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The History of Buddhist Thought c11: Chapter III. The Councils : Early Schools

The History of Buddhist Thought c11

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Chapter III. The Councils : Early Schools

The First Council

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THE problems about the events of the first three centuries of Buddhism turn upon two chief points : the records of the first three Councils and the lists of seventeen schools or sects which began to arise in the second century after Buddha’s death. The records have no claim to be considered historical accounts. They are legends full of astonishing miracles and impossible anachronisms. Even when the miracles are stripped off we find that the different schools disagree about the most important events.

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All the schools hold that there was a Council (sangīti, lit. “chanting or reciting together”) held at Rājagaha immediately after the death of Buddha. According to the oldest account (that of the Theravādins),¹ the elder Kassapa summoned a Council of 500 for the recital of the Dhamma and Vinaya, giving as a reason the conduct of Subhadda, a monk who had joined the Order in old age, and who, on hearing of Buddha’s death, said they were well freed from the Great Ascetic and could now do or not do what they liked. The members decided to take the Vinaya first, on the ground, says Buddhaghosa, that the Vinaya is as old as Buddha’s teaching, and while the Vinaya stands the teaching stands. Kassapa, who presided, questioned Upāli, “the first of those who know the Vinaya by heart,” about each rule, asking (1) the subject of it, (2) the occasion of its being given, (3) the person concerned, (4) the rule itself, (5) further rules resulting from it, (6) when it constitutes an offence, (7) when it does not. In the same way he questioned Ānanda about the Dhamma, beginning with the first sutta in the Dīgha Nikāya, and asking (1) where it was given, (2) about whom or to whom it was spoken. “In this way he asked the five Nikāyas, and question by question the elder Ānanda replied.”

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¹ *Vin.*, ii, 284 ff. ; *Vin. Texts*, iii, 370 ff. This is the eleventh chapter of the *Cullavagga*, which forms with the twelfth a supplement to the Vinaya containing the story of the first two Councils. On this the accounts in *Dpvs.*, ch. iv, and *Mhvs.*, ch. iii, are based. Franke says there is complete dependence. Certainly they give nothing in corroboration that adds to the credibility. Besides these there are the accounts of what used to be called the “Northern Schools”, i.e. those accounts going back to the Vinaya of the Sarvāstivāda and related schools, which agree in essentials with the Pāli and show that there was a common tradition, but they make it probable that all the details are inferences as to what must have taken place, not actual memories preserved by the members of the Council. The account in the Vinaya of the Dharmaguptas, a Sarvāstivāda branch, is translated by Beal from the Chinese in the reports of the fifth Oriental Congress in 1881 (vol. ii, Ostasiat. Section, p. 13, Berlin, 1882 ; and *Abstract of four Lectures*, pp. 66 ff.). There is an account from the Tibetan in Rockhill’s *Life of the Buddha*, ch. v. O. Franke gives an entirely destructive criticism in “The Buddhist Councils at Rājagaha and Vesālī”, *JPTS.*, 1908. J. Przyluski has dealt in great detail with the Chinese sources in *Le Concile de Rājagṛha*, Paris, 1926-8.

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It will be seen that the account assumes that the Vinaya and Sutta were in the same state as we have them now. The Vinaya rules are treated as if they already had the commentary (which gives a fictitious account of the circumstances leading to the promulgation of each rule) as well as the additional rules and exceptions resulting from it. No Abhidhamma is mentioned. It is possible that when the account was composed there was an Abhidhamma not separated in a third Piṭaka, but we can be sure that whatever it was it did not consist of the works now known by that name. Buddhaghosa mentions a classification in which it is reckoned along with the fifth Nikāya. However, other schools hold that the Abhidhamma was recited, and that this was done by Kassapa himself.¹

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¹ Rockhill, *Life*, p. 160. Schiefner, *Tib. Leb. Hiuen Tsiang (Beal)*, ii, 164.

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The account in the Vinaya goes on to say that Ānanda told the Council that Buddha before his death had told him that the Order if it wished might abrogate any of the minor rules. But Ānanda had forgotten to ask which these were, and as the Council could not decide, and further, as Kassapa pointed out that people would say that the rules were being given up because their Master was no longer with them, they accordingly decided neither to add to them nor to abrogate any. In the *Mahāvastu* (i, 69) this argument of Kassapa’s is made the reason for summoning the Council. Oldenberg pointed out that the words of Subhadda, which in the Vinaya account are made the reason for the Council being held, occur in the *Mahāparinibbāna-sutta*, and in that sutta there is no mention of a Council. Therefore, he said, the sutta knew nothing of a Council, and, therefore, its existence is quite fictitious. Not only is this a mere argument *ex silentio*, but it is entirely fallacious. There is no reason why a Council should have been mentioned in that sutta. The statement of Subhadda was made in the midst of the funeral proceedings, and Kassapa could not immediately get up and propose a Council. It was afterwards that Kassapa is said to have addressed the monks and to have repeated to them what Subhadda had said.¹ Then it was that he proposed a Council, and not at the time when Subhadda spoke the words. It is true that we cannot say that the reason given for Kassapa summoning the Council was the actual one. It may have been wrongly attributed to him by the compiler of the Vinaya account, and the *Mahāvastu* in fact contradicts it, but as Kassapa did not and could not propose a Council during the funeral proceedings, the absence of any mention of a Council in the sutta proves nothing against the reality of the Council.²

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¹ Yet Minaev did imagine that this proposal was made during the funeral proceedings. *Recherches*, p. 25.

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² M. Finot has recently made it very plausible that the sutta and the Vinaya account were once a single work. As he says, there is not the shadow of a discrepancy. *Indian Hist. Quarterly*, 1932, p. 243.

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When we come to ask what we may conclude about the historical circumstances of the Council, we do not get much further than the conclusion of Kern: "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."³ All the accounts give us details which were written down centuries later, and from the point of view of those who assumed that the Buddhism and the Canon which they then knew existed as such from the beginning. We can infer that there was at Buddha's death a body of disciplinary rules in existence, and that many discourses of the Master had been remembered during his long years of teaching. To the extent to which we can infer what these were, we may be able to form some positive idea of the first Council, not from the recorded accounts.

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³ *Man*, 103.

The Second Council

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The *Cullavagga* (ch. 12) also gives an account of the second Council. We are told that a hundred years after the death of the Lord the Vajjian monks of Vesālī explained ten things to be permissible practices :

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1. That salt might be kept in a horn.

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2. That it was permissible to eat when the sun’s shadow showed two fingers’ breadth after noon.

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3. And to go into the village for alms and eat again after having eaten.

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4. That monks in one parish might hold separate Uposatha meetings.

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5. That a party in the Order might perform an official act and decide to inform the rest.

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6. That it was permissible to practise what was practised by one’s tutor.

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7. That milk which had begun to turn but had not become curd might be drunk by one who had had his meal.

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8. That liquor which had not yet fermented might be drunk.

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9. That a rug not of the prescribed length might be used if it had no fringe.

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10. That gold and silver might be accepted.

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The elder Yasa (one of the earliest converts of Buddha and now over 165 years old) was going for alms in Vesālī and found that the monks of the place had set up a bronze bowl filled with water and was asking the lay people for contributions in money. He warned the people that the sons of Buddha were not allowed to accept gold and silver. Nevertheless the monks collected the money and offered Yasa a share, which he refused. They therefore carried an act of expiation against him, requiring him to go and apologize to the laity for his action. He went, but he defended himself before the people with such effect that they concluded he was in the right. Then the monks decided to carry an act of suspension against him, but he rose in the air and flew to Kosambī, where he summoned a meeting of the monks of Pāvā, Avanti, and the south. They met on Ahoganga hill and decided that as it was a difficult and delicate matter they had better get the elder Revata on their side. Revata was at Soreyya, but he heard them with his divine ear, and not wishing to be involved in a dispute decided to keep out of their way. He went from place to place, until they caught him up at Sahajāti, and there they succeeded in getting a satisfactory answer from him on the ten points.

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The monks of Vesālī also thought it would be well to have Revata on their side. They approached him with a present of bowl, robes, and other requisites. He refused them, but they succeeded in bribing his attendant, so Revata dismissed him. Revata then decided that the matter should be decided where it arose, and the assembly met at Vesālī. But the speeches were aimless and their meaning obscure, so Revata proposed a motion that a committee of eight elders should be elected, four from the east and four from the west, and this was approved. Revata had already made sure of a majority by interviewing the elder Sabbakāmin, one of the eastern monks, the night before. The committee adjourned to the Vālika park, where Revata questioned Sabbakāmin on the ten points, and all were rejected.¹ Sabbakāmin then declared the questions settled, and asked Revata to question him again before the full assembly for the information of the monks. The account concludes : “So the elder Revata questioned the elder Sabbakāmin on the ten points also in the midst of the assembly, and question by question the elder Sabbakāmin replied. Now in this Vinaya-council there were seven hundred monks, no more and no less ; therefore, this Vinaya-council is called that of the seven hundred.”

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¹ The sixth point, that the practice of one's tutor might be followed, may be permissible according to circumstances, but could not form a rule.

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In this account some links in the actual procedure appear to be missing, but the records in the Chronicles do not make it any clearer. The Mahāvaṃsa says that it was held in the tenth year of Kālāsoka, that 12,000 monks were present, and that “then the elder Revata selected seven hundred monks who were arahats, who knew the science of meaning and so forth and had the three Piṭakas by heart, from the whole number of monks to form a Dhamma-council”. They then met at the Vālika park and made a collection of the Dhamma. It goes on to say that the wicked monks, 10,000 in number, who had been defeated by the holders of the second Council, formed a school (ācariyavāda)² named the Mahāsanghika. This term means “belonging to the Great Order or Community of monks ”, but there is nothing in the *Mahāvaṃsa* to imply that they held a council. The *Dīpavaṃsa*, however, states that the 10,000 wicked monks assembled and made a collection of the Dhamma, and therefore this Dhamma-council is called the Great Council. It seems that the author of the *Mahāvaṃsa*, who must have known this statement, deliberately rejects it. He also omits the next statement of the *Dīpavaṃsa*, which goes on to say :

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² Lit. “teacher-school”; these teachers appear to have been the heads of sects, and the names of several—Dharmagupta, Kāśyapa, and Bhadrāyaṇa—probably appear in the names of heretical schools.

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The monks of the great Council made a reversed teaching. They broke up the original collection (of the Scriptures) and made another collection.
They put the Sutta collected in one place elsewhere. They broke up the sense and the doctrine in the five Nikāyas . . .
The Parivāra, the summary of the sense (of the Vinaya), the six sections of the Abhidhamma, the Paṭisambhidā, the Niddesa, and part of the Jātaka—so much they set aside and made others.

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Oldenberg declared that the account of the dispute at the second Council bears the stamp of being in the highest degree trustworthy. Yet it is part of the same document which tells us of the first Council, an event which he considered pure invention. We at least have to reject the details. The Council, we are told, was held 100 years (or 110 in Rockhill’s account) after Buddha’s death. Yet the eight elders had all seen Buddha,¹ so that they were all at least 120 years old if they had been ordained at the lowest possible age of twenty. The various accounts all speak of the ten practices, but they do not agree what these were. In Rockhill’s account only the last four agree with the Pāli. Four in the Dharmagupta account also agree, but not the same four. The list was preserved by means of ten mnemonic words, *singiloṇakappa* “horn-salt-practice”, *dvangulakappa* “two-finger-practice”, etc., and it is clear that some of them have been misunderstood. For the Dharmaguptas the two-finger-practice refers not to the shadow of the sun being two fingers’ breadth after noon, but to eating after meals by taking food with two fingers. Evidently the writers had to guess at the meaning. Nor can we infer that the Pāli is the only trustworthy version, for, in the case of the eighth practice, *jalogikappa* should mean the practice of sucking like a leech (*jaloga*), as the Dharmagupta account takes it.

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¹ Geiger thinks this an embellishment intended to exalt the authority of the elders. In that case it must have been another Yasa, for Yasa is identified with the Yasa who was one of Buddha’s first converts.

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We thus cannot be certain what all the points of dispute were about, but the list does not appear to be an arbitrary invention. The probability is that it records a real set of practices which were once in dispute, but it is also probable that their condemnation at the Council is mere inference. This is all the more likely when we find that Vasumitra, in his account of the first schism,¹ gives an entirely different reason for the origin of the Mahāsanghikas. It was due, he says, to five points of doctrine about the nature and attainments of the arahat, which were brought forward by a certain Mahādeva. These five points need not be inventions any more than the ten points, as they appear again later, but they show that one party or other (or both) knew nothing of what took place at the second Council.

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¹ "Origin and Doctrines of Early Buddhist Schools," from the Chinese by J. Masuda, *Asia Major*, ii, p. 14; from the Tibetan by Vasiliev, *Der Buddhismus*, p. 247.

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The same conclusion may be drawn about the story of the Great Council in the *Dīpavaṃsa*. What is there told about the different recension of the Scriptures is true in substance. There was such a recension, and the author inferred that it was part of the disputes at the second Council. But the story that it was deliberately drawn up at this time by the Mahāsanghikas is ignored by the author of the *Mahāvaṃsa*. As the *Mahāvaṃsa* is a deliberate rewriting and improving of the *Dīpavaṃsa*, "a conscious and intentional re-arrangement," as Geiger says, it must have definitely rejected that story.

The Third Council

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The story of the third Council of Pāṭaliputta is given in the *Mahāvaṃsa* (ch. 5) at the end of the legendary account of the reign of Asoka. Much of the material of this comes from Indian sources, as we find most of the legend in Sarvāstivādin works,² but it is only in the Pāli that there is any mention of this Council. We are told in the *Mahāvaṃsa* that owing to the prosperity of the Order under Asoka, who was ruling in Pāṭaliputta, heretics had come to live with the monks. These heretics are expressly spoken of as non-Buddhists, not as members of any Buddhist party. No reference to Buddhist sects appears. Asoka sent for Tissa Moggali-putta, assembled all the monks on the earth, and turned out all those who wrongly answered his question, " What was the teaching of the Buddha ? " The king then asked the righteous monks, and they replied, " He was a Vibhajjavādin." Asoka was delighted, and ordered the Uposatha to be held, and they assembled.

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² The chief difference is that the Theravādins connect Asoka with their great elder Tissa Moggaliputta, while the Sarvāstivādins connect him with their own hero Upagupta. *CHI.*, i, 498, boldly identifies the two.

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The elder (Tissa) from the numerous assembly chose a thousand monks, learned, possessing the six higher knowledges, knowing the three Pitakas, versed in analysis, to form the Council of the true Doctrine.¹

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¹ Saddhammasamgaham. Geiger says " to make a compilation of the true doctrine ". But in Dpvs. saṃgaha is used all through in the sense of " council ". Buddhaghosa (Vin. com., 61), who paraphrases Mhvs., speaks only of saṃgīti.

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With these in the park of Asoka he formed the Council of the true Doctrine. Just as the elder Mahākassapa and the elder Yasa had held a Dhamma-council, so did the elder Tissa hold it.

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And in the meeting of the Council he spoke the work Kathāvatthu for the refutation of other sects.

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So under the protection of King Asoka this Dhamma-council was completed by the thousand monks in nine months.

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In the seventeenth year of the King the Sage, seventy-two years old, closed the Council with a great pavāraṇā ceremony.²

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² Mhvs., v, 275-280.

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Thus all we are told of the Council is that it was held and that the Kathāvatthu was spoken. Later accounts tell us no more. Buddhaghosa merely paraphrases the Mahāvaṃsa, and the Mahābodhivaṃsa (110) repeats him.

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The Sarvāstivādin accounts have much in common with the Pāli. They agree essentially in the reports of the first two Councils, although they put Asoka not two centuries but one after Buddha's death.³ Both accounts tell much of Asoka and repeat some of the same legends. They have similar lists of the early schools, and their Scriptures are arranged in the same four chief divisions. But the Sarvāstivādins have no word about the third Council. They speak of a Council under Asoka, but this is the second Council, and they may have confused this Asoka with Kālā-soka. Kern supposes that the third Council was but a party meeting, so much so that no other party ever heard of it, but the fact that it is ignored by all other sects makes it necessary to consider the other alternative, that there never was a third Council.

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³ The supposed 200 years mentioned in a Sarvāstivādin document (Burnouf, Intro., 432) rests on a misreading. See Speyer, Av. Śat., ii, 200. Other later sources give various dates. Bhavya gives 160 years, but still makes Dharmāśoka king at the second Council. Rockhill, Life, p. 182.

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Even the Pāli data lend support to this view. There is fairly early evidence for the first and second Councils in the *Cullavagga*, but that account has no mention of a third. This has usually been taken to imply that the *Cullavagga* account was composed before Asoka’s time. It may equally imply that the third Council had not then been invented. The earliest evidence for it is confined to the testimony of the much later Ceylon Chronicles. The Chronicles had already added the story of a Dhamma-council to the account in the *Cullavagga* of the second Council, and had garnished the story of the first Council with the patronage of Ajātasattu, and the second with more elaborate legends of Kālāsoka. There are cogent reasons why a third Council under Asoka should have been imagined, and Tissa is said to have held it “just as the elder Mahākassapa and the elder Yasa had held a Dhamma-council”. The Abhidhamma books were rejected by other schools, and in particular the *Kathāvatthu*, which Tissa had promulgated at it. This especially needed the support of a Council, or perhaps to the mind of disciples implied one.

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The commentary on another Abhidhamma book, the *Dhammasaṅgaṇi*, represents an objector as saying, “why is the *Kathāvatthu* accepted? Was it not fixed by the elder Moggaliputta Tissa more than 218 years after the enlightened Buddha had attained Nirvāṇa? Therefore reject it as being the utterance of a disciple.” Even the authority of a Council was not enough for this objector. The commentator meets this by admitting that the discussion of the doctrines was composed by Tissa following the method given by the Master, but that the list of doctrines discussed was first given by Buddha when he visited the Heaven of the thirty-three gods and taught the doctrine to his mother.

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V. A. Smith remarks that Asoka after he had been reigning for some thirty years issued a fresh series of documents, the seven Pillar Edicts, which reiterate his earlier teaching, and conclude with a formal retrospect of the measures adopted by him in furtherance of the ethical reforms which he had at heart. Yet he seems surprised that there is no mention of the Council of Buddhist elders.¹ Mrs. Rhys Davids accepts the Council, but subjects the evidence for it to the severest criticism, pointing out first that the evidence is six or seven centuries later than the Council. She also holds that it was a Congress rather than a Council, that the " collection of the Dhamma " was a " gigantic task of revision ", that the actual revisers and judges were not a thousand but only eight,¹ that as the revision of the English Prayer-book took twenty years, the Council must have taken much longer than nine months, and that as the first thesis in the *Kathāvatthu* concerns the *puggala*, the question of paramount importance to be discussed must have been that of *attan* versus *an-attan*. The " drastic expulsion of ordained monks " can only have been carried through after the Council, not before, as the Chronicles say. In fact, the Council was a Congress, and every fact about it was different from what is recorded.²

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¹ *The Early History of India*, 3rd ed., p. 161.

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¹ The number eight is said to have a precedent because there were eight at the second Council. But these eight had nothing to do with the Dhamma; they were the eight referees for the ten disputed Vinaya rules, and the Vinaya account knows nothing of Dhamma revision at the second Council.

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² The view of the *Cambridge Hist. of India* (i, 498) is that " in the Kathāvatthu, composed at the time by Upagupta, we have a full record of the divergencies of opinion which led to its convention ". The story of the Council is thus inserted in the Upagupta story, which knows nothing of the Council.

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To attain a certain conclusion where the data are like this is obviously impossible, but even if we could be sure that a Dhamma-council was held under Asoka, we get no help in determining anything definite about the history of Buddhism. All we are told is that a work called the *Kathāvatthu*, " subjects of discussion," was spoken there, and we have good reasons for holding that it was not the work which now exists in the Pāli Canon. The work which now exists is of great importance for the growth of doctrine, but we do not reach more credible results by assuming that it was either composed or recited at a third Council.

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There is an excellent translation of the *Kathāvatthu* with extracts from the commentary by Mr. Shwe Zan Aung and Mrs. Rhys Davids. But the unfortunate result of this useful piece of work has been an astonishing amount of mistaken assumptions and slipshod inferences by scholars who have never taken the trouble to look at the text or to distinguish between the text and commentary. It was asserted that Tissa " composed " the work, though the Pāli authorities do not say so, and, as Mrs. Rhys Davids has pointed out, it could not have been composed by one man. It was also assumed that it mentions the sects that held the heretical doctrines which it refutes. If this were so, we should have fairly early evidence for the teachings of these schools. But, in fact, no names of schools are given in it.

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Where we find the names is in a commentary certainly several centuries later than the Council. This commentary is occupied not in specifying the doctrines of the seventeen schools, but in expounding the refutations of doctrines mentioned in the text and in stating what schools hold or have held them. Nine out of the seventeen are not mentioned at all, while some doctrines, indeed, whole sections of the work, are attributed to later schools not among the seventeen. Only three of the original seventeen are mentioned as " now " holding certain doctrines. As Mrs. Rhys Davids points out, the work probably grew gradually. Its " patchwork-quilt appearance " shows its slow growth, for any new heresy could be added and refuted as required.¹

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¹ Points of Controversy, p. xxxi.

The Schools

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It is during the first three centuries of Buddhism that the community is said to have split into seventeen or, including the original body, eighteen schools. There are several lists of the schools in existence.²

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² See Appendix II.

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That given by the Ceylon Chronicles is doubtless the oldest, but as it has been preserved by a school out of direct contact with India several of the names have been corrupted. There are also several lists coming from Sanskrit sources, but they all vary so much that it is impossible to suppose that we can form a chronological scheme of the growth of the divisions. They were naturally all drawn up long after the schools originated, and represent the attempts of the scholiasts to construct a history. They do, however, allow us to draw several important conclusions. The Chronicles call the schools *ācariyavāda*, " schools of teachers," and this suggests one cause of the origin of sects, that is, the rise of prominent teachers who were able to impose their views on certain communities. A number of the names are formed from personal names, those of the *ācariyas*, the teachers of the respective schools. Other names are place names, suggesting the development of schools in special localities, and some are formed from the peculiar doctrine of the school.

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The real value of the lists is in giving us an approximate view as to what at various periods the various communities were held to be. From this point of view the list in the *Mahāvyutpatti* (275) is one of the most important. It is also of special interest in giving one of the few references in Sanskrit Buddhism to the schools of Ceylon. It is a Sarvāstivādin list, and may have been drawn up in the fifth or sixth century A.D.,¹ but it evidently contains older elements.

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¹ The date of this list is, of course, independent of the question of the date of *Mvyut*.

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The arrangement is not, as in the other lists, chronological, but the schools are arranged in four groups :

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1. *Sarvāstivādas* : Mūla-Sarvāstivādas, Kāśyapīyas, Mahiśāsakas, Dharmaguptas, Bahuśrutīyas, Tāmraśātīyas, Vibhajyavādins.

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2. *Sammatīyas* : Kaurukullakas, Āvantakas, Vātsīputrīyas.

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3. *Mahāsanghikas* : Pūrvaśailas, Aparaśailas, Haimavatas, Lokottaravādins, Prajñaptivādins.

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4. *Sthaviras* : Mahāvihāravāsins, Jetavanīyas, Abhayagirivāsins.

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A few of these schools are mere names, but each of the groups is significant as being historically important for its doctrines.²

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² The geographical distribution of the chief schools also throws light on their development. Magadha and Kosala, the primitive sphere of Buddhism, had become the Maurya empire, which extended more and more to the north-west. In this direction the Sarvāstivādins spread, their chief seat being at Mathurā (Muttra in the United Provinces) among the Sūrasenas. The Mūla-Sarvāstivādins were chiefly in Kashmir. Further south, on the Jumna, was Kosambī in the region of the Vatsas (Pāli, Vamsas), probably the seat of the Vātsīputrīyas. Still further west and north of the Vindhyas were the Avantis, with capital Ujjenī. This, as will be seen, is the probable region where the Pāli Canon as we now have it was elaborated in its present dialect. The trade route to the south was past Ujjenī, and it was by this route that Buddhism reached south India.

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The Sarvāstivādins and Theravādins (Skt. Sthaviravādins) each have Scriptures which show that they developed in close connection. Both Canons were originally in a Prakrit dialect and compiled on a common plan. But they were for long preserved by memory, and the mere local separation of the various communities is enough to explain how differences of classification arose and grew. No doubt other differences began early, as we find at the second Council references to monks of the east and monks of the west. But it is not certain that the two schools considered themselves distinct even as late as the time of Asoka. The Chronicles appear to have put the separation before Asoka, Vasumitra puts it after. As there was no violent secession, it is not easy to see how the date of separation could be determined, especially as the two schools continued to live together for centuries.

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In the above list the term Sarvāstivāda is a general one covering seven groups. The Chinese Canon, however, includes a Vinaya of this name, as well as one of the Mūla-Sarvāstivādins.¹ One branch here given is that of the Vibhajyavādins. The term means one who distinguishes or discriminates, referring specially to a method of philosophical discussion. It is the same term by which the Theravādins are said to have described themselves to Asoka. If there is a basis of fact to this story, it may imply that the word had not yet become a party term, for it is one that no Buddhist would have disclaimed in its plain meaning.

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¹ Mūla = "root". That this sect really was, as it claimed to be, the original one need not be assumed, any more than in the case of modern sects that describe themselves as primitive or apostolical.

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Among the Sammatiya group we find the Āvantakas, i.e. people of Avanti in the western district with the chief city Ujjenī. The term Vātsīputrīya suggests a connection with another western district, that of the Vatsas (Pāli, Vamsas). The name Vātsīputrīyas has never been explained. In form it means the followers of Vatsīputra² or the Vatsīputras, the Vatsa people. This school, though only known from the statements of opponents, is important for its peculiar doctrine of *pudgalavāda*, the theory that the individual is something more than the sum of the constituents of which he is composed. The name Kaurukullaka is of interest as the survival of an early School of which nothing is really known. Even the name is uncertain, as it occurs in at least four forms, and the Chronicles class it with the next group.

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² Lit. "son of the Vatsa woman". Such personal names are common, like Ajātasattu's name Vedehiputta, "son of the Videha woman." Vatsiputra is conceivably the name of the ācariya who founded the school. In the Chronicles the sect name is Vajjiputtaka. It occurs twice over, first as the name of the originators of the first schism, the Mahāsanghikas, or, as *Dpvs.* calls them, the Mahāsangītikas, and again as a sect that split off later with the Mahimsāsakas. The latter are the Vātsīputrīyas. The Pali term is a corruption, unless Vajji is here = Vṛji = Vraja, the district near Mathurā.

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Of the Mahāsanghikas the only part of their Canon which has survived is that of the Lokottaravādin branch in the *Mahāvastu*. This school held a docetic theory of the nature of a Buddha, very important for Mahāyāna developments, and so also, according to the *Kathāvatthu* commentary, did the Pūrvaśailas and Aparaśailas, established in South India. The Haimavatas, says Vasumitra, were really Sthaviras (Theravādins) who had changed their name. It is likely enough that in his time there were no Theravādins in India except certain sects like the Haimavatas, who laid claim to the name. The same may be concluded from what Hiuen Tsiang reports of the Sthaviras in India in the seventh century. He describes most of them as being of the Mahāyāna sect. This group, in fact, includes those that were or became Mahāyānists.

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The Sthaviras are the Pāli Theras, “elders,” the members of the Theravāda, “the school of the Elders.” Here we find all the three Theravāda schools established in Ceylon and divided just as described in the Ceylon Chronicles.¹

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¹ *Mhvs.*, xv, xxxiii, 80–3; xxxvii, 32–9. Cf. *Dpvs.*, xix, 14; xii, 70–5.

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The Mahāvihāravāsins, “inhabitants of the Great Vihāra,” claimed to be the orthodox Theravādins established by Mahinda at Anurādhapura at the time of the official introduction of Buddhism into Ceylon under Asoka when the Mahavihāra was built. From the *Mahāvaṃsa* we learn that two centuries later under king Vaṭṭagāmaṇi (29 B.C.) the Abhayagiri vihāra was built, and soon afterwards a schism resulted. This is evidently the school of the Abhayagirivāsins, the inhabitants of the Abhayagiri vihāra, also at Anurādhapura. According to the *Sāsanavaṃsa* (24) they were known as the Dhammarucis. The Jetavanīya school arose in the reign of Mahāsena (A.D. 325–352), when the Jetavana vihāra was built. The *Sāsanavaṃsa* identifies it with the Sāgaliya school.

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The remarkable fact about the *Mahāvyutpatti* list is the extent to which it is corroborated by the Chronicles. The list in the latter is doubtless old, but besides the eighteen schools it records later ones, six in India and two in Ceylon. The *Mahāvyutpatti* has dropped seven that had become obsolete and meaningless, and has placed five of the additional schools among the eighteen. Only two of its names are not found in the Chronicles, and it has the three Theravādin schools of Ceylon, the orthodox Theravādins, the Dhammarucis, and the Sāgaliyas. Its grouping of the schools also allows us to see the main lines of development. The most widely extended school was the Sarvāstivāda, which at first and for long must have been closely associated with the Theravāda. What particular school was represented by the mission of Mahinda to Ceylon we do not know. No written Scriptures were taken by this mission, as it was not till two centuries later that they are said to have been written down.¹ There may have been such an official recording, but what we possess are not the Scriptures as introduced in the third century B.C. It is the Canon as it existed in some school that claimed to be Theravādin, and had been turned into the dialect of the place from which it came, the dialect which we call Pāli.² Where this locality was is still disputed. Oldenberg thought it was probably in south India, in the kingdoms of Andhra or Kalinga, but from what we know of the schools of south India this is unlikely. The close connection with the Sarvāstivāda Canon makes it more likely that this Pāli school developed somewhere in the north. We find in it legends told with reference to great Buddhist settlements, but none referring to south India. Franke on philological grounds fixed the dialect in the region of Ujjenī. Walleser and Geiger for different and even contradictory reasons prefer Magadha. Grierson put it in the north-west, which was a stronghold of the Mūla-Sarvāstivādins.³ In any case it is generally agreed that it is a form of Northern Buddhism, but owing to the fact that it has spread from Ceylon to Burma, Siam, and further India it has usually been termed Southern Buddhism.

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¹ *Mhvs.*, xxxiii, 100-1.

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² The term Pāli as used by the Ceylon commentators means the text of the Scriptures as opposed to the commentaries. Western scholars have adopted it as the name of the language in which both text and commentary were written.

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³ Przyluski, *La légende de l'empéreur Açoka*, p. vi.

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The outstanding divisions in earlier Buddhism as determined by the literature are the schools of the Theravāda, Sarvāstivāda, and Mahāsanghika, the last represented by the Lokottaravāda of the Mahāvastu. It was within the last two that the new tendencies and theories arose which produced the Mahāyāna schools.

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