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Second
Buddhist
Council,

his disciples; his code of discipline; 2 and his system of doctrine. These became the Three Collections of Buddha's teaching; and the word for a Buddhist Council 5 means literally 'a singing together.' A century afterwards, a Second Council, of seven hundred, was held at Vaisali, to settle disputes 443 B.C. (?) between the more and the less strict followers of Buddhism. It condemned a system of ten 'Indulgences' which had grown up; but it led to the separation of the Buddhists into two hostile parties, who afterwards split into eighteen sects.

Third

During the next two hundred years Buddhism spread over Buddhist Northern India, perhaps receiving a new impulse from the Council, Greek kingdoms in the Punjab. About 257 B.C., Asoka, the 244 B.C. (?) King of Magadha or Behar, became a zealous convert to the faith. Asoka was grandson of Chandra Gupta, the adventurer in Alexander's camp, and afterwards the ally of Seleukos (see post, p. 160). Asoka is said to have supported 64,000 Buddhist priests; he founded many religious houses, and his kingdom is called the Land of the Monasteries (Vihára or Behar) to this day.

1 Sútras.

2 Vinaya.

5

3 Abhidharma.
Sangiti in Páli.

4 Pitakas, literally 'baskets.' Much learning has been expended upon the age of Asoka, and various dates have been assigned to him. But, indeed, all Buddhist dates are open questions, according to the system of chronology adopted. The middle of the 3rd century B.C. may be taken as the most likely era of Asoka. The following table from General Cunningham's Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, p. vii. (1877), exhibits the results of the latest researches on this subject:

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Great

Asoka did for Buddhism what Constantine afterwards effected The work of Asoka. for Christianity; he organized it on the basis of a State religion. This he accomplished by five means-by a Council to settle the faith, by edicts promulgating its principles, by a State Department to watch over its purity, by missionaries to spread its doctrines, and by an authoritative revision or canon of the Buddhist scriptures. In 244 B.C., Asoka convened (1) His at Patná the Third Buddhist Council, of one thousand elders. Council. Evil men, taking on them the yellow robe of the Order, had given forth their own opinions as the teaching of Buddha. Such heresies were now corrected; and the Buddhism of Southern Asia practically dates from Asoka's Council. In a number of edicts, both before and after the synod, he published (2) His throughout India the grand principles of the faith. Such edicts are still found graven deep upon pillars, caves, and rocks, from the Yusafzai valley beyond Peshawar on the north-western frontier, through the heart of Hindustán and the Central Provinces, to Káthiáwár in the west, and Orissa in the east. Tradition states that Asoka set up 84,000 memorial columns or topes; and the forty inscriptions extant in our own day show how widely these royal sermons were spread over India.1 In the year of the Council, the king also founded a State De- (3) His Departpartment to watch over the purity, and to direct the spread, of ment of the faith. A Minister of Justice and Religion (Dharma Mahá- Public mátra) directed its operations; and, one of its first duties being Worship.

1 Major-General Cunningham, Director-General of the Archæological Survey of India, enumerates 13 rock inscriptions, 17 cave inscriptions, and 10 inscribed pillars. The rock inscriptions are at―(1) Sháhbázgarhi in the Yusafzai country, 40 miles east-north-east of Peshawar; (2) Khálsi, on the west bank of the Jumna; (3) Girnár in Káthiáwár, 40 miles north of Somnáth; (4 to 7) Dhauli in Cuttack, midway between Cuttack and Puri, and Jaugada in Ganjám District, 18 miles north-north-west of Berhampur,-two inscriptions at each virtually identical; (8) Sasseram, at the north-east end of the Káimur range, 70 miles south-east of Benares; (9) Rúpnáth, a famous place of pilgrimage, 35 miles north of Jabalpur ; (10 and 11) Bairát, 41 miles north of Jaipur; (12) the Khandgiri Hill, near Dhauli in Cuttack; (13) Deotek, 50 miles south-east of Nagpur. The cave inscriptions, 17 in number, are found at-(1, 2, 3) Barábar, and (4, 5, 6) in Nágárjuni Hills, both places 15 miles north of Gayá; (7 to 15) in Khandgiri Hill in Cuttack, and (16 and 17) in Rámgarh in Sirguja. The ten inscribed pillars are—(1) the Delhi-Siwálik, at Delhi; (2) the Delhi-Meerut, at Delhi; (3) the Allahábád; (4) the Lauriya-Araráj, at Lauriya, 77 miles north of Patná; (5) the Lauriya-Navandgarh, at Lauriya, 15 miles north-north-west of Bettia; (6 and 7) two additional edicts on the Delhi-Siwálik, not found on any other pillar; (8 and 9) two short additional edicts on the Allahábád pillar, peculiar to itself; (10) a short mutilated record on a fragment of a pillar at Sánchi, near Bhílsa.

edicts.

(4) Missionary efforts.

to proselytize, he was specially charged with the welfare of the aborigines among whom its missionaries were sent. Asoka did not think it enough to convert the inferior races, without looking after their material interests. Wells were to be dug, and trees planted, along the roads; a system of medical aid was established throughout his kingdom and the conquered Provinces, as far as Ceylon, for man and beast.1 Officers were appointed to watch over domestic life and public morality,2 and to promote instruction among the women as well as the youth.

Asoka recognised proselytism by peaceful means as a State duty. The Rock Inscriptions record how he sent forth missionaries 'to the utmost limits of the barbarian countries,' to 'intermingle among all unbelievers' for the spread of religion. They shall mix equally with soldiers, Bráhmans, and beggars, with the dreaded and the despised, both within the kingdom ' and in foreign countries, teaching better things.' Conversion is to be effected by persuasion, not by the sword. Buddhism was at once the most intensely missionary religion in the world, and the most tolerant. This character of a proselytizing faith, which wins its victories by peaceful means, so strongly impressed upon it by Asoka, has remained a prominent feature of Buddhism to the present day. Asoka, however, not only took measures to spread the religion, he also endeavoured to secure its orthodoxy. He collected the body of doctrine into an authoritative version, in the Magadhi language or Buddhist dialect of his central kingdom in Behar; a version which for scriptures. two thousand years has formed the canon (pitakas) of the Southern Buddhists.

(5) Reformed canon of

Edicts of
Asoka.

Mr. Robert Cust has summarized the purport of the Fourteen Edicts of Asoka in the following sentences:

1. Prohibition of the slaughter of animals for food or sacrifice.

2. Provision of a system of medical aid for men and animals, and of plantations and wells on the roadside.

3. Order for a quinquennial humiliation and republication of the great moral precepts of the Buddhistic creed.

4. Comparison of the former state of things, and the happy existing state under the king.

5. Appointment of missionaries to go into various countries, which are enumerated, to convert the people and foreigners.

1 Rock Inscriptions, Edict ii., General Cunningham's Corpus Inscriptionum, p. 118.

2 Rock Inscriptions, Edict vi. etc., Corpus Inscriptionum, p. 120. These Inspectors of Morals are supposed to correspond to the Sixth Caste of Megasthenes, the 'Ericxoro of Arrian.

3 Rock Inscriptions, Edict v. etc., Corpus Inscriptionum, p. 120.

6. Appointment of informers (or inspectors) and guardians of morality. 7. Expression of a desire that there may be uniformity of religion and equality of rank.

8. Contrast of the carnal pleasures of previous rulers with the pious enjoyments of the present king.

9. Inculcation of the true happiness to be found in virtue, through which alone the blessings of heaven can be propitiated.

10. Contrast of the vain and transitory glory of this world with the reward for which the king strives and looks beyond.

II. Inculcation of the doctrine that the imparting of dharma or virtue is the greatest of charitable gifts.

12. Address to all unbelievers.

13. (Imperfect); the meaning only conjectural.

14. Summing up of the whole.

Kanishka

The fourth and last of the great Councils was held under Fourth King Kanishka, according to one tradition, four hundred years Council, after Buddha's death. The date of Kanishka is still uncertain; (40 A.D.?) but, from the evidence of coins and inscriptions, his reign has been fixed in the 1st century after Christ, or, say, 40 A.D.1 Kanishka, the most famous of the Saka conquerors, ruled over North-Western India, and the adjoining countries. His authority had its nucleus in Kashmír, but it extended to both sides of the Himalayas, from Yarkand and Khokan to Agra and Sind. His Council of five hundred drew up three commentaries on the Buddhist faith. These commentaries supplied in part materials for the Tibetan or Northern Canon, completed at subsequent periods. The Northern Canon, or, as the Chinese proudly call it, the 'Greater Vehicle of the Law,' includes many later corruptions or developments of the Indian faith as originally embodied by Asoka in the 'Lesser Vehicle,' or Canon of the Southern Buddhists (244 B.C.). The Buddhist Canon of China, a branch of the 'Greater Vehicle,' was arranged between 67 and 1285 A.D. It includes 1440 distinct works, comprising 5586 books. The ultimate divergence between the Canons is great, both as to the historical aspects of Buddha's life and as to his teaching. With respect to doctrine, one example will suffice. According to the Northern or 'Greater Vehicle,' those who transgressed wilfully after ordination might yet recover themselves; while to such persons the Southern or Lesser Vehicle' allowed no room for repentance.2

and

The original northern commentaries were written in the Northern 1 The latest efforts to fix the date of Kanishka are little more than Southern records of conflicting authorities. See Dr. James Fergusson's paper in the Canons. Journal of the Royal Asiatic Society, Article ix., April 1880; and Mr. E. Thomas' comprehensive disquisition on the Sáh and Gupta coins, pp. 18-79 of the Report of the Archæological Survey of Western India for 1874-75, 4to, London, 1876. 2 Beal; Catena, p. 253.

Buddhism

as a

national religion.

Spread of
Buddhism.

Sanskrit language, perhaps because the Kashmír and northern priests, who formed Kanishka's Council, belonged to isolated Aryan colonies which had been little influenced by the growth of the Indian vernacular dialects. Kanishka and his Kashmir Council (40 A.D. ?) thus became in some degree to the Northern or Tibeto-Chinese Buddhists, what Asoka and his Patná Council (244 B.C.) had been to the Buddhists of Ceylon and the South. Buddhism was thus organized as a State religion by the Councils of Asoka and Kanishka. It started from Bráhmanical doctrines; but from those doctrines, not as taught in hermitages to clusters of Bráhman disciples, but as vitalized by a preacher of rare power in the capital cities of India. Buddha did not abolish caste. On the contrary, reverence to Bráhmans and the spiritual guide ranked as one of the three great duties, with obedience to parents and acts of kindness to all men and animals. He introduced, however, a new classification of mankind, on a spiritual basis of believers and unbelievers. The former took rank in the Buddhist community,at first, according to their age and merit; in later times, as laity1 and clergy2 (i.e. the religious orders). Buddhism carried transmigration to its utmost spiritual use, and proclaimed our own actions to be the sole ruling influence on our past, present, and future states. It was thus led into the denial of any external being or god who could interfere with the immutable law of cause and effect as applied to the soul. But, on the other hand, it linked together mankind as parts of one universal whole, and denounced the isolated self-seeking of the human heart as 'the heresy of individuality." Its mission was to make men more moral, kinder to others, and happier themselves; not to propitiate imaginary deities. It accordingly founded its teaching on man's duty to his neighbour, instead of on his obligations to God; and constructed its ritual on a basis of relic-worship or the commemoration of good men, instead of on sacrifice. Its sacred buildings were not temples to the gods, but monasteries (viháras) for the religious orders, with their bells and rosaries; or memorial shrines, 4 reared over a tooth or bone of the founder of the faith.

The missionary impulse given by Asoka quickly bore fruit. In the year after his great Council at Patná (244 B.C.), his son

1 Upasáka.

2 Sramana, bsikshu (monk or religious mendicant), bhikshuní (nun).

4

3 Sakayaditthi.

Stúpas, topes, literally heaps or tumuli;' dagobas or dhátu-gopas, ' relic-preservers ;' chaityas.

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