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Manual of Indian Buddhism c7: Part V. Outlines of Ecclesiastical History

Manual of Indian Buddhism c7

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English

Contents

Part V. Outlines of Ecclesiastical History

1. First General Council

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The first century of the history of the Buddhist community is marked by two events which are separated by an interval of 100 years, no more nor less⁸. Those events are the first and the second Council, Saṅgīti, the account of which makes part of the canonical books, and, with unimportant discrepancies, is common to all sects.

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⁸ Except in some N. accounts which give 110 years; WASSILIEF B. 225.

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The narrative of the first Council, as given in the Pāli canon⁹, is in short as follows. After the demise of the Master a certain Subhadda, who had become a member of the Order in his old age¹⁰, said to his fellows: "Do not grieve, do not lament! We are happily rid of the Great Śramaṇa. We used to be annoyed by being told: "This beseems you, this beseems you not." But now we shall be able to do what we like, and what we do not like, we shall not have to do." In order to obviate the dangerous effects of such unbeseeming utterances, Kāśyapa the Great, whom the Master had designed as his successor¹, made the proposal that the brethren should assemble to rehearse the Lord's precepts. The proposal was adopted, and Kāśyapa was now entreated to select 500 Arhats. This being done, it was decided that Rājagṛha should be the place of assembly. During a seven month's session in the Sattapaṇṇa or Sattapaṇṇi Cave of the Vebhāra Hill near Rājagṛha the Vinaya was fixed with the assistance of Upāli, the Dhamma with Ānanda's.

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⁹ CV. XI; Dīpav. IV. V. Buddhaghoṣa in S. Vibh. I, 285 ff. Bodhiv. 85 ff. Cp. OLDENBERG Intr. to MV. XXVI, ff.

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¹⁰ Apparently another than Subhadda "the last disciple whom the Lord himself converted", MPS. V, 69. Cp. Tib. L. 293; Voy. II, 339.

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¹ On a certain occasion Kāśyapa had offered his Saṅghāṭi to the Buddha; Samy. N. II, p. 221; Tib. L. 304.

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It has been remarked by OLDENBERG² that "what we have here before us is not history, but pure invention, and, moreover, an invention of no very ancient date. Apart from internal reasons that might be adduced to prove this, we are able to prove it by comparing an older text which is older than this story." That text is the Mahā-Parinibbāna-Sutta, where, indeed, the story of the irreverent conduct of Subhadda occurs, but in such a way that it cannot have been the motive for Kāśyapa's proposal to convoke a Council.

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² Introd. MV. p. XXVII.

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Now the motive alleged in the CV. is not only absent from the Sutta, but likewise from the Dīpavaṃsa. Hence the argument for the great antiquity of that Sutta falls to the ground, for the Dīpav. cannot be made older than the CV. But this remark in no wise invalidates the conclusion that the dogmatical story of the first Council, as told in CV., is comparatively young. No wonder that we find nothing of that alleged motive with the N. sects. In the Mahāvastu³ Kāśyapa is induced to have the precepts collected because he wished to prevent that people might say: "The Śākya-sons kept the precepts only as long the Master was alive, and they forsake them after his demise." This very motive, and almost in the same words, really recurs in the CV., but on occasion of the discussion during the Council regarding the observation of the small and minor precepts⁴. The place where the Council was held, is, in the same work, the Cave Saptaparṇa, a resort of Ṛṣis, on the North of the Vaihāra hill⁵. Other N. accounts we here dismiss, referring the reader to the somewhat troubled sources⁶.

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³ I, 69.

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⁴ CV. XI, 9: "Sace mayam khuddānukhuddakāni sikkhāpadāni samūhanissāma, bhavissanti vaṭṭāro: dhūmakālikam Samaṇena Gotamena sāvakānam sikkhāpadam paññattam." Tirthikā ca bahidhānugatāśca kuryur apratima śāsanadoṣam | dhūmakālikam iti Śramaṇasya; etad eva ca tu rakṣaṇīyam no ||

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⁵ Read with the MSS. Saptaparṇa Ṛṣilenaguhāyām, and in the following line Vaihāra. Cp. Rec. 85 of Fa Hian, who had very dim notions of the Council, for he fancied that Śariputra and Maudgalyāyana had been present at the assembly, though it is generally known that both died before the Master.

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⁶ Tib. L. 305; ROCKHILL op. c. 148 ff. Voy. I, 156; III, 32. Cp. also MINAYEF Recherches I, 28.

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All available accounts of the Council at Rājagṛha agree in this that the Vinaya and Dharma were rehearsed. Some add the Abhidharma, but this is not mentioned in CV. nor in Dīpavaṃsa⁷. There is a general agreement also as to the parts played by Upāli and Ānanda in the proceedings. But on comparing the different accounts we easily perceive that other Disciples, too, were contributors to the whole of the collection. We read that Kāśyapa was the chief "propounder" of the Dhutavāda precepts, whilst Ānanda was the first of those learned (in the Suttas or Dhamma), and Upāli in the Vinaya¹. If we are asked how much we have to believe of the canonical accounts of the first Council, we are in good conscience bound to acknowledge that the only really historical fact is this that the Council of the Sthaviras at Rājagṛha is recognized by all Buddhists. It is by no means incredible that the Disciples after the death of the founder of their sect came together to come to an agreement concerning the principal points of the creed and of the discipline. A rehearsal of the Tripiṭaka, or even of the Vinaya and Sūtra collections, is wholly out of question². Some elements of the tales connected with the first Council may, and probably will be older than the composition of the sacred writings, but they have been disfigured to such an extent that it is as yet impossible to separate the dogmatical and legendary elements from the historical facts³.

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⁷ ROCKHILL op. c. 160; Tib. L. 307; Voy. I, 158. The collection of the Abhidharma, or Māṭṛkās, is ascribed to Kāśyapa. The phrase Piṭakam ṭini saṅgītim akamsu CV. p. 293 proves nothing, it only occurring in the résumé.

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¹ Dīpav. IV; V.

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² Cp. WASSILIEF B. 38.

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³ Cp. the remarks of MINAYEF op. c. 39.

2. Second General Council

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According to the universal Buddhist tradition the second general Council was held at Vaiśālī. The records of it look like copies of a genuine historical document which have been falsified as to the date and in some other particulars.

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The most circumstantial account is preserved in the P. Vinaya⁴. It is in substance as follows. A century after the Lord's Parinirvāṇa the monks of Vṛji (Vajjī) lineage at Vaiśālī declared as permissible the Ten Points (*dasa vatthūni*), to wit: 1. storing salt in a horn; 2. the taking of the midday meal when the sun's shadow shows two finger-breadths after noon; 3. the going to some village (or: to another village) and there eating fresh food⁵; 4. residing (in the same parish and yet holding the Uposatha separately); 5. sanction (of a solemn act in an incomplete chapter); 6. the (unconditional) following of a precedent; 7. the partaking of unchurned milk; 8. of unfermented toddy; 9. the use of a mat without fringes (not conform with the model prescribed); 10. to accept gold and silver.

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⁴ CV. XII. Cp. Buddhaghoṣa in S. Vibh. I, 293 ff. Saddh. S. II; Dīpav. V, 16 ff. Mahāv. IV.

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⁵ The explanation of the elliptical terms in CV. XII, 1, 10; 2, 8, and in MINAYEF'S Prātim. XXXIX, is of dubious value. Both the Points and the interpretation differ more or less in the Tibetan Vinayakṣudraka, Tar. 41; cp. ROCKHILL op. c. 171, f. The terms were obscure even to the Thera Revata, one of the chiefs of the Council. — A discussion on the interpretation of the terms in MINAYEF Recherches I, 44-50.

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At that time the Sthavira Yaśas, Kākaṇḍaka's son, came to Vaiśālī, and whilst staying in the Mahāvana, witnessed the unlawful practices of the Vṛjian monks. By addressing the laity he endeavoured to stop the iniquity of the brethren, who instead of desisting from their wrong practices, carried out against him the act of making excuses to the offended laity. Yaśas protested and demanded that a companion should be appointed to go with himself as a messenger, so that he might have the occasion of asking redress for the wrong done to him. His demand being wouchsafed, he entered with his companion into the city of Vaiśālī, where he laid his case before the believing laymen. He was deservedly successful in his eloquent pleading, for the laymen after hearing him declared that he alone was a worthy Śramaṇa and son of Śākya. The Vrjian monks, being informed by their deputy of the decision, continued obstinate, and carried out against Yaśas the act of excommunication. But Yaśas rose up into the sky, and descended at Kauśāmbī. From that place he sent messengers to the brethren in the W. country, in Avanti, and in the S. country, summoning them to an assembly¹. He himself went to Sambhūta Sāṇavāsin on the Ahogaṅga Hill, told him what had happened, and persuaded him that a lawful decision in the case was absolutely necessary. In the meantime many brethren, all Arhats, flocked together from the regions afore-named. After some deliberation they arrived at the conclusion that it would be of the utmost importance to persuade Revata, then dwelling at Soreyya, he being a man who knew the Āgamas, the Dharma, the Vinaya, and the Mātṛkās². Now Revata on perceiving by his divine ear what the Sthaviras intended to do, and wishing to keep out of the quarrel, left Soreyya for Sāṅkāśya. When the brethren arrived at Soreyya and heard that Revata had left for Sāṅkāśya, they travelled to that place. On arriving they heard that he had gone to Kanauj. After many fruitless endeavours they at last overtook him in Sahajāti. There Yaśas had an interview with Revata, and submitted to him the question whether the Ten Points were allowable. The decision of Revata — as might be expected — was that they were not, whereupon Yaśas persuaded him to take the legal question in hand before the unlawful practices could become general.

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¹ The Western monks are designed as "Pātheyyaka bhikkhus". For Pātheyya and Pātheyyaka see ED. MÜLLER JPTS. of 1888, p. 54.

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² This points to a previous collection of the Abhidharma.

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Meanwhile the Vrjian monks of Vaiśālī had heard rumours about the doings of Yaśas, and being convinced that the opinion of Revata would carry great weight, they decided upon trying to gain him over to their party. So they went to Sahajāti. Before they had had occasion to meet Revata, it happened that the Thera Sāḷha felt some doubt whether the monks of the West or those of the East were in accordance with the Law. His doubts were happily soon dissipated by a heavenly being, to whom he promised to make manifest his opinion when needed.

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The Vaiśālī monks had no success in their endeavours to gain over Revata, in spite of the presents they offered to him and of their machinations to bribe Uttara, a disciple of his.

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When the legal assembly had met to decide the question, Revata proposed a resolution that the Saṅgha should settle the question at that place where it arose, i. e. at Vaiśālī. The resolution being adopted, the brethren went to Vaiśālī. Now at that time there lived in that city an old Thera, Sabbakāmin by name, who 120 years ago had received Upasampadā. This venerable monk of the East was asked by Sambhūta and Revata his opinion, and he made to them the same promise as Sāḷha had done to the heavenly being.

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In the subsequent meeting of the Saṅgha the proceedings did not succeed, which circumstance moved Revata to lay a proposal before the assembly that the question should be submitted to a committee. So he selected a committee of eight persons, four monks of the East, viz. Sabbakāmin, Sāḷha, Khujjasobhita, and Vāsabhagāmika; and four of the West: Revata, Sambhūta, Yaśas, and Sumana. The younger monk Ajita was appointed as regulator of seats.

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As the place of meeting of the committee was chosen the Valikārāma, a quiet and undisturbed spot.

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The proceedings of the committee¹ were conducted in this manner that Revata put the questions, and Sabbakāmin delivered his authoritative replies. All the Ten Points were declared to be against the rules, and therewith the Vrjian monks were put in the wrong². The assembly in pleno, in which the Vinaya was rehearsed, is said to have consisted of 700 monks. No mention whatever is made of the Suttas and the Abhidamma.

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¹ Mahāv. p. 26.

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² Points 1, 2, 3, 7, 8, and 9 were in conflict with Art. 38, 37, 35, 35, 51, and 89 of Title Pācittiya; Point 10 with Art. 10 Nissaggiya; Point 4 and 5 with MV. II, 8, 3, and IX, 3, 5; the decision of Point 6 depends upon circumstances.

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Before adducing other testimonies, we cannot help observing that the date assigned to the second Council is impossible, unless the heroes of the tale are purely fictitious. A century after the Parinirvāna, Sarvakāmin would have been at least 140 years of age; Yaśas, Kākaṇḍaka's son, if he be identical with Yaśas, one of the first converts of the Buddha, would have been 20 + 45 + 100 = 165 years; if he be another, then he must have been more than 120 years, and so, too, the other Theras³. A chronology leading to such monstrous results condemns itself. The names of the acting Theras may be historical, and the account of their doings, apart from some incongruities and absurdities, may be founded upon a genuine tradition.

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³ Satha died before the Lord; MPS. II, 6. This fact is ignored in CV., or perhaps he had been resuscitated. Why not? We have in so serious a work as the Mil. P. a striking instance of revival in the case of the six Tirthikas.

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The later Simhalese documents pretend to know much more of the Council of Vaiśālī than the canonical Vinaya. They give in substance what is found in the sacred text, but with additions which partly are not warranted by, and partly positively conflicting, with the canonical record. Thus the Dipav. one time fixes the number of those who attended the second Council at 700, another time at 1 200 000⁴. It further adds that at the time of the second Council "Aśoka, the son of Siśunāga, was king; that prince ruled in the town of Pāṭaliputra". Elsewhere⁵ Siśunāga is called the immediate predecessor of the Nandas, so that Siśunāga is confounded with Kāla (v. l. Kāla) Aśoka. Such incongruities have nothing to surprise us in a work which is not a well-digested composition, but an uncritical collection of various older sources, chiefly memorial verses. Hence the same event is told twice with variations. The most important addition is the statement that after the second Council had been closed, another Council was held by the losing party. "The wicked Bhikkhus, the Vajjiputtakas who had been excommunicated by the Theras, gained another party; and many people, holding the wrong doctrine, ten thousand, assembled and held a council. Therefore this Dhamma-council is called the Great Council (Mahāsangiti)." Herewith compare the statement in another work⁶ that the ten thousand wicked Bhikkhus established the wrong doctrine termed the Ācariya-vāda, i. e. the doctrine of the Ācariyas, in contradistinction to the orthodox doctrine of the Sthaviras, the Theravāda. The wrong doctrine is also called that of the Mahāsangha (Mahāsanghika). Hence follows, if the tradition is to be trusted, that instead of one Council, two Councils were held, the second by the condemned party⁷, a short time after the former. Further it would appear that the majority of the Buddhists clung to the so-called schismatics. How else to explain such terms as Mahāsangīti and Mahāsanghika? The denomination of Ācāryavāda given by the orthodox to the Mahāsānghika or Mahāsangītika doctrine, suggests the fact that the latter cause was upheld by the more learned elements of the Order.

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⁴ Dipav. IV, 52; V, 20; 25.

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⁵ Dipav. V, 99.

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⁶ Bodhiv. p. 96.

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⁷ Mark that the party had not at all been condemned in matters of doctrine, but exclusively in points of discipline.

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Now the question arises "where did the Mahāsai gīti assemble?" We have not been able to find a distinct statement in the Simhalese sources. According to a N. tradition the council of the Mahāsānghikas was held not far from the place where the first Council had assembled¹. We are informed that the party of the Great Assembly, the Mahāsānghikas, derived that name from both monks and laics attending the Council, and that on that occasion a new collection of the Scriptures was made. There is no question of the Ten Points or the orthodox Council at Vaiśālī².

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¹ Voy. I, 158; III, 37.

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² No more than in the account found in a Chinese commentary on the Vinaya; WASSILLEF H. 225. As to the heretical theories of the Mahāsānghikas in matter of doctrine, see Kathav. P. A. X; XI; XII; XIV; XV; XVI; XVIII; XXI.

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In the Simhalese sources the leaders of the Mahāsānghikas are identified with the Vrjian monks of Vaiśālī. Now we know that these were in possession of the Kūṭāgāra Hall of the Mahāvana, as the chronicles affirm³. In order to obviate this difficulty, the Simhalese have invented a tale. The King Kāla Aśoka at first favoured the heretics — exactly as the historical Aśoka did —, but afterwards he changed his mind, thanks to the interference of the gods and to a dream of his sister. By his protection the orthodox could assemble in the Mahāvana monastery, whereas the committee had its sittings in the Vālīkārāma. The canonical account knows nothing of an assembly in the Mahāvana, nor is any mention made of it in the Bodhivamsa nor by Buddhaghoṣa⁴, though the latter, after saying that the second Council is called that of the 700, adds that it was attended by 1 200 000 monks, precisely as in the Dipav. All available Sin halese accounts agree in asserting that the whole collection of the Dhamma and Vinaya was revised, against the authority of the canon, which only speaks of a Vinaya Sangīti. In the N. tradition just alluded to there is, indeed, likewise question of a revision of the complete sacred texts, but by the Mahāsānghikas.

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³ Dipav. V, 29, but Bodhiv. and Buddhaghoṣa have Valukārāma.

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⁴ Dipav. l. c. again does not mention the Valukārāma.

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The contradictions between the canon and the Simhalese narratives are apt to move grave doubts anent the connection between the condemning of the Ten Points and the schismatic Great Council. Let us now turn to the N. traditions⁵ about the question of the Ten Points.

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⁵ ROCKHILL op. c. 171 ff. Voy. II, 397; Tār. 290.

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When one hundred and ten years had elapsed after the Nirvāṇa some monks at Vaiśālī deviated from the Law and transgressed the rules of discipline in Ten Points⁶. In those days there lived an old Sthavira, Yaśas, in Kosala; another, Sambhūta, in Mathurā, Revata in Sahaja, Kubjaśobhita in Pāṭaliputra — all of them pupils of Ānanda⁷. Yaśas despatched messengers to summon the brethren to a gathering in Vaiśālī. When 699 monks had come together, Kubjaśobhita, perceiving by his divine eye what was going on, appeared by Ṛddhi in the midst of the assembly to complete the number. Sambhūta proposed in due form a resolution that the monks of Vaiśālī, who in the Ten Points had deviated from the regulations of the Master, should be censured. The resolution being adopted, "the great assembly" proceeded to severely censure the delinquents, who repented and left their bad practices.

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⁶ The expressions in Voy. l. s. remind one of *apagatasathusāsana*, *ubbinaya*, CV. XII, 2, 8.

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⁷ To whom may be added from Bu-ston (Tār. 290): Salha and Ajita; uncertain is Vṛshabhagāmin, or rather impossible, for *Nor-can* means "wealthy".

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It does not appear to which of the various sects this version of the story belongs. This much is clear that it more or less differs from the tradition of the Mahīśāsakas and from another in the Bu-ston¹. On comparing the version preserved to us by the Chinese pilgrim with the narrative in the Pāli canon, the former makes the impression of being older, but on the whole they are much on a par. Both versions agree — and that is an important point — therein that they indirectly deny any connection between the condemnation of the Ten Points and the Council of the Mahāsānghikas. The expression "the great assembly", i. e. the meeting in pleno, positively shows that there is no question of a Mahāsangīti apart from the Council on Vaiśālī². Such an agreement between the traditions of two totally different sects goes far to prove that the story of the Mahāsangīti or Mahāsānghika schism as connected with the Council at Vaiśālī is an invention, perhaps suggested by such an expression as "the great assembly".

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¹ Tar. 290 f.; ROCKHILL op. c. 173. In the version of the Mahīśāsakas the date is 100 years, the name of the president being Sarvakāma. This agreement with the Pali version is natural enough, because the Mahīśāsakas have branched off from the Orthodox sect after the schism of the Mahāsānghikas.

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² We have seen above that Huen Thsang gives elsewhere a separate account of the Mahāsānghika Council.

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In one Tibetan source³ we read that 110 years after the Nirvāṇa Yaśas and the pupils of Ānanda, to the number of 700, assembled in Vaiśālī, and there perfected a second collection. No such collection is spoken of in the other sources⁴. The rambling and confused narrative of Tāranātha⁵ teaches us nothing.

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³ Tib. L. 309.

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⁴ Cp. ROCKHILL op. c. 180.

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⁵ Tar. 41 f.

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If we wish to weigh against each other the value of the S. and that of the N. sources, we must begin with leaving out of the reckoning all unwarranted additions, either by the Simhalese or by others. By so doing and by waiving points of secondary importance, we perceive that the difference turns about ten years, the P. canon fixing the Council at Vaiśālī at 100 years after Nirvāṇa, whereas most N. traditions give 110 years. Both dates are inadmissible, and for the same reason: the impossible age of the actors. Both the P. canon and the Vinayakṣudraka, as well as Huen Thsang leave us in the dark about the king in whose reign the second Council took place. That silence has given rise to interminable controversies on the date of Buddha's death⁶. According to the chronology adopted by the Simhalese, the king reigning 100 years after Buddha's death was a certain Kāla Aśoka, whereas the N. Buddhists almost universally represent Aśoka the Maurya as having ascended the throne a century or thereabouts after Buddha's Nirvāṇa⁷. It would be very convenient if we could eliminate the difficulty by asserting — as has been done — that the N. Buddhists confounded two kings of the same name. Such an assertion is easy enough, but to make it good would be more difficult. In the first place, we should not speak of an involuntary confusion, for the all but general view of the N. Buddhists is intimately connected with the whole system of chronology. The Sthavira Yaśas is most decidedly and deliberately represented as a contemporary of Dharma Aśoka¹. There can be no doubt about his identity with the Yaśas of the Vaiśālī Council. For he declares to Aśoka the Maurya that he is the oldest remaining of the Disciples of the Buddha, Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja alone excepted. The untrustworthiness of the tale remains the same, whether Yaśas showed his activity 100 years after Buddha's Nirvāṇa in the reign of a King Kāla Aśoka, or of another King Dharma Aśoka. Where two accounts are equally absurd, there is no reason to give a marked preference to either². Under such circumstances any decisive choice is more a matter of taste or fancy, than of science, specially as we find no support in independent, Brahmanic sources³.

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⁶ The chief papers bearing on the chronological question are TURNOUR, Pref. to his ed. of Mahāv., and in JASB. VI, 505; LASSEN Ind. Alt. II, 53; MAX MÜLLER Anc. S. L. 263; SBE. X, pp. XXIX ff.; WESTERGAARD, Über Buddha's Todesjahr; BÜHLER in Ind. Ant. VI, 149; VII, 141; XX, 299; SENART in JA. of 1879, p. 524; of 1892, p. 482; OLDENBERG in DMG. XXXV, 474; RHYS DAVIDS Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon p. 57; PISCHEL in Acad. of 1877, p. 145. Cp. BARTH, Rel. of India p. 107, and Bulletin des Rel. de l'Inde of 1894.

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⁷ It is in the Avadāna-Śataka (BURNOUF Intr. 432) that Aśoka is said to have reigned at Pāṭaliputra 200 years after Buddha's death. We may add that according to a notice in

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¹ Divy. 381; 385; 399; 404; 406; 423.

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² The preference to the Simhalese account is, from a critical standpoint, the less intelligible, because ever since TURNOUR advocated the claims of the Simhalese chronology, it has been admitted on all hands that it contains an error of more than 60 years. That error has been palliated by the guess that such an error has sprung up after the period of Aśoka. But a system which contains such a blunder or wilful misstatement at a later period is a fortiori suspicious for more ancient times.

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³ For a comparative treatment of the Simhalese and the Jaina chronology we refer to JACOBI, DMG. XXXIV, 185; XXXV, 667; cp. OLDENBERG XXXIV, 751.

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The only indisputable fact resulting from a comparison of the different accounts is the existence of conflicting traditions, and that in comparatively ancient times. Traces of unsettled questions are found in the Simhalese documents. We have seen that in one of them Śiśunāga appears instead of Kālāśoka. Elsewhere we come across the following prophecy by the Buddha: "I shall reach complete Parinibbāna, like the setting sun. Four months after my Parinibbāna the first convocation will be held. A hundred and eighteen years later the third convocation will take place, for the sake of the propagation of the Faith. Then there will be a ruler over this Jambudīpa, a highly virtuous, glorious monarch known as Dhammāsoka⁴". This is not the only instance. In another works the date of the beginning of Duṭṭha-Gāmaṇi's reign is, in the prose text, 376 after the Nirvāṇa, but in the older and much more authoritative memorial verse following, it is 276.

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⁴ Dīpav. I, 24-26. The translator adds in a note: "A mention of the second convocation, which was held a hundred years after Buddha's death, is wanting in the MSS.; the third is said to have been held 118 years after the second." The first statement is true, but fails to explain the reason why the mention is wanting. The second statement is not true, from Dīpav. VII, 37 it appears that the Council took place 236 years after Nirvāṇa. The date 218 is that of Aśoka's Abhiṣeka; Dīpav. VI, 1; Bodhiv. p. 100; S. Vibh. I, 321, where the reckoning yields 228, but evidently owing to some error in the figures.

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If, in our helpless endeavours to find a firm support, we resort to the list of chief teachers succeeding the Master, we soon become aware of having caught hold of a feeble reed. The succession of teachers, Ācariyaparamparā, of the Theravāda down to the third Council, consists of the following names: Upāli, Dāsaka, Sonaka, Siggava, and Tissa Moggaliputta; some couple with Siggava

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Tib. L. 309 Aśoka was born eight generations after Udayibhadra. This gives more than 200 years, and in so far corroborates the Sir halese tradition.

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⁵ Saddh-S. p. 47.

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the name of Caṇḍavajji¹. It is well-known that Kāśyapa the Great, and not Upāli, was the head of the Order after Buddha's death, but it is admitted that Upāli was the chief of the Vinaya. Dāsaka and Sonaka are likewise designated as chiefs of the Vinaya. Therefore it is exceedingly strange that in the Council of Vaiśālī, where such important questions of discipline were treated, the chief Sonaka is conspicuous by his absence. If such a chief did exist, the great men of the committee completely ignored him. Another suspicious fact is the notice that Tissa Moggaliputta received the Upasampadā ordination in the 3d year of Candragupta's reign, i. e. 314 B. C. or somewhat earlier. He died 86 years after his ordination², i. e. at the age of 106 years. If, contrary to the expressed view of the Sinhalese chroniclers, the numbers are taken as representing the years of life of the five teachers, then the sum total will yield 5 × 20 = 100 less, because the Upasampadā is fixed at 20 years. The interval between the Nirvāṇa and the death of Tissa M. will then be reduced with a whole century. It is by no means impossible that a similar ambiguity in the traditional numbers lies at the bottom of the difference between the Sinhalese and the N. dates of the Nirvāṇa. The otherwise inexplicable want of agreement in regard of that date, may be accounted for on the assumption that the Buddhists of various sects were in the habit of calculating an initial date by summing up the traditional number of years allotted to the first five successive chiefs or reputed chiefs of the Vinaya³. The considerations which may have moved each sect to adopt their own date for the Nirvāṇa are concealed to us, but it would seem that in addition to dogmatical reasons the synchronism of ecclesiastical dates with events of local or national interest have influenced. Thus the Chinese have managed to throw back the initial date to ± 1000 B. C. It is possible, nay probable that the Sinhalese⁴ have acted upon the same principle. This would explain how they got their date of 543 B. C., which is proved to be false.

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¹ S. Vibh. I, 292; Dīpav. IV; V, 57.

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² Dīpav. V, 94; but immediately after it we find 80 years; another instance of two conflicting statements in juxtaposition.

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³ Another list of five teachers (not of Vinaya) is: Kāśyapa, Ananda, Madhyantika, Śaṇavāsa, and Upagupta; WASSILIEF B. 225; Tar. 14. Again another has: Ananda, Yaśas, Śaṇavāsa, wrongly identified with Yaśas, Upagupta, and Dhitika; Tib. L. 308. Cp. WASSILIEF on Tār. 290. The great man in the time of Aśoka is Upagupta, of whom the Master predicts that he will fulfil the Buddha task (Buddhakāryam) 100 years after the Parinirvāṇa; Divy. 350; he takes Orders under Śaṇakavāsin; 349; his feats are described 352; 359; 363; 395; he speaks like the Buddha 428. Cp. BURNOUF Intr. 377 ff.; ROCKHILL op. c. 170.

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⁴ Properly we should say: the date adopted by the monks of the Mahāvihāra. We are not acquainted with the chronological system of the monks of Abhayagiri.

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The conclusions we arrive at after comparing the various traditions or what is given as such, are extremely vague, and may be summarized in the following propositions. The Council on Vinaya in Vaiśālī has an historical base; it was held x years after the death of the founder of the Order, and a considerable time before the composition and first collection of the great bulk of the Scriptures. It preceded, but had no connection with the schism of the Mahāsāṅghikas. We leave undecided whether Kāḷaśoka be an ingenious invention of the Sthavira sect or not. For our part, we have a lurking suspicion that the name originally denoted the Maurya king in his black and sinful days, and is almost synonymous with Caṇḍaśoka and Kāmāśoka, as the monarch is called before his conversion, after which he became Dharmāśoka⁵.

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⁵ Divy. 374; 381 f.; Tār. 29; cp. 39.

3. Council of Pāṭaliputra

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This Council was no general Council, but a party meeting, of the Theravādas or Vibhajyavādins, as it was held after the schism of the Mahāsānghikas, the men of the Mahāsāngīti. No wonder that it is ignored by all other sects.

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The account of this party meeting, held at Pāṭaliputra 18 years after the Abhiśeka of Aśoka, is so full of glaring untruths that but few of the particulars can be accepted as historical. The story¹ runs in short as follows.

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¹ Dīpav. V, 55–69; VI, 21 ff.; VIII, 34–59; S. Vibh. I, 294 ff.; 306–313; Mahāv. pp. 30–33; 42 ff.; Bodhiv. p. 104 ff. Buddhaghoṣa Sam. Pās. in S. Vibh. I, 294. Cp. MINAYEF Recherches I, Ch. IV.

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The Theras of the Council at Vaiśālī foresaw that after 118 years there would arise a Śramaṇa, who descending from Brahma's heaven, would be born in a Brahman family. His name would be Tissa, his surname Moggaliputta. After having received ordination from the couple Siggava and Candavajji² he would annihilate the Tirthika doctrines³ and firmly establish the Faith. This would happen when Aśoka, a righteous king, would reign in Pāṭaliputra.

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² A quite extraordinary proceeding, as according to the regulations the ordination is conferred by one person.

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³ Which are wholly out of question in a Buddhist council.

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When all the 700 Theras of the second Council had attained final Nirvāṇa⁴, Tissa was born, grew up, and was taught the Brahmanic sciences, until he became a convert and was received into the Order by Siggava. His Upasampadā coincides with the third year of Candragupta's reign, i. e. somewhere between 218 and 212 B. C.

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⁴ Consequently Siggava and Candavajji were not among the 700. This number is canonical, but at variance with Dīpav. V, 20.

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When 236 years had elapsed after the Nirvāṇa, sixty-thousand monks dwelt in the Aśokārāma. Sectarians of different descriptions, all of them wearing the Kaṣāya, ruined the Doctrine of the Jina. It was then that Tissa M. convoked a Council, attended by 1000 monks. Having destroyed the false doctrines and subdued many shameless people, he restored the true Faith, and propounded the Abhidhamma treatise Kathāvatthu. It was from him that Mahendra, the future apostle of Ceylon, learnt the 5 Nikāyas, the 7 books of Abhidhamma, and the whole Vinaya.

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This tale is immediately followed by a second account, evidently taken from another source, but in the main agreeing with the former; the number of monks in the assembly has increased to sixty-thousand; a difference of no value except inasmuch as it furnishes another instance of the uncritical compilatory character of the chronicle.

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We have left out all the downright absurdities of the tale, but even so pruned it betrays its dogmatical and sectarian tendency. The principal object of the whole story is to prove that the Vibhajyavādins of the Mahāvihāra are the real and original orthodox sect⁵. Such a claim could hardly remain uncontested by other divisions of the orthodox, e. g. the Mahīśāsakas, who were flourishing in Ceylon when Fa Hian visited the island. Now the question arises: have we sufficient data to pronounce a judgment in the case? Let us see.

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⁵ S. Vibh. I, 312; Bodhiv. p. 110; Kathāv. P. A. p, 6.

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The chronicles representing the views of the Vibhajyavādins make a broad distinction between the Theravāda with its offshoots, and the Mahāsānghika or Ācāryavāda schism with its subdivisions⁶. The orthodox Theravāda in course of time produced the Mahīśāsakas and the Vajjiputtakas; the latter branched off into four sections: the Dharmottarikas, Bhadrayānikas, Saṇṇagarikas, and Sammitiyas; the former, into the Sarvāstivādins and Dharmaguptikas. Further offshoots may be passed in silence.

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⁶ Dīpav. V, 39 ff.; Bodhiv. 96; Kathāv. P. A. pp. 2–5.

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In this enumeration no sect of Vibhajyavādins occurs; naturally so, because the Vibhajyavādins themselves hold up the claim that their tenets and their canon are identical with those of the primitive Sthaviravāda. But if we turn to other documents, we cannot but feel some misgivings whether the claims put forward by the monks of the Mahāvihāra are wholly indisputable. According to the system of the schismatic Mahāsānghikas, who had not the slightest interest in being partial anent a question exclusively touching outsiders, we have to adopt a threefold primary division of the Sthaviras, Mahāsānghikas, and Vibhajyavādins¹. The Sthaviras are subdivided into Sarvāstivādins and Vatsiputriyas, evidently the same with the Vajjiputtakas (i. e. Vrjiputrakas) of the chronicles. This sudivision would entirely agree with the former, were it not that the Dipav. has put the Mahīśāsakas between the Sthaviras and the Sarvāstivādins. One of the subdivisions of the Orthodox in the N., the Sarvāstivādins, consider the Mūla-sarvastivādins to be more primitive than the Vibhajyavādins, though they acknowledge the monks of Mahāvihāra, as well as those of the Abhayagiri and of the Jetavana in Ceylon, to be Sthaviras². In another source³ we read that some time after the Lord's Parinirvāṇa the Saṅgha was split up into two sects, the Sthaviras and the Mahāsānghikas, in the reign of Aśoka. In the third century the Sthaviras divided themselves into two sects, the Sarvāstivādins, otherwise named Hetuvādas or Vibhajyavādins, and the primitive Sthaviras, who, however, adopted the denomination of Haimavatas⁴. In a Tibetan list of comparatively late date the monks of the Mahāvihāra are entered as a distinct sect, but we may dismiss that view as erroneous, or at least as not exact⁵.

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¹ Tār. 271. Cp. ROCKHILL op. c. 182–196; MINAYEF Recherches Ch. VIII, IX. An exposition of the tenets of the various texts, viewed from the standpoint of the Vibhajyavādins or Theras of the Mahāvihāra, is found in Kathāv. P. A.

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² Tār. 272.

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³ See WASSILIEF B. 224–226; 230.

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⁴ In Kathāv. P. A. the Hetuvādas are implicitly represented as holding opinions differing from those of the Vibhajyavādins; XV; XVI; XVII; XIX; XX; XXXIII.

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⁵ BURNOUF Intr. 445; LOT. 357; WASSILIEF B. 267; cp. Tār. l. c.

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The evidence adduced, if not wholly satisfactory, is sufficient to prove, not, indeed, that the pretensions of the Vibhajyavādins were unfounded, but that they were disputable, and that, consequently, it was the interest of the sect to back their claims by some weighty arguments. Hence the pains they have taken to spread the belief that the language of their canonical writings is Māgadhī; an assertion by which they have long time imposed upon European scholars. Another fiction is the prediction of the birth of Tissa M. and his descent from heaven. A third device to prove the absolute authenticity of their canon is the assertion that the Parivāra belonged to the books rehearsed at the Council of Pāṭaliputra⁶, though we know that another section of the orthodox Simhalese did not recognize its authenticity⁷.

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⁶ This results from Dipav. VII, 43.

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⁷ TURNOUR, Intr. to Mahāv. CI.

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A review of all the testimonies available leaves no doubt that the assembly at Pāṭaliputra was a party meeting, from which the Mahāsānghikas were excluded. Whether in those days all the Sthaviravādins formed one compact body and took part in the proceedings of the assembly, is a point which for want of data we must leave undecided. We only venture to observe that either the Siṃhalese Vibhajyavādins have to some extent misrepresented the proceedings, or that the N. orthodox sects have had reason to efface the memory of that event. How else to explain that the memorable figure of Tissa Moggaliputta has totally fallen into oblivion? If we believe the Siṃhalese chronicles, it was "far-seeing Moggaliputta who perceived by his supernatural vision the propagation of the Faith in the neighbouring countries, — sent Majjhantika and other Theras, each with four companions, for the sake of establishing the Faith in foreign countries, for the enlightenment of men"¹. Madhyāntika being recognized as a great apostle among all Buddhists², it is hard to understand how his name could have survived, whereas Tissa, who sent him out, was totally forgotten. If we cling to the view that the assembly at Pāṭaliputra was a party meeting, and not a general Council, the relative obscurity of Tissa M. becomes intelligible.

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¹ Dīpav. VIII, 1.

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² Tar. 12.

4. Reign of Aśoka

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The assembly at Pāṭaliputra is stated to have taken place 18 years after the Abhiṣeka of Aśoka, a date we have no reason to distrust. This king, who in his edicts calls himself Piyadassi³, was the son of Bindusāra, and the grandson of Candragupta, the famous founder of the Maurya dynasty. His father reigned 27 or 28 years; his grandfather 24. If the notice in the Siṃhalese chronicles that Aśoka had reigned four or three years before his Abhiṣeka⁴ be correct, this event must fall 4 + 27 + 24 after the accession of Candragupta. The exact date of the first Maurya ascending the throne is unknown, but it must lie somewhere between 320 and 315 B. C.⁵, so that the date of 259 B. C. assigned to the Abhiṣeka of Aśoka by LASSEN and other scholars after him must be approximately right⁶.

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³ Piyadassi and Piyadassana also Dīpav. VI, 1; 2; 14; 24; XV, 88 ff.; XVI, 5; etc.

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⁴ Dīpav. VI, 21; three years Mahāv. V, 34.

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⁵ Cp. Justinus XV, 4.

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⁶ Ind. Alt. II, 223.

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Aśoka is described by the Buddhists as something like a monster in his youth, as an exemplary ruler after his conversion to Buddhism, and as a dotard in his old age. Their testimony is not corroborated, nor directly contradicted by his numerous edicts⁷. Those invaluable documents, so precious in many respects, afford us no real insight into the monarch's character. They show to a certain extent that he was not devoid of vanity and that he was much addicted to moralizing, but at the same time he seems to have been in earnest with his endeavours to heighten the moral standard of his subjects. His inscriptions, with a few exceptions, contain nothing particularly Buddhistic; some passages must even have been distasteful to many of his coreligionists. More than once he prides himself of his kind feelings towards all sects, his protection of the Ājīvikas and Nirgranthas⁸, whereas the Buddhists in their writings, sacred and profane, never lose an opportunity to blacken those hated rivals. In so far as the edicts have no sectarian character, they do not here concern us; we have only to take cognizance of those inscriptions in which the King speaks as a fervent Buddhist.

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⁷ Complete translations by SENART "Les inscriptions de Piyadasi", I and II; cp. "Notes d'épigraphie indienne", 5 fascicules; BÜHLER, "Beiträge zur Erklärung der Aśoka-Inschriften", DMG. XXXVII; XXXIX—XLI; XLV; "Aśoka's Felsenedicte" XLIV; "Shāh-bāzgarhi- and Mansehra Version" XI.III; "Nachträge" XLVI; XLVIII; "Aśoka's Rājūkas" XLVII. Cp. Ep. Ind. vol. II, 245 ff. 447 ff.

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⁸ E. g. Delhi Ed. VIII, dating 27 years after his Abhiṣeka.

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The first document which has to detain us is that of the Bairat rock¹. It is a missive from Aśoka to the Saṅgha, in token of the king's feelings of reverence and affection towards the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Saṅgha, and of his conviction that the word of the Lord Buddha is a gospel and authoritative. Then he proceeds to enumerate some Dharmaparyāyas, i. e. canonical texts, which according to his wish should be steadily heard (learnt) and rehearsed by the monks and nuns, as well as by the laics of both sexes.

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¹ CUNNINGHAM Corp. Inscr. Pl. XV.

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This missive, which, of course, is posterior to the King's conversion, though no precise date can be fixed, proves most clearly that at the time of its being issued a body of canonical texts was existing. Among the titles only one can be identified with certainty, "the Lāghulovāda concerning falsehood"². "The Questions of Upatiṣya" is identical, at least as to the title, with "The Questions of Sāriputra", only known through a Chinese translation³. From the circumstance that so few titles have been identified we should draw no consequences, because the same text was frequently known by several titles⁴. It is undeniable that a title like Vinayasamuk(k)a(s)a at any rate refers to a book belonging to the class of Vinaya. Consequently the Sutta- and the Vinaya-Piṭaka are both represented in the collection, and if a work on Abhidharma is wanting, it proves nothing against the existence of that part of the Tripiṭaka, because the King recommends a selection of sacred texts, not the whole body. Of the version in which the works enumerated were existing, we cannot say anything definite; the titles are given in Māgadhī, and it is all but certain that Aśoka had in view texts in that idiom.

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² With the Ambalaṭṭhika-Rāhulovāda-Sutta, Majjh. N. I, No. 61.

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³ BEAL, Tripi. p. 73.

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⁴ This has been remarked by OLDENBERG, Intr. to MV. XL, where an identification of other titles is proposed. Cp. MINAYEF Recherches I, 87-91.

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The second inscription, an edict issued by Aśoka when he had become a zealot, has been discovered at several places of his dominions, in slightly differing copies⁵. All the copies of the edict are unhappily replete with difficulties of every kind. The beginning of the Rūpnāth edict may be translated as follows:

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⁵ The three first discovered copies have been edited by BÜHLER in his paper "Three new edicts of Aśoka" Ind. Ant. 1877; second notice, 1878. The controversies to which these publications gave rise have been taken up by the same in Ind. Ant. 1893, p. 299 ff., where the papers of his antagonists are cited. The redactions found in Mysore have been published by RICE (Bangalore, 1892) and Ep. Ind. III, 134.

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"The Devānampiya speaketh thus: more than two years and a half I was a lay devotee, and I did not strongly exert myself. But it is (now) more than a year (or possibly: six years) that I have entered the Saṅgha, and that I have strongly exerted myself. Those who during this period were truly gods in Jambudvipa, are now made false"⁶. The last sentence runs slightly different in the Sahasrām copy: "And in this time who were falsely (considered) gods, they (were) men falsely deified."

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⁶ It may be observed that a man speaking in such a manner cannot have taken the word Devānampriya — a compound like Yudhiṣṭhira, and no more two words — in its etymological acceptation of "dear to the gods", a meaning which in fact nowhere occurs. Probably Aśoka attached to the compound the meaning of "harmless, pious." In later times the Jains are designated as Devānampriyas, which well accords with their being promoters of harmlessness, of Ahiṃsā, to the extreme. The transition of harmless, pious to idiot, reminds one of εὐήθης.

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The first knotty point is the date of the edict. It is impossible to refer it to the last years of Aśoka, if the Simhalese chronological notices deserve unlimited credit. But they do not. To make good this assertion it will suffice to elect a few facts out of many. The oldest chronicle tells us that Aśoka was anointed king when he had accomplished twenty years, at which date he had a son, Mahendra, fourteen years. Before his anointment the monarch had reigned four years — others say: three. In the commencement of his reign he murdered his 100 — more accurately — 99 half-brothers; yet the same authority contradicts itself by telling us in another passage that the history of the brothers happened in the seventh year of his reign, two years before the ordination of Mahendra, which was conferred upon this prince when he was 20 years, consequently 6 years after the commencement of his father's reign¹. Another authority avers that Aśoka passed the four years before his anointment with killing his 99 brothers². Both authorities agree in fixing the conversion of the King at 7 years or in the 7th year of his reign, but a third confounds the beginning of the reign with the Abhiṣeka³. The evidence of such witnesses is for critical purposes not worth a straw, unless receiving somehow a support from another quarter. No such support is forthcoming. In the Delhi inscription, dating 27 years after Aśoka's Abhiṣeka, he prides himself of the care and benefits he bestows upon all sects, so that the Simhalese assertions of the King dismissing sixty thousand heretics⁴ is not supported. It is not improbable that the King had already become a convert when the Delhi edict was issued, but it is manifest that he was not yet the zealot he shows himself in the inscriptions of Rūpnāth, Sahasrām, &c. Therefore these must fall between the year 27 from his anointment, and 37 of his reign, for he died after a reign of 37 years. This result is corroborated by a significant notice in the last named edicts. For the King makes known that after having been during some time an Upāsaka he has joined the Saṅgha⁵. Now it is hard to imagine how a married man can belong to the Saṅgha. It is true that, according to Buddhist notions, the king is in some respects above the law, and more than once the Master allows that his own prescriptions are infringed for the king's pleasure⁶, but we are unwilling to admit that the license was illimited.

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¹ Dīpav. VI, 20, f. 24; VII, 27. 31.

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² Buddhaghoṣa, S. Vibh. I, 299.

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³ Mahāv. p. 25; cp. S. Vibh. I, 300. It clearly follows from Dīpav. VII, 17 that the King in the 7th year of his reign became a dāyāda sāsane, i. e. a "pretender to the Faith," which is not the same as saying "a possessor." This is an indirect proof that his conversion occurred in a later period.

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⁴ Mahāv. p. 28. It is a quite different question what we have to believe of Aśoka's cruelty against the Nirgranthas and Ājīvikas at Puṇḍravardhana, as related Divy. 427. This persecution is laid in the last period of A.'s reign, and may, therefore, contain a deal of truth.

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⁵ There cannot be the slightest doubt regarding the purport of the phrase. Any other interpretation is excluded by the fact that Saṅgha is pointedly opposed to Upāsaka in the text.

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⁶ E. g. MV. III, 4.

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All Buddhist traditions agree in relating that Aśoka was for some time a widower before his remarriage with Tiṣyarakṣā or Tiṣyarakṣitā⁷. According to a notice in the Mahāvamsa the Queen Asandhimittā died when Aśoka had reigned 30 years — if we take the ordinal numbers to stand for the cardinals; otherwise the reckoning will yield 29, a difference not worth speaking of.

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⁷ The former form is used in Kṣemendra's Avad. K. LIX, 22; Voy. II, 156, and probably also in Mahāv. p. 134, where for the abracadabra in TURNER'S text we have to read: "Tissarakkham mahesitte ṭhapesi visamāsayam", i. e. (he) raised to the dignity of Queen the ill-natured Tiṣyarakṣā." Her attempt at destroying the Bodhi tree is also described Divy. 397.

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We read farther on that Aśoka remarried 4 or 3 yeart afterwards. There is no reason to doubt the substantial truth of this notice, for the N. Buddhists have in the main the same tradition. Let us suppose Aśoka to have taken the vows when a widower; then the date of the edicts alluded to must lie between the years 30 and 37 of his reign, or more accurately, between 30 and 34. The date of his conversion we cannot deduce with anything like precision, owing to the ambiguity of the word *cavacchara* in the text. At any rate the date assigned to it by the Simhalese is wrong and perhaps the result of a confusion between the monarch becoming "a pretender to the Faith"¹ and his formal conversion. It may be, too, that the date has been falsified in order to connect the conversion with the story of Mahendra's arrival in Ceylon. Indirectly the untrustworthiness of the Simhalese statement is exemplified by the fact that Aśoka, 18 years after his anointment, was unaware of the existence of Tissa Moggaliputta, though this worthy had been the teacher of his son Mahendra²! It is barely possible that the real date of Aśoka's formal conversion is 18 years after his Abhiṣeka or 22 of his reign, the alleged date of the assembly at Pāṭaliputra. Suppose we adopt the interpretation that he had been a lay devotee "more than six years", this will carry us to the year 28 or 29 of his reign. About that period or somewhat later he lost his wife, and became a member of the Order.

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