The History of Buddhist Thought c21.50

c21.50

Kanishka is looked upon as a second Asoka. Hiuen Tsiang tells us that he found the views of different schools so contradictory that he decided to arrange the teaching of the three Piṭakas according to the various schools, and summoned a Council for the purpose. So many men appeared that a selection had to be made, and finally there remained 499 arhats, exactly as at the first Council. The venerable Vasumitra was not among them because he was not an arhat, but, like Ānanda at the first Council, he proved his fitness by a miracle, and was admitted. Then the Council under Vasumitra’s guidance composed three commentaries, the Upadeśa-śāstra to explain the Sūtra-piṭaka, the Vinaya-vibhāshā-śāstra for the Vinaya, and the Abhidharma-vibhāshā-śāstra for the Abhidharma. Kanishka ordered them to be engraved on sheets of copper and enclosed in a stupa with the Scriptures in the middle. The details do not look very credible, and in fact the whole account only proves that five centuries later the existence of the Council was believed in. La Vallée Poussin calls the account “an apologetic quasi-invention ”, and points out that the Abhidharmakośa does not appear to make any mention of it. “The narratives of this Council are to some extent dogmatic legends, and seem only to bear witness to the literary activity of the Sarvāstivādins.”³