On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c18.s2.61

v2.c18.s2.61

The Council of the 700, we learn from the Vinaya treatises, had to pronounce on each of the ten innovations in matters of rule and practice introduced by certain Vrijjiputra bhikshus of Vesāli. For these innovations, which are enumerated in the Vinayas, the Brethren who propounded them and adhered to them claimed that the innovations either had canonical authority or were in accordance with, and to be logically inferred from, the rules and teaching of the canonical scriptures. The Council was called to examine into these matters and give the authoritative final decision of the Church on them, and to promulgate the standard Dharma and Vinaya (or Vinaya only). It was a very representative assembly, being composed of members from various districts and important centres of Buddhism in India. Some of the members apparently brought one, and some had more than one copy, of the Vinaya, while others had retained in memory the teachings of the first apostles. The ten erroneous tenets and the practices based on them were openly announced in succession, and separately condemned by vote as against the Vinaya, the circumstances in which the rule against each point was made being quoted from the sūtras or Vinaya. Then the Vinaya was reduced to order and finally settled: it was drawn up in a five-fold division, its contents being largely drawn from the sūtras. Very little is told in any treatise about the effect of the Council’s action on the sinning Brethren, but we are left to infer that they submitted to authority and returned to orthodox practices. There is nothing whatever to indicate that they seceded and formed a great sect or school.