On Yuan Chwang's Travels in India, 629–645 A.D. v2.c20.92

v2.c20.92

Passing over the pilgrim's fanciful account of the summoning and formation of the Council we come to the words which I have translated "the President's Collection" (Shang-tso-pu). The text reads—"At the end of two or three months the compilation of the Tripiṭaka was finished; because Mahā-Kāśyapa was president among the Brethren, they called it the President's collection" (兩三月盡集三藏訖以大迦葉僧中上座因而謂之上座部焉). Julien translates— "Au bout de deux ou trois mois, la collection des trois recueils se trouva achevée. Comme Mahā Kāśyapa avait eu, au milieu des religieux, le titre de président, on appela son école *Chang-tso-pou* (*Sthaviranikāya*)." Here the introduction of the words "son école" seems to violate the construction and to make an anachronism. In like manner the words *ta-chung-pu* (大衆部) in the passage which follows seem to mean "the Collection of the Great Congregation", and not "l'école de la Grande Assemblée" as Julien translates. It was the Scriptures declared by Kāśyapa's Council to be canonical which were called the Sthaviranikāya or Shang-tso-pu, and these together with the additions made by the excluded Brethren constituted the Mahāsanghika-nikāya. Yuan-chuang's words seem to imply that two sets of Sūtra, Vinaya, and Abhidharma were drawn up, but this is perhaps more than he meant to state. The mixed majority Brethren accepted all that the Sthaviras pronounced canonical, and we find it expressly stated that the Vinaya settled by Kāśyapa's Council was called the Mahāsanghika Vinaya.¹ But there were various discourses or teachings which the Sthaviras excluded from their canon; and some of these were declared by the mixed majority of Brethren, with Pūrṇa (or Purāṇa) at their head, to be canonical. Such scriptures came to be called Mahāsanghikanikāya-āgama, and we find them quoted by this name in the śastras of Buddhist writers.² The Chinese word *pu* translates the Sanskrit word *Nikāya* in its senses of group of persons and collection of scriptures, but we know that the Sthavira and Mahāsanghika Schools did not arise until after the time of Kāśyapa.