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The History of Buddhist Thought c11.s1: The First Council

The History of Buddhist Thought c11.s1

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English

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.

Cites (6)