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Buddhist councils

Convention of Buddhist monastic sangha

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The famous First Buddhist Council or Communal Recitation is recorded in Buddhist texts as being held soon after the Buddha's passing, when Ananda recited all of the spoken sutras, which were recorded in Rajagriha. The second Council was held a 100 years later.

The details of the later councils are debated by modern Buddhist studies. Various sources belonging to different Buddhist schools may contain different accounts of these events. For this reason, modern scholars have questioned the historicity of some of these councils or at least their preserved descriptions in literature.

First Buddhist council

All six of the surviving Vinaya sources of various early Buddhist schools contain accounts, in whole or in part, of the first and second councils. The story of the First Council seems to be a continuation of the story of the Buddha's final days and death told in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta and its equivalents in the Agamas. Based on correlations and continuity between these two texts, Louis Finot concluded that they had originated from a single narrative that was later split between the Sutta Pitaka and Vinaya Pitaka. In most schools, the account of the First Council is located at the end of the Skandhaka section of the Vinaya but before any appendices.

The first Buddhist council is traditionally said to have been held just after Buddha's final nirvana, and presided over by Mahākāśyapa, one of his most senior disciples, at a cave near Rājagṛha (today's Rajgir) with the support of king Ajatashatru. Its objective was to preserve the Buddha's sayings (suttas) and the monastic discipline or rules (Vinaya). The Suttas were recited by Ananda, and the Vinaya was recited by Upali. Even though the Buddha had said that the Sangha could abolish the minor rules after his passing, the council made the unanimous decision to keep all the rules intact. The traditional notion that the whole of the Suttas and Vinayas as we know them today were recited during this council is likely to be an exaggeration.

It is in fact not clear to whom this traditional notion should be attributed. For example, the Pāli commentarial tradition unambiguously recognizes that the Bakkula Sutta (MN 124) was only included in the Pāli discourse collections at the second saṅgīti. The case is fairly obvious, as the protagonist of this discourse mentions that he has been a monk for eighty years. This obviously exceeds the forty years of the Buddha’s teaching activities, making it inescapable that the discourse could only have been spoken forty years after the Buddha’s funeral, or still later than that. The allocation of this discourse to the second saṅgīti by the Pāli commentaries in this respect shows that the notion that the whole of the suttas as we know them today were recited during the first saṅgīti conflicts with the position adopted by Theravāda exegesis.

Numerous Vinayas depict various disagreements in the first council. Unnamed monks disagreed on whether to keep or get rid of some of the minor rules (since the Buddha had told Ananda that this may be done). Some monks even argued all the minor rules should be abolished. Also, numerous early sources state that Mahakasyapa criticized Ananda in various ways. Bhikkhu Anālayo quotes one passage from a Chinese parallel to the Mahāparinibbāna-sutta (T 1428 at T XXII 966b18), in which Mahākassapa says: "Ānanda is [like] a lay person. I am afraid that, being with covetousness in his mind, he will not recite the discourses completely." Anālayo writes there may have been "actual conflict between two contending factions in the monastic community after the Buddha's decease, with the more ascetically inclined faction emerging as the winning party in the accounts of the first saṅgīti".

According to some traditional accounts, following the Buddha's death, 499 of the Buddha's top arhats were chosen to attend the council. Ananda, then a sotapanna, trained himself until the dawn of day of the council, at which point he attained arahatship and was allowed to join the council.

Regarding the Abhidhamma Pitaka, the third major division of the Tipitaka, modern academic scholarship holds that it was likely composed at a later date because of its contents and differences in language and style. According to Theravada tradition, the Abhidhamma Pitaka, and the ancient Atthakathā (commentary) were also included at the first Buddhist council in the Sutta category, but its literature is different from Sutta because the Abhidhamma Pitaka was authored by Sāriputta.

Alternative groups

The various Vinayas also recount another curious event during this time. The Cullavagga mentions there was an arhat named Purāṇa who stated that he and his followers preferred to remember the Buddha's teachings in the manner he had heard it and so did not rely on the textual collections of the council. This figure is also found in the Aśokāvadāna and the Tibetan Dulvā Vinaya, which depict Purāṇa and another monk, Gavampati which were not present at the council and who worry about what will happen to the Dharma after the death of the Buddha. This account is described in the Chinese versions of the Dharmagupta and Mahīsāsaka Vinayas and in the Vinayamātrika Sūtra. Gavampati is said to have also maintained a set of eight rules regarding food which are retained by the Mahīsāsaka Vinaya.

A similar event is described by Chinese sources like the writings of the Indian scholar Paramartha, Jizang, and the pilgrim Xuanzang. According to these sources, an alternative canon named the Mahasamghikanikaya (Collection of the Great Assembly) was compiled by an Arhat named Baspa and his followers. Xuanzang reports visiting a stupa near Rajgir which marked the site of this alternate council.

Historicity

Several modern scholars doubt whether the entire canon was really recited during the First Council, because the early texts contain different accounts on important subjects such as meditation. It may be, though, that early versions were recited of what is now known as the Vinaya-piṭaka and Sutta-piṭaka. Nevertheless, many scholars, from the late 19th century onward, have considered the historicity of the First Council improbable. Some scholars, such as orientalists Louis de La Vallée-Poussin and D.P. Minayeff, thought there must have been assemblies after the Buddha's death, but considered only the main characters and some events before or after the First Council historical. Other scholars, such as Buddhologist André Bareau and Indologist Hermann Oldenberg, considered it likely that the account of the First Council was written after the Second Council, and based on that of the second, since there were not any major problems to solve after the Buddha's death, or any other need to organize the First Council.

On the other hand, archaeologist Louis Finot, Indologist E. E. Obermiller and to some extent Indologist Nalinaksha Dutt thought the account of the First Council was authentic, because of the correspondences between the Pāli texts and the Sanskrit traditions. Indologist Richard Gombrich meanwhile holds that "large parts of the Pali Canon" do date back to the first council.

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