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Glite Dictionary
Theravada Buddhism

Theravada Buddhism

6.9
A branch of Buddhism that focuses on personal effort and the earliest Pali teachings
  • noun
  • /ˌθɛrəˈvɑːdə ˈbʊdɪzəm/
translation icon : budismo teravada
  • He means that Chinese borrow from Thai Buddhism what is magical and efficacious, or use Theravada Buddhism, the official religion of Thailand, to enhance individual status and prestige.

Examples

  • Steven Collins, in his admirable study of Theravada Buddhism, Selfless Persons (1982), suggests such an approach:

    Academic text (1992)

  • The empire's official religions were Hinduism and Mahayana Buddhism until Theravada Buddhism was introduced from Sri Lanka.

    Blog text (3)

  • Status Ambiguity and Gender in Theravada Buddhism

    Academic text (1997)

  • Theravada Buddhism

    Blog text (20)

  • And a nontheistic nondualist worldview like, oh let's say Theravada Buddhism, would make Bhutan one of the most randomly violent places on Earth.

    Blog text (13)

  • The changes over the past decade in the activities and the composition of the hermitage are reflective of the nuns' routinization and contextualization within Theravada Buddhism.

    Academic text (1997)

  • In the former, the religieuse engages in ecstatic states involving a loss of bodily and mental control, which is considered unseemly in Theravada Buddhism, while in the latter, she attempts to cultivate total control of body and mind.

    Academic text (1997)

  • The survey is confined to the texts of Early, or Theravada, Buddhism—that is, the canonical texts and their early Pali commentaries and related expository texts.

    Academic text (1990)

  • Many people in Sri Lanka practice Theravada Buddhism as their primary spiritual tradition.

  • The teachings of Theravada Buddhism focus on achieving enlightenment through personal effort and meditation.

Synonyms

Theravada
vsTheravada Buddhism
9.5

A traditional school of Buddhism that teaches individual practice to reach nirvana and is common in Thailand and Sri Lanka

is the same tradition but given as the fuller formal name

Surface Forms

Theravada Buddhism singular
Theravada Buddhisms plural

Morphology

Theravada + Buddhism

This is a straightforward compound where 'Theravada' names a particular school and 'Buddhism' names the religion, so the combined meaning 'the Theravada branch of Buddhism' is directly derivable from its parts. The pattern 'X + Buddhism' to indicate a denomination is cross-linguistically common, so a learner who knows both constituents will understand the MWE.

Etymology

Theravada Buddhism gets its name from Pali words thera ('elder') and vada ('teaching'), so it literally means the 'teaching of the elders'. This picture helps explain why Theravada Buddhism is the branch that follows the oldest Buddhist texts and asks each person to work on their own practice and moral life.