Buddhist councils

[1] Accounts of these councils are recorded in Buddhist texts as having begun immediately following the death of the Buddha and have continued into the modern era.

[4] 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.

[9][10] 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.

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.

[17] Several modern scholars doubt whether the entire canon was really recited during the First Council,[10] because the early texts contain different accounts on important subjects such as meditation.

While inevitably disagreeing on points of details, these schools nevertheless agree that the bhikkhus at Vaisali were accepting monetary donations and following other lax practices (which led to a controversy when other monks discovered this).

[28] In response, both the monks of Vaiśālī and Yasa gathered senior members of the Sangha from the region to consult in order to fully settle the issue.

[29][30] The Cullavagga of the Pali Canon of Theravāda Buddhism holds that the Vaiśālī (Vajjiputtakā) monks practiced ten points (dasa vatthūni) which were against the Vinaya rules.

Yasa then left Kosambī, and, having summoned monks from Pāvā in the west and Avanti in the south, sought Sambhūta Sānavāsi in Ahoganga.

The Vajjiputtakas refused to accept the finding of Revata's Council and formed a separate sect, the Mahāsanghikas, numbering ten thousand monks, who held a recital of their own.

The "five points" describe an arhat as one still characterized by impurity due to being affected by nocturnal emissions (asucisukhavisaṭṭhi), ignorance (aññāṇa), doubt (kaṅkhā), reaching enlightenment through the guidance of others (paravitāraṇa), and speaking of suffering while in samādhi (vacibheda).

[39][6] Vasumitra's Samayabhedoparacanacakra (a Sarvāstivāda source) claims the dispute in Pātaliputra that led to the first schism was over the five heretical points of Mahādeva which degrades the attainment of arhats.

This version of events emphasizes the purity of the Kasmiri Sarvastivadins, who are portrayed as descended from the arahants who fled the persecution of Mahādeva and, led by Upagupta, established themselves in Kashmir and Gandhara.

[35] According to the Theravāda commentaries and chronicles, the Third Buddhist Council was convened by the Mauryan king Ashoka at Pātaliputra (today's Patna), under the leadership of the elder Moggaliputta Tissa.

[45] Its objective was to purify the Buddhist movement, particularly from opportunistic factions and heretical non-buddhists (tirthikas) which had only joined because they were attracted by the royal patronage of the sangha.

[46] The Theravadins say that council proceeded to recite the scriptures, adding to the canon Moggaliputta Tissa's own book, the Kathavatthu, a discussion of various dissenting Buddhist views and the Vibhajjavādin responses to them.

[39] According to the Mahavamsa (XII, 1st paragraph),[49] the council and Ashoka sent the following missionaries to various regions:[50] Some of these missions were very successful, such as the ones which established Buddhism in Afghanistan, Gandhara and Sri Lanka.

The Southern Theravāda school had a Fourth Buddhist Council in the first century BCE in Sri Lanka at Alu Vihāra (Aloka Leṇa) during the time of King Vattagamani-Abhaya also known as Valagamba.

Norman writes:The Dipavamsa states that during the reign of Valagamba (Vattagamani Abhaya) (29–17 BCE) the monks who had previously remembered the Tipitaka and its commentary orally, wrote them down in books, because of the threat posed by famine and war.

[60] Whatever the case, the sources state that a council was held at the cave temple of Alu Vihāra in response to Beminitiya Seya.

It is said that emperor Kanishka gathered five hundred Bhikkhus in Kashmir, headed by Vasumitra, to systematize the Sarvastivadin canon, which were translated from earlier Prakrit vernacular languages (such as Gandhari) into Sanskrit.

It was also the work of this council to approve the entire Tripitaka inscribed for posterity on seven hundred and twenty-nine marble slabs in the Burmese script before its recitation.

These two thousand five hundred learned Theravada monks came from Myanmar, Thailand, Cambodia, Laos, Vietnam, Sri Lanka, India, and Nepal.

[71] The traditional recitation of the Buddhist Scriptures took two years, and the Tripiṭaka and its allied literature in all the scripts were painstakingly examined and their differences noted down and the necessary corrections made and all the versions were then collated.

Finally, after the council had officially approved them, all of the books of the Tipitaka and their commentaries were prepared for printing on modern presses and published in the Burmese script.

The fourth council is seen by the Thai tradition of Buddhist history as having taken place under the reign of King Devānampiyatissa (247–207 BCE), when Buddhism was first brought to Sri Lanka.

The fifth council is that of King Vattagāmanī Abhaya, when the Pali Canon was first put into writing in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE at Āluvihāra under the presidency of Mahātthera Rakkhita.

[74][73] The sixth council, according to the Saṅgītiyavaṁsa, comprises the activities of the Pāli translation of the Sinhalese commentaries, a project that was led by Ācariya Buddhaghosa and involved numerous bhikkhus of the Sri Lankan Mahavihara tradition.

The Mahāthera Dhammadinnā of Tālavana Mahāvihāra (Wat Pā Tān) presided over the council, which was patronized by the King of Lan Na, Tilokaraj (r. 1441–1487).