In Buddhism, the sangha is the community of Buddhist monastics and, in broader usage, the Buddhist community.
The word sangha can refer narrowly to ordained monks and nuns or more broadly to people practicing Buddhism. In the traditional Three Jewels, practitioners take refuge in the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. The monastic sangha preserves communal discipline, study, meditation, and teaching.
The Buddha’s first monastic disciples formed the earliest sangha after his initial teaching at Sarnath. As Buddhism spread, sanghas developed in different regions and adopted local languages, institutions, and customs while maintaining distinctive monastic traditions.
Sangha is sometimes confused with Dharma, which means the Buddha’s teaching or truth, and Vinaya, which refers to monastic discipline. In some modern contexts, lay communities also use sangha for a local group of practitioners.