How Teachings of the Buddha are preserved over 2500 years (Part 2)

Ashoka (Asoka) Pillar

Before we continue to Buddha’s teachings been documented in the Fourth Buddhist Council, let us go a little more to what had actually happened in the Third Buddhist Council. During the ruling of King Asoka (Ashoka) in India, there was a serious issue within the Sangha as a number of unworthy men who were greedy, faithless and held wrong views, infiltrated the order and caused the respect for the Sangha diminished. King Asoka put a solution to the matter by appointing the Elder, Venerable Moggaliputta Tissa to examine monks from different monasteries about the teachings of Buddha and those who held heretical views were expelled from the Sangha. After the reshuffle of the Sangha order, the Third Buddhist Council was called by Venerable Moggaliputta Tissa in order to ensure that the Dhamma was kept to the purest. At that time all the Three Baskets of the Vinaya, Sutta and Abhidhamma were recited and reconfirmed. King Asoka also ordered several missions of the Dhamma to be sent to the outlying areas of the Asoka Empire for disseminating the Buddha’s teachings to the respective local people in places, such as Sri Lanka, Kashmir, Gandhara (currently Pakistan and Afganistan), Greece, Himalayas and Suvannabhumi (currently Burma and Thailand).

Gandhāra (Sanskrit: गन्धार, Pashto:ګندهارا, Urdu: گندھارا Gandḥārā; also known as Waihind in Persian) is the name of
an ancient kingdom (Mahajanapada), located in
northern Pakistan and eastern Afghanistan.

According to Buddhism history, there were two recorded Fourth Buddhist Councils. The first one was held in Sri Lanka in the 1st Century BCE. In this Fourth Buddhist council the Tipitaka was for the first time committed to writing on palm leaves after centuries been memorized and recited. The second one was held in Kashmir by the Sarvastivada school around the First Century AD.

The first Fourth Buddhist Council was held in Tambapanni (Sri Lanka) under the ruling of King Vattagamani. The main reason for holding this council was that the challenge for most of the monks to memorize and retain the entire Tipitaka, as a result passing down the complete could be a problem in the long run. Since the technique of documentation was available at that time, the best possible way to preserve the entire body of the Buddha’s teachings was to have them written down. In the council, Venerable Maharakkhita and five hundred monks recited the words of the Buddha and wrote them down on palm leaves. Later on, these palm leaves scriptures were taken to countries like Burma, Thailand, Cambodia and Laos.

"Wars, famines and also the introduction of wrong beliefs
and wrong practice made it difficult to preserve the teachings.
Finally, in 89 B.C., the teachings were committed to writing.
Five hundred monks undertook this great enterprise
in the cave of Aluvihara (Alulena Vihara)...."

~ Nina van Gorkom (Pilgrimage in Sri Lanka) ~

The second Fourth Buddhist Council was believed held by the Kushan emperor Kanishka in Kashmir, about a century AD, however the adaptation of this council was not regarded as convincing in Theravada and all the scriptures compiled here can only be found in the Mahayana traditions. Emperor Kanishka gathered 500 monks to compile the commentaries on Sarvastivadin Abhidharma and produced an extensive compendium, known as the Maha-Vibhasha.

The Kushan Empire (c. 1st–3rd centuries CE)
was originally formed in the territories of ancient Bactria on
either side of the middle course of the Oxus River or
Amu Darya in what is now northern Afghanistan,
and southern Tajikistan and Uzbekistan

For more than 2500 years, the Buddha’s teachings were still well kept and utilised till today although it might not be a full record of all His words. What we could get today is the essence that was commonly agreeable by all the members from the First Buddhist Council which was held 3 months after Buddha left. So His 45 years of teachings could be more complex and more absolute back in those days compared to what we have today are just the extracts from the previous council members’ memory, upon agreeable.

Tradition holds that the First Council was held in a hall erected
by Ajatasattu outside the Sattapanniguha Cave
(Sanskrit: Sattaparnaguha) in Rajgir,
three months after the Buddha had died.
Detailed accounts of the council can be found in
the Khandhaka sections of the canonical Vinayas.

Rajgir is a city and a notified area in
Nalanda district in the Indian state of Bihar.The city of Rajgir (ancient Rajagriha or
Rājagṛha; Pali: Rājagaha)
was the first capital of the kingdom of Magadha,
a state that would eventually evolve
into the Mauryan Empire.

Less we forget, the Buddha’s teachings are all about challenging one to put everything one experiencing into question and test before accepting them as a direction of practice. People are encouraged by the Buddha not to simply believe everything he said to be true. As much as we know the Tipitaka or the Pali canon only offers as a valuable guidance towards ultimate truth, it is important to exercise our analytical wisdom for reasoning the truth rather than merely trusting in what the suttas and the scriptures documented.

In Kalama Sutta, Buddha cited:
Do not go upon
what has been acquired by repeated hearing;
nor upon faith or tradition;
nor upon rumour;
nor upon what is in a scripture;
nor upon mere logical reasoning;
nor upon mere philosophical reasoning;
nor upon mere outward appearance;
nor upon a bias towards a notion that has been pondered over;
nor upon another’s seeming ability;
nor upon the consideration, “The monk is our teacher”.

But whatever, after due examination and analysis, you yourselves directly know, “These things are wholesome, blameless, praised by the wise; when adopted and carried out, they are benefit and lead to well-being, prosperity and happiness,” then you should accept and practise them.

In this sutta, Gautama Buddha passes through
the village of Kesaputta (in ancient Kurukshetra state and
presently known as Haryana state in India) and is greeted

by the people who live there: the Kalamas.
The Kalamas greet the Buddha and ask for advice.
According to the Kalamas, many wandering holy men
and ascetics pass through the village,

expounding their teachings and criticizing others'.
The Kalamas ask the Buddha whose teachings they should follow.
In response, he delivered a sutta that serves as
an entry-point to Buddhist beliefs to
those unconvinced by revelatory experiences.
~ Raj Kumar Oshora
(Lord Buddha: The Greatest Son of India
and World Peace Emblem) ~

Samurai Beng, the Dhamma warrior

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How Teachings of the Buddha are preserved over 2500 years (Part 1)

This painting depicted Ven. Ananda in the First Buddhist Council

(Please do not mistake the person sitting there in the painting as Buddha. That person was Ven. Ananda)

(Picture Courtesy of Wikimedia)

* Another strange thing I found in the painting was how come there was a scroll on his lap. There was no writing of any sort about Buddhist scriptures in the First Buddhist Council.

Recently, I came across a chapter in ‘The Fundamentals of Buddhism’ by Sayadaw U Silananda about Divisions of the Buddha’s Teachings and the Buddhist Council. Out of my interest, I looked up some additional readings from the internet about the efforts on how the Buddha’s disciples managed to preserve His teachings until today.


In the book, it mentioned that the First Buddhist Council was held at Rajagaha 3 months after the Buddha passed away, led by Venerable Mahakassapa. The main purpose of the Council was to review what the Enlightened One taught in 45 years. Then it was the start of gathering of the scriptures of Buddhism into an enormous collection. The collection was called (in Sanskrit) ‘Tripitaka’ or (in Pali) ‘Tipitaka’, which gives the meaning of ‘three baskets’ because it is organized into three major sections. It also is called the "Pali Canon" because it is preserved in a language called Pali.

Elaborated from the chapter, Venerable Mahakassapa felt that there was a need to prioritise the review the monastic discipline at that time because monks could abandon the rules of discipline and do as they liked after Buddha left them. So the first agenda in the Council was to review the rules of discipline for monk and nuns. Since Venerable Upali was known to have comprehensive knowledge on the rules of the monastic order, he was in-charged for delivering the rules out to the 500 monks. Only those rules, upon agreeable by the 500 arahats, were accepted by the Council. Then these rules became the Vinaya Pitaka (Discipline Section), one of the three baskets or sections of Buddha’s core teachings (Tipitaka). Vinaya Pitaka is a collection of texts regarding the rules of discipline and conduct for monks and nuns. The Vinaya-pitaka is not only a directory of monastic rules but it also explains the circumstances that caused the Buddha to make many of the rules.

Mahakassapa also asked Venerable Ananda, who Buddha’s closest companion when Buddha was still alive to recall from his memory on all the Buddha’s sermons as he was known for his prodigious memory. He began all his recitation with the word ‘Thus I have heard’, similar to what you can find these words in the beginning of any Buddhist scriptures or suttas. Again, the collection of suttas recited had to be agreed and approved by the Council for their accuracy, before being adopted. This section or basket of the Tipitaka is called the Sutta Section (Sutra in Sanskrit) or ‘Sutta Pitaka’ and it contains thousands of sermons and discourses delivered by the Buddha and a few of his disciples. This ‘basket’ is further subdivided into five nikayas, or collections (More of these are explained the chapter mentioned)

Up till the Third Buddhist Council which was held about 250 BCE to clarify Buddhist doctrine and to desist the spreading of heterodoxy to the Buddha’s teachings, the final version entire Pali Canon of the Tipitaka was adopted, which the inclusion of the third basket, Abhidhamma Pitaka (Abhidharma in Sankrit) or ‘Section of Special Teachings’. This section of Special Teachings mentioned contains commentaries and analyses of the suttas. The Abhidhamma Pitaka explores the psychological and spiritual phenomena described in the suttas and provides a theoretical foundation for understanding them.

Where did the Abhidhamma-pitaka come from? According to legend, the Buddha spent the first few days after his enlightenment formulating the contents of the third basket. Seven years later he preached the teachings of the third section to devas (gods). The only human who heard these teachings was his disciple Venerable Shariputta, who passed the teachings on to other monks. These teachings were preserved by chanting and memory, as were the suttas and the rules of discipline.

However, all the Buddha teachings were not put into any form of writing and they have been passed down generations to generations through words by mouth, until the fourth Buddhist Council. We will explore more on this in the next part. Please feel free to comment on the post too.

Samurai Beng, the Dhamma warrior

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