§ 2. The Second Council
Now the second council took place hundred years after the lifetime (Parinibbana) of the Buddha.
The occasion for the second council was again the disciplinary issues. These issues did not go
away. The first council supposed to settle the disciplinary issues by saying we retain all the
disciplinary rules including the minor ones. The second council was called because the monks
from the Vajjian country were practicing ten breaches of the monastic discipline. They were
guilty of ten breaches. The most important one (among the ten) was handling of gold and silver.
They were guilty of handling gold and silver. The next among the others were quite minor issue,
for example, practice of carrying salt in a hallowed horn. We know even during the lifetime of the Buddha there began to appear relatively settled monastic establishments, for example the
Jetavana monastery that was donated by Anathapindika.
We have the description of the construction of this monastery, of this residence. There were
storerooms in the description of the construction of the monastery. What they did with the storerooms? What they stored in the storerooms, robes, salt, and rice? And yet, hundred years later these monks were charged with the offence of breaking of the monastic rules because they were carrying little bit of salt with them to add into their food. The question of gold and silver it may have been an important question. But there were already a provision during the time of the Buddha, which made it possible for the monastic community to accept gold and silver. It had to be done through a layman acting as an intermediary.
An intermediary would accept gold and silver to buy robes, food and so forth. There was already
that provision. The monks directly accepting gold and silver that was still outlaw. So what has happened today and what would happen for many years? (Acceptance of gold and silver has become not universal but was very wide spread when they say gold and silver, now we can talk about money. What about bank account? Doesn’t that count as gold and silver? Doesn’t that count as money?) So the disciplinary issue that arose at the second council, you might
call them somewhat nick picking.
Theses monks were accused of breaches in the monastic disciplines. The breaches were not extremely serious nonetheless they were censored and criticized at the second council. This is what happened in the second council. This is as far as the official account tells you about the second council. In this level this is a simple matter of imposing monastic discipline. These
monks were found guilty of practicing that infringes the monastic codes and so they were found
guilty. But we all know that the second council did not succeed. It was the occasion for some
kind of schism. Now the traditional reading of the second council is quite, well, I would call
it, oversimplified. As a result it was quite straightforward. The second council blamed and
criticized these monks. So they left the assembly. Most of the junior monks and the lay people
who were the supporters of the dissenters, call themselves Mahāsaṅghikās.
They composed, reformulated their own scriptures/canon and they formed a school which
later became the Mahāyāna. If you look at the most traditional account and most scholarly
traditional treatment of the second council, you will find people stating the origin of the Mahāyāna to the second council. They say there was a schism; the Mahāsaṅghikās emerged from the assembly of the second council. One hand, you have Sthaviras the Elders (Sanskrit - Sthavira, Pali –Thera) and on the other hand you have the Mahāsaṅghikās, the Great Assembly. They went on to become different Sect/different School and they were the progenitors of the Mahāyāna and they were the forefathers of the Mahāyāna.
It seems too simple in the sense that the Mahāsaṅghikās had certain tendencies, which tilted in the Mahāyāna tradition, they had a certain view of the Buddha that came to be incorporated in the Mahāyāna view of the Buddha and they had more liberal view of the monastic discipline which also came to characterize the Mahāyāna. But between the Mahāsaṅghikās and Mahāyāna a lot of other things happened. There were lots of other developments. The origin of the Mahāyāna is not linear. It is not so clear-cut in that sense. I don’t believe that one can say that we have direct development of the Mahāsaṅghikā to the Mahāyāna. For one thing, many followers of the Mahāyāna criticized the Mahāsaṅghikā. Even in the Tibetan tradition(which of course is the Mahāyāna tradition before become the Vajrayāna tradition) they regard the monks who were criticized and censored at the second council as having been in the wrong. They don’t favor the Mahāsaṅghikas.
They don’t take side of thenMahāsaṅghikās in the debate, in the issues that led the course of the
second council. So what extent the Mahāsaṅghikās are the fore founders of the Mahāyāna is
somewhat in question and I repeat that this is the point at which the evolution of the Buddhist
schools became complicated. As I have said, it is still a work in progress; the scholars are still
working on this. (There is a very good set of booklet done by the London Buddhist Vihara which deals with the origin of the Mahāyāna, various schools like Mahāsaṅghikā and Sarvāstivāda etc. and the Mahāyāna Sūtras. I could not trace them in the Internet but I know they exist as I had used them before. So look into those if you come across with them)
2.1. the second council opened the door to the proliferation
Now, I come to the more important point as what the second council did? To this we can attribute the occasion for the schism. What the second council did was it opened the door to the
proliferation. It opened the door to the emergence of many schools of Buddhism. The time
between the second Buddhist council and the time of the third council, which took place during
the time of Ashoka many different sects were emerged. Within this relatively brief period of only
150-200 years we have the emergence of at least 18 different Buddhist schools. By the time of
Ashoka we have in existence at least 18 different schools. So there was an explosion of Buddhist
schools after the second council.
And in that sense the second council was crucial and critical because it opened the way for this proliferation of the Buddhist traditions into many different schools. Now, I want to point out one thing here that it is not an offence in Buddhism to form one’s own school. It is an offence to form one’s own school for selfish purposes, for personal reasons, and for egotistical purposes. Devadatta’s offence was not he wanted to form another school. Devadatta’s offence was he wanted to form another school because he had certain ambition of taking over the Saṅgha. If you form another school in Buddhism because of genuine difference of opinion about doctrine, about discipline, that is not an offence and that is permissible.
So the proliferation of the schools in Buddhism is allowed as long as it is done for sincere reasons, because you have a real, honest difference of opinion with the majority of the community, the community in which you are living. And that point you are expected to
form your own community. But that by itself was not an offence as long as it is based on the basis of sincere and honest opinion. So we have this proliferation of the schools and by
the time of the third council during the time of Ashoka there are at least 18 schools.
§ 3. The Third Council
The story of the third council is interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, the third council
was called because of the instances of the people in the community who believed in the some
form of ‘personality’. These people were eventually come to be called in course of time as
Vātsīputrīyas. They believed in the Personality (Pudgala) that was identical with or different from
Skandha. They were considered to be heretical or semi-heretical. Some account also tell us that
the problem arose because of the infiltration of the non-Buddhist into the Buddhist community
during the time of Ashoka because of the patronage that Ashoka bestowed upon the Buddhist
community. This is one of the problems with the official or the royal patronage. There were lots
of people in the community for wrong reason. In any case, the council was supposed to exclude
those who had the views regarding the Personality, those who clung to the idea of a Personality.
(This whole question of Personality of self and not self and so forth is also very interesting topic. Unfortunately we don’t have enough time to explore them).
At the third council, the debate between the principal parties that participated in the debate was
two schools of the Sthaviravāda or Hīnayāna. One of them was known as Vibhajyavadins, the
Distinctionalists or the Analytical school. The other school was Sarvāstivādins. The council
decided in the favor of the Vibhajyavadins. Ashoka sent out missionaries to take the message of the Vibhajyavadins to foreign lands. Among the missionaries that he sent out was his own son or nephew who took the teachings to Sri Lanka. And this is how the Buddhism in Sri Lanka was established. According to the Vibhajyavada teaching, the school of Sthaviravada or Theravāda, the analytical school became the Theravāda of Sri Lanka. The teaching of the Vibhajyavada was taken by the Ashoka’s missionary became the Theravāda teaching of Sri Lanka.
The council decided that the teachings of the Sarvāstivādins were unorthodox and so the Sarvāstivādins migrated to Kashmir. The Sarvāstivādins became very popular there. They were
very well poised there in Kashmir influencing the newly Buddhist countries in Central Asia-
Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan –the whole newly Buddhist countries of Central Asia. So at the third council the Vibhajyavadins were declared orthodox and they won the debate, so to
speak. But the Sarvāstivāda far from disappearing survived and thrived. They went to Kashmir
and they thrived. It is an interesting observation about the council that no school that was
censored and defeated in the councils was ever disappeared. They all went on to prosper and to
become popular. Ironically, it almost tends to mean that being censored at the council
always added to their popularity. Mahāsaṅghikās were criticized and thrown out at the second
council became very popular school. Sarvāstivāda was criticized in the third council and thrown out became very popular school. In fact the schools, of all the schools, and you will see many schools in the history of Buddhism in India, four schools that survived for thousand of years.
◌ Firstly, the Sthaviravada the Indian equivalent of Theravāda,
◌ secondly, the Mahāsaṅghikā, the dissidents of the second council,
◌ thirdly, the Sarvāstivāda the dissidents or the losers of the third
council and
◌ finally the Vātsīputrīyas-these are the four schools that survived
and prosper at least for thousand years.
Even the Chinese pilgrims during the period of 4th – 7th centuries speak of the existence of these four schools. These are the most important Hīnayāna schools, although the Sarvāstivāda developed Mahāyāna tendencies.
We will continue with what we were doing in the last lecture i.e. the third council during the
period of Ashoka. The principal effect of the third council was first of all the drive of the
Sarvāstivādins to the Northwestern part of India, to Kashmir. That was one effect of the council,
not an intentional effect but an accidental and a natural effect. The other important result was the sending of the missionaries sent by king Ashoka to Sri Lanka. His own son or nephew Mahendra and his (Mahendra) sister Saṅghamitra established Buddhism in Sri Lanka. This is one mission of which we have concrete historical evidence. We have the evidence of the outcome of the mission.
The outcome of the mission sent by king Ashoka was the establishment of Sri Lankan Buddhism from this period. We are told that Ashoka’s mission also went to various directions but we don’t know for certain in what extent these missionaries were effectible? We have gather some information that the missionaries were sent as far Egypt, to the eastern India, to the countries that what now border Thailand and Burma, to Central Asia but we don’t have any definite proof that those missionaries had any notable effect. But we do notice by the beginning of the Christian Era, after few hundred years Buddhism had began influencing extensively particularly Central Asia, the western part of the sub-continent what is now Afghanistan, Iran and the countries of Central Asia like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and so forth.
So we have the mission and we also have the exodus, the migration of the Sarvāstivādins to
Kashmir, which it turned up in the development of Buddhism in India. Then we have the composition for the first time what we might call the polemical phase of Buddhism with the compilation of the text Kathavatthu, which came to be the part of the Theravāda Abhidhamma Pitaka. Kathavatthu contains the discussion and the refutation of the views of the various schools that were censored in the third council. Those were the intricate and complicated discussions of the philosophical views of the various Indian Buddhist schools that developed between the time of the second Buddhist council and the time of the third Buddhist council.
§ 4. The Fourth Council
Next, I am going to talk about the fourth Buddhist council. The fourth Buddhist council took place after quite a bit later, probably at the end of the 1st cen. C.E. To be continued next lecture.
Now the second council took place hundred years after the lifetime (Parinibbana) of the Buddha.
The occasion for the second council was again the disciplinary issues. These issues did not go
away. The first council supposed to settle the disciplinary issues by saying we retain all the
disciplinary rules including the minor ones. The second council was called because the monks
from the Vajjian country were practicing ten breaches of the monastic discipline. They were
guilty of ten breaches. The most important one (among the ten) was handling of gold and silver.
They were guilty of handling gold and silver. The next among the others were quite minor issue,
for example, practice of carrying salt in a hallowed horn. We know even during the lifetime of the Buddha there began to appear relatively settled monastic establishments, for example the
Jetavana monastery that was donated by Anathapindika.
We have the description of the construction of this monastery, of this residence. There were
storerooms in the description of the construction of the monastery. What they did with the storerooms? What they stored in the storerooms, robes, salt, and rice? And yet, hundred years later these monks were charged with the offence of breaking of the monastic rules because they were carrying little bit of salt with them to add into their food. The question of gold and silver it may have been an important question. But there were already a provision during the time of the Buddha, which made it possible for the monastic community to accept gold and silver. It had to be done through a layman acting as an intermediary.
An intermediary would accept gold and silver to buy robes, food and so forth. There was already
that provision. The monks directly accepting gold and silver that was still outlaw. So what has happened today and what would happen for many years? (Acceptance of gold and silver has become not universal but was very wide spread when they say gold and silver, now we can talk about money. What about bank account? Doesn’t that count as gold and silver? Doesn’t that count as money?) So the disciplinary issue that arose at the second council, you might
call them somewhat nick picking.
Theses monks were accused of breaches in the monastic disciplines. The breaches were not extremely serious nonetheless they were censored and criticized at the second council. This is what happened in the second council. This is as far as the official account tells you about the second council. In this level this is a simple matter of imposing monastic discipline. These
monks were found guilty of practicing that infringes the monastic codes and so they were found
guilty. But we all know that the second council did not succeed. It was the occasion for some
kind of schism. Now the traditional reading of the second council is quite, well, I would call
it, oversimplified. As a result it was quite straightforward. The second council blamed and
criticized these monks. So they left the assembly. Most of the junior monks and the lay people
who were the supporters of the dissenters, call themselves Mahāsaṅghikās.
They composed, reformulated their own scriptures/canon and they formed a school which
later became the Mahāyāna. If you look at the most traditional account and most scholarly
traditional treatment of the second council, you will find people stating the origin of the Mahāyāna to the second council. They say there was a schism; the Mahāsaṅghikās emerged from the assembly of the second council. One hand, you have Sthaviras the Elders (Sanskrit - Sthavira, Pali –Thera) and on the other hand you have the Mahāsaṅghikās, the Great Assembly. They went on to become different Sect/different School and they were the progenitors of the Mahāyāna and they were the forefathers of the Mahāyāna.
It seems too simple in the sense that the Mahāsaṅghikās had certain tendencies, which tilted in the Mahāyāna tradition, they had a certain view of the Buddha that came to be incorporated in the Mahāyāna view of the Buddha and they had more liberal view of the monastic discipline which also came to characterize the Mahāyāna. But between the Mahāsaṅghikās and Mahāyāna a lot of other things happened. There were lots of other developments. The origin of the Mahāyāna is not linear. It is not so clear-cut in that sense. I don’t believe that one can say that we have direct development of the Mahāsaṅghikā to the Mahāyāna. For one thing, many followers of the Mahāyāna criticized the Mahāsaṅghikā. Even in the Tibetan tradition(which of course is the Mahāyāna tradition before become the Vajrayāna tradition) they regard the monks who were criticized and censored at the second council as having been in the wrong. They don’t favor the Mahāsaṅghikas.
They don’t take side of thenMahāsaṅghikās in the debate, in the issues that led the course of the
second council. So what extent the Mahāsaṅghikās are the fore founders of the Mahāyāna is
somewhat in question and I repeat that this is the point at which the evolution of the Buddhist
schools became complicated. As I have said, it is still a work in progress; the scholars are still
working on this. (There is a very good set of booklet done by the London Buddhist Vihara which deals with the origin of the Mahāyāna, various schools like Mahāsaṅghikā and Sarvāstivāda etc. and the Mahāyāna Sūtras. I could not trace them in the Internet but I know they exist as I had used them before. So look into those if you come across with them)
2.1. the second council opened the door to the proliferation
Now, I come to the more important point as what the second council did? To this we can attribute the occasion for the schism. What the second council did was it opened the door to the
proliferation. It opened the door to the emergence of many schools of Buddhism. The time
between the second Buddhist council and the time of the third council, which took place during
the time of Ashoka many different sects were emerged. Within this relatively brief period of only
150-200 years we have the emergence of at least 18 different Buddhist schools. By the time of
Ashoka we have in existence at least 18 different schools. So there was an explosion of Buddhist
schools after the second council.
And in that sense the second council was crucial and critical because it opened the way for this proliferation of the Buddhist traditions into many different schools. Now, I want to point out one thing here that it is not an offence in Buddhism to form one’s own school. It is an offence to form one’s own school for selfish purposes, for personal reasons, and for egotistical purposes. Devadatta’s offence was not he wanted to form another school. Devadatta’s offence was he wanted to form another school because he had certain ambition of taking over the Saṅgha. If you form another school in Buddhism because of genuine difference of opinion about doctrine, about discipline, that is not an offence and that is permissible.
So the proliferation of the schools in Buddhism is allowed as long as it is done for sincere reasons, because you have a real, honest difference of opinion with the majority of the community, the community in which you are living. And that point you are expected to
form your own community. But that by itself was not an offence as long as it is based on the basis of sincere and honest opinion. So we have this proliferation of the schools and by
the time of the third council during the time of Ashoka there are at least 18 schools.
§ 3. The Third Council
The story of the third council is interesting for a number of reasons. First of all, the third council
was called because of the instances of the people in the community who believed in the some
form of ‘personality’. These people were eventually come to be called in course of time as
Vātsīputrīyas. They believed in the Personality (Pudgala) that was identical with or different from
Skandha. They were considered to be heretical or semi-heretical. Some account also tell us that
the problem arose because of the infiltration of the non-Buddhist into the Buddhist community
during the time of Ashoka because of the patronage that Ashoka bestowed upon the Buddhist
community. This is one of the problems with the official or the royal patronage. There were lots
of people in the community for wrong reason. In any case, the council was supposed to exclude
those who had the views regarding the Personality, those who clung to the idea of a Personality.
(This whole question of Personality of self and not self and so forth is also very interesting topic. Unfortunately we don’t have enough time to explore them).
At the third council, the debate between the principal parties that participated in the debate was
two schools of the Sthaviravāda or Hīnayāna. One of them was known as Vibhajyavadins, the
Distinctionalists or the Analytical school. The other school was Sarvāstivādins. The council
decided in the favor of the Vibhajyavadins. Ashoka sent out missionaries to take the message of the Vibhajyavadins to foreign lands. Among the missionaries that he sent out was his own son or nephew who took the teachings to Sri Lanka. And this is how the Buddhism in Sri Lanka was established. According to the Vibhajyavada teaching, the school of Sthaviravada or Theravāda, the analytical school became the Theravāda of Sri Lanka. The teaching of the Vibhajyavada was taken by the Ashoka’s missionary became the Theravāda teaching of Sri Lanka.
The council decided that the teachings of the Sarvāstivādins were unorthodox and so the Sarvāstivādins migrated to Kashmir. The Sarvāstivādins became very popular there. They were
very well poised there in Kashmir influencing the newly Buddhist countries in Central Asia-
Afghanistan, Tajikistan and Uzbekistan –the whole newly Buddhist countries of Central Asia. So at the third council the Vibhajyavadins were declared orthodox and they won the debate, so to
speak. But the Sarvāstivāda far from disappearing survived and thrived. They went to Kashmir
and they thrived. It is an interesting observation about the council that no school that was
censored and defeated in the councils was ever disappeared. They all went on to prosper and to
become popular. Ironically, it almost tends to mean that being censored at the council
always added to their popularity. Mahāsaṅghikās were criticized and thrown out at the second
council became very popular school. Sarvāstivāda was criticized in the third council and thrown out became very popular school. In fact the schools, of all the schools, and you will see many schools in the history of Buddhism in India, four schools that survived for thousand of years.
◌ Firstly, the Sthaviravada the Indian equivalent of Theravāda,
◌ secondly, the Mahāsaṅghikā, the dissidents of the second council,
◌ thirdly, the Sarvāstivāda the dissidents or the losers of the third
council and
◌ finally the Vātsīputrīyas-these are the four schools that survived
and prosper at least for thousand years.
Even the Chinese pilgrims during the period of 4th – 7th centuries speak of the existence of these four schools. These are the most important Hīnayāna schools, although the Sarvāstivāda developed Mahāyāna tendencies.
We will continue with what we were doing in the last lecture i.e. the third council during the
period of Ashoka. The principal effect of the third council was first of all the drive of the
Sarvāstivādins to the Northwestern part of India, to Kashmir. That was one effect of the council,
not an intentional effect but an accidental and a natural effect. The other important result was the sending of the missionaries sent by king Ashoka to Sri Lanka. His own son or nephew Mahendra and his (Mahendra) sister Saṅghamitra established Buddhism in Sri Lanka. This is one mission of which we have concrete historical evidence. We have the evidence of the outcome of the mission.
The outcome of the mission sent by king Ashoka was the establishment of Sri Lankan Buddhism from this period. We are told that Ashoka’s mission also went to various directions but we don’t know for certain in what extent these missionaries were effectible? We have gather some information that the missionaries were sent as far Egypt, to the eastern India, to the countries that what now border Thailand and Burma, to Central Asia but we don’t have any definite proof that those missionaries had any notable effect. But we do notice by the beginning of the Christian Era, after few hundred years Buddhism had began influencing extensively particularly Central Asia, the western part of the sub-continent what is now Afghanistan, Iran and the countries of Central Asia like Uzbekistan, Tajikistan and so forth.
So we have the mission and we also have the exodus, the migration of the Sarvāstivādins to
Kashmir, which it turned up in the development of Buddhism in India. Then we have the composition for the first time what we might call the polemical phase of Buddhism with the compilation of the text Kathavatthu, which came to be the part of the Theravāda Abhidhamma Pitaka. Kathavatthu contains the discussion and the refutation of the views of the various schools that were censored in the third council. Those were the intricate and complicated discussions of the philosophical views of the various Indian Buddhist schools that developed between the time of the second Buddhist council and the time of the third Buddhist council.
§ 4. The Fourth Council
Next, I am going to talk about the fourth Buddhist council. The fourth Buddhist council took place after quite a bit later, probably at the end of the 1st cen. C.E. To be continued next lecture.
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