Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c10.35

c10.35

The defect, which lay here, shows itself in nothing more observably than in those very features which a cursory examination might be inclined to regard as its remedy: in the great councils to which such transcending importance is attached in old Buddhist tradition. The sacred texts mentions two such councils. The first is said to have been held at Râjagaha a few months after Buddha's death, for the purpose of compiling an authentic collection of Buddha's discourses and precepts. The second took place, as it is said, a hundred years later at Vesâlî, occasioned by a difference of opinion as to certain licenses, which had come to be practised by the monks of that town. This narrative of the council at Râjagaha is, we admit, to all appearance quite unhistorical, but the legal construction, on which it rests, is not on that account anything the less instructive for us. In the great gathering of disciples, who came together at Kusinârâ after Buddha's death, thought turns upon collecting and arranging Buddha's discourses, so as to possess in them a weapon against profane innovators. It is decided that five hundred chosen brethren of known holiness should perform this great task at Râjagaha, and the assembled monks give them a commission in this behalf by a formal resolution. This resolution decides that the five hundred are to pass the rainy season at Râjagaha and that no other monk is permitted to remain then in that town. Thus the council is held; the arrangement and the wording of the canonical texts is fixed by the five hundred fathers. Now then, if we ask what is the legal nature of this assembly, it is evident, that it is nothing more and nothing less than the assembly of the brethren sojourning in the diocese of Râjagaha. There have come together, because of the resolution passed at Kusinârâ, specially numerous and specially qualified persons, and, in pursuance of that resolution, unqualified persons have kept themselves aloof from that diocese,* but that in no way alters the case, that the deliberations of this so-called council are in fact only the proceedings of one specially prominent diocese, brought about by the resolution of another similar diocesan meeting, but not a Church-proceeding, resting on the authority of the “Church of the four quarters of the world.” It seems that tradition itself was clearly sensible of this, and that it desired to give expression to this, when it represented the venerable Purâna, a monk who had not been a sharer in the deliberations, coming to Râjagaha at their close, and being told: “The fathers, my dear Purâna, have fixed the canon of the Doctrine and Law; accept this canon.” But he answers: “The canon of the Doctrine and Law, my friends, has been admirably fixed by the fathers, but I will adhere to that which I have myself heard and received from the Exalted One.” The fathers make no reply, and cannot, indeed, say anything in reply; the right of the individual to take as much or as little notice as he pleased of the resolution of an assembly such as that at Râjagaha was, could not be disputed with propriety on the basis of this form of Church.†