Nikaya Buddhism - Some Disadvantages of The Term Nikaya Buddhism

Some Disadvantages of The Term Nikaya Buddhism

Some disadvantages of the term Nikaya Buddhism are:

• The term is not well known.
• The term Nikaya Buddhism isn't very clear: it's not obvious from the term what is meant by it.
• Neither possible literal interpretation fits the coverage of the term "Hinayana":
  • If the term refers to the nikayas into which the Buddhist sangha divided, it excludes the period before these divisions (pre-sectarian Buddhism).
  • If it refers to the scriptures known as nikayas or agamas, it has just the opposite effect, excluding the schools that use Abhidhamma: such as the Theravada, Sarvastivada, Dharmaguptaka, etcetera.
• When used, it is used by scholars only, and hasn't found adoption by any of the existing schools of Buddhism.
• The term 'Nikaya Buddhism' is just a replacement of the term Hinayana, which keeps in place the tendency to regard the separate early schools (and their differing ideologies) as one form or type of Buddhism. The early Buddhist schools themselves never used a term to refer to all the early schools together as one type of Buddhism.
• Conflating all the early schools as one 'type of Buddhism' originated with some proponents of Mahayana, who introduced the name "Hinayana" to distinguish their concept of the Dharma from the already existing schools. So, in some ways, the usage of the term 'Nikaya Buddhism', although neutral in import, points to a Mahayana (or Vajrayana) view of Buddhism.
• If Nikaya is used in its proper sense of monastic grouping, then Chinese and Tibetan Buddhism are included in it, belonging to the Dharmaguptaka and Mula-Sarvastivada Nikayas respectively.