Do Buddhist have a hierarchy

Answer 1

The founder of the religion Buddhism was Siddhartha Gautama. The levels of Buddhist religious hierarchy are: Buddhist Monasteries, Buddhist Monks, Buddhist Nuns, Buddhist Lay People, Buddhist Pilgrims.

Answer 2

Yes, in a sense. There is the hierarchy of monks (and nuns) and householders (or laypeople).

There is also a hierarchy in another sense. The Buddha spoke of five types of people (listed here from lower to higher):

1. Ordinary worldlings
2. Streamwinners
3. Once-returners
4. Non-returners
5. Arahants (enlightened people).

Various schools of Buddhism have hierarchies in addition to these.

Answer 3

I answer this question in view of ordinary good Buddhist in Thailand which is Hinayana Buddhism and not as a buddhism expert, the Buddhism does not have rigid class or race like India .In general we respect people in our society by seniority both in our social life and in temple, secondly we respect people who has higher "seela" or morality for example we respect monks and religious persons than normal people. In the past only men who had passed his monkshood would be granted for marriage or would be regarded as full adult. In the temple the monk will respect each other and even respect seniority in years of monkshood than ages, and in this case there is hierarchy of position of monk same as in Christianity in order to take care all the monks and Buddhism according to the principles of Buddhism and present social life.

Answer 4

No. There is no central authority for Buddhism.

Unlike many Christian churches, in which there is a hierarchy of responsibility and control, Buddhism has no overall structure or central church. There are different Buddhist traditions, called lineages, such as Tibetan Buddhism, or Theravada Buddhism, Zen Buddhism, etc, but each lineage might or might not have a Lineage Master (like the Dalai Lama, who is the Lineage Master for the Gelug tradition of Tibetan Buddhism). To explain this you need to understand how Buddhism is taught.

Buddhist masters are monks who have learned the teachings sufficiently and has the ability to speak authoritatively about the teachings. They have received permission to do this from their master. This permission is called being given transmission. The monk could then go to another area, open a monastery and then teach others. If one of his monks then learns the teachings sufficiently, the new master could give transmission to his student, and the cycle continues. Please note that learning the teachings of the Buddha is not memorization, these masters must completely understand and be able to explain the teachings in their own words.

So Buddhism has a very diffuse structure.