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Manual of Indian Buddhism c7.s3: 3. Council of Pāṭaliputra

Manual of Indian Buddhism c7.s3

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English

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.

Cites (4)