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The Mauryan Polity c11.s3.t4: Aśoka and the Third Council

The Mauryan Polity c11.s3.t4

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Aśoka and the Third Council

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(10) Similar to the legends which have grown around the three Tamil Academies (*Saṅgam*) of the Tamil literary tradition, the Buddhist tradition speaks of three councils summoned at different times to settle the disputed points about the dharma. There is a tradition that a council (perhaps the fourth) was held under the patronage of king Kaniṣka. The Ceylonese version is silent on this and maintains the council of Aśoka as the third and the last. In a similar manner the Buddhists of Northern India, not to speak of Tibet and China, do not mention anything about the third Council and refer to the Council of Kaniṣka as the third and the last. Thus there is a conflict of opinion among the Buddhists themselves as regards the so-called Third and Fourth councils. Examining the historical character of the First council Prof. Oldenberg has made the remark that it was pure invention and not history.¹ Considering the disagreement of the varying accounts with regard to the Second Council Kern held that it was dogmatic fiction.² Judged by the modern critical standards we have to conclude that whenever a dispute arose as to the discipline or the doctrine, the leading monks met together and came to some agreement. Not only three or four but a good number might have been held and "later traditions have jumbled them all up into one story", and fathered every one of them invariably to a great monarch like Aśoka or Kaniṣka. Confining ourselves to the Third Council, it is mentioned by the Dīpavaṃśa and the Mahāvaṃśa and referred to by Buddhaghoṣa in his Introduction to Samantapāsādika.¹

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¹ Vinaya Texts, Vol. I, p. 26.

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² Histoire du Bouddhisme, Vol. II, p. 290.

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¹ Dip. VII, p. 34-ff; Mahā., Ch. V; Vinaya Texts, Ed. Oldenberg, Vol. III, p. 306-f.

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The Ceylonese Chronicles which are the primary authority or rather the sole authority for this tradition, with the exception of a single reference in Buddhaghoṣa's writings, have it that a great Council was held under the patronage of Aśoka in his capital city. Briefly the story is as follows:—The Buddhist monasteries were flooded by a large number of people belonging to different heretical sects who practised their own doctrines in the name of the Buddha. Consequently the Buddhist monks had to discontinue for seven years the Uposatha and Pavāraṇa ceremonies. On a representation to the king, who was then Aśoka, he sent on the advice of the Bhikkus, for Tissa Moggaliputta, an eminent Bhikku of the time. With him in an open assembly summoned by Aśoka it was resolved that the Vibhajja doctrine was not unacceptable to the teachings of the Buddha.

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The latest writer on the subject Dr. R. C. Majumdar justly remarks²: "The story stands self-condemned. It is impossible to hold that thousands of heretics entered into the Saṅgha and were not detected for years; that the Uposatha ceremony was stopped for seven years even in his own ārāma in Pāṭaliputra and Aśoka did not know anything of it till at the end of that long period; and lastly that the name and fame of such a great Arhat as Tissa Moggaliputta is represented to be, could possibly remain unknown to Aśoka till the 18th year of his coronation.”¹

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² Buddhistic Studies, pp. 26-72, ed. B. C. Law (Cal. 1931).

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¹ *Buddhistic Studies*, p. 67.

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In addition to the above, other arguments which go to disprove the authenticity of this tradition can be categorically stated.²

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² See J. N. Farquhar, *Outline of the Religious Literature of India*, pp. 68-69; R.C. Mazumdar, *Buddhists and Councils*, in *Buddhistic Studies*, pp. 64-69.

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1. The accounts are a jumble of myth, the miraculous elements predominating.

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2. If the tradition has any basis the original canon must have been in Māgadhī, the vernacular of Aśoka’s capital. What we have on the other hand is the Ceylonese Pāli canon which was reduced to writing some centuries after Aśoka. Whether the rendering in Pāli was from the original Māgadhī we cannot say for certain.

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3. According to Professor Poussin ‘the apostolic or conciliar origin of the *abhidharma* is a pious fraud’. For, all the schools except those of the Vibhajjavādins and of the Sarvāstivādins, approve of two baskets—*vinaya* and *sutta piṭakas*.

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4. The Council was at the most a sectarian assembly of the Vibhajjavādins, perhaps to get their doctrines approved.

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5. There is no reference to it in the *Chullavagga*.

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6. Hiuen Tsiang who records many a tradition about Aśoka does not say anything about this council.

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7. Last but not least is that a Council held under the patronage of Aśoka, it is reasonable to assume, will be mentioned in his inscriptions. According to Farquhar ‘his silence thus suggests a serious doubt about the whole tradition.’

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