Theravāda Buddhism

"The Way of the Elders" — the conservative branch closest to earliest Buddhism.

c. 250 BCE → · South & Southeast Asia · Dharmic

Theravāda, dominant in Sri Lanka, Thailand, Myanmar, and mainland Southeast Asia, preserves the Pali Canon and stresses individual liberation through ethical discipline, meditation, and insight, with the arhat as its ideal. Its monastic Sangha and lay practice of merit-making and alms-giving keep it especially close to the teaching's earliest recorded form.

Key figures

• The historical Buddha
• The monastic Sangha
• Arhats

Texts

• The Pali Canon

Beliefs

• Liberation through individual effort
• The arhat as ideal
• Close fidelity to early teaching

Rituals

• Vipassana meditation
• Alms-giving to monks
• Uposatha observance days

Grew from

• Buddhism

Connections in the atlas

• Mae Nak Phra Khanong Shrine (Wat Mahabut)
• Ashoka's Dhamma missions
• Shwedagon Pagoda
• Nats
• Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī
• The word nirvana
• Triratna (Three Jewels)
• The Dhammapada (Pāli Canon)
• ? When did the Buddha live?
• Rice paddies
• Purification by water (ritual)
• The eclipse devourer