, present and future. Instead, they made a distinction between dhammas that "exist" and dhammas that do not exist, hence the name "distinctionists." Their standpoints were formulated by Moggaliputtatissa in the Kathavatthu, which belongs to the Pali Canon.

The Vibhajyavādins are not recorded uniformly by early Buddhist traditions as being a distinct sect, nor being associated with any one period of time. Some scholars believe that there was no separate "Vibhajyavāda" sect, but that the term vibhajyavāda was sometimes affixed to the name of a school to indicate that it differed from the main school on some doctrines. In this sense, they would be vibhajyavādins of that particular school.

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