About Tamrashatiya

The Tāmraśāṭīya, also called Tāmraparṇīya was one of the early schools of Buddhism and a branch of the Vibhajyavāda school based in Sri Lanka. It is thought that the Theravāda tradition has its origins in this school.
Pre-modern copies of the Tipiṭaka were preserved in Palm-leaf manuscripts

Nikaya Buddhism – The early Buddhist schools

The term Nikāya Buddhism was coined by Masatoshi Nagatomi as a non-derogatory substitute for Hinayana, meaning the . Examples of these groups are pre-sectarian Buddhism and the early Buddhist schools. Early Buddhism in India is generally divided into various monastic fraternities, or nikāyas. Conventionally numbering eighteen, the actual count varied over time. The doctrinal orientation of each school differed somewhat, as did the number of piṭakas in their canon. An example of .
Timeline: Development and propagation of Buddhist traditions (c. 450 BCE – c. 1300 CE)

Early Buddhist schools – The Buddhist monastic saṅgha

The early Buddhist schools are those schools into which the Buddhist monastic saṅgha initially split, due originally to differences in vinaya and later also due to doctrinal differences and geographical separation of groups of monks. The original saṅgha split into the first early schools (generally believed to be the and the ) a significant number of years after the death of Gautama Buddha. Later, these first early schools were further divided into schools .
The Ruwanwelisaya stupa, built by the Sri Lankan King Dutugemunu

Theravada – Buddhism’s oldest existing school

is the most commonly accepted name of Buddhism's oldest existing school. The school's adherents, termed Theravādins, have preserved their version of Gautama Buddha's teaching or Buddha Dhamma in the Pāli Canon for over a millennium. The Pāli Canon is the most complete Buddhist canon surviving in a classical Indian language, Pāli, which serves as the school's sacred language and lingua franca. In contrast to Mahāyāna and Vajrayāna, Theravāda tends to be conservative in matters of .