Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c31.s6.2

v2.c31.s6.2

In view of the general agreement of the different traditions, the session of the Second Council is taken as historical by the present-day writers. There can be no question about the fact that the Council marked the beginning of divisions in the Buddhist church, and that the disruption hinged on the ten un-Vinayic rules. The different traditions agree about nine of the ten rules though they may have differed in their interpretations. The only point which requires further evidences is the date of the Council and the name of the king under whose auspices the Council was held. The Ceylonese chronicles gives Kālāsoka as the name of the king. Kālāsoka succeeded Susunāga and is identified now with Kākavarṇin of the Purāṇas (see above, p. 22). In view of the fact that Susunāga transferred his capital to Vesālī, it is not unlikely that his son should continue to make Vesālī his royal seat and take interest in the affairs of the monks who were residents of the capital. If Kālāsoka be accepted as the royal patron of the Council,¹ the date of its session will have to be put about a century after Buddha’s death. Kern has questioned the statement of the Ceylonese chronicles about the age of the monks who took leading parts in the deliberations of the Council and pointed out that the names do not include any of the list of teachers given in the fifth chapter of the *Mahāvaṃsa*.² Kern’s apprehensions are not baseless and so we should take the statement of the *Mahāvaṃsa* that some of the monks lived at the time of Buddha³ with a certain amount of caution. As far as the line of teachers is concerned, Kern overlooks the fact that it is a list of succession of the spiritual teachers of Moggaliputta Tissa and not a list of succession of the Saṅghatheras. Kern’s conclusion that the Second Council “preceded but had no connection with the schism of the Mahāsaṅghikas”