The History of Buddhist Thought c12.3

c12.3

¹ From what has been said it will be seen that exact dates in the chronology of the different parts of the Canon are not to be attained. We may speak of an early and even a primitive nucleus, but except in the case of the early sections of the Pātimokkha we cannot point to it. We can often distinguish the relative age of different portions. Discussion has usually turned upon the question when the Pāli Canon received its present form. This has been said to be in the time of Asoka, because in the reign of this quite historical king the legend of one school tells that he held a Council. But even if the Council is historical, we know no detail about it except that the Kathāvatthu was recited at it. As we have no reason to think that the Canon was written down at that time, the view that it then assumed its present form is little more than a pious guess. The chief reason for thinking that the Vinaya rules and the four Āgamas had taken a definite shape even before Asoka is the fundamental correspondence between the Theravāda and Sarvāstivāda Canons. But their differences also show that they must have for long have floated only in the memory of those who learnt them by heart. The forms that we know are those which they had when they were written down, and this means probably, as the Theravāda holds, in the first century B.C. But the Sarvāstivāda Canon continued to grow for centuries.