The History of Buddhist Thought c11.s2.15

c11.s2.15

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 :