The History of Buddhist Thought c11.s3.13

c11.s3.13

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.