The History of Buddhist Thought c21.52

c21.52

The commentaries (which in any case were not composed at the Council) really existed. Two commentaries on the Abhidharma still exist in Chinese, the *Vibhāshā* and the *Mahāvibhāshā*.¹ On the basis of these Vasubandhu is said to have compiled his *Abhidharmakośa*. He belongs to the second half of the fifth century A.D.,² but even without the guarantee that the Council was a reality we can place the doctrine expounded in the first century B.C. The language of the Vibhāshās was almost certainly Sanskrit, and their existence implies that the Sarvāstivādin Canon had already been committed to writing. As the grammatical peculiarities of the Canon show clearly that it was previously existent in Prākrit, it is quite likely that its systematic committing to writing implied at the same time its translation into Sanskrit. The Vibhāshās were especially studied by the Sarvāstivādins of Kashmir, and hence their name of Vaibhāshikas. The story of the Council, and the Council itself, if it ever existed, belonged to the Sarvāstivādins. There is no reason for the supposition that the Mahāyānists had anything to do with it. Yet the Mahāyāna must have already been growing. It did not, however, start from Abhidharma. One impulse came from the religious enthusiasm of the bodhisattva ideal. Another lay in the new treatment of the ontological doctrines latent in the dogmas of impermanence and of the non-existence of a self.