Buddha had imparted to all who wished to tread the path of liberation, who undertook vows of poverty and chastity, the initiation of the Bhikshu, i. e. of the mendicant, of the Çramana, i. e. the ascetic, the priest of his new religion. These Çramanas he had recommended to withdraw themselves from the world, and live after his own example in solitary meditation on the four truths: pain, the origin of pain, the annihilation of pain, and the way which leads to this. But his eremites were not to live the life of the eremite continuously any more than himself. Even the mere fact that they had to make a livelihood by begging excluded any long-continued isolation and settled residence; and along with renunciation Buddha's doctrine taught sympathy and help to all creatures. This sympathy the Bhikshus were to carry out in act; more especially they were bound to impart to the brethren who received initiation and to the people the healing truths, which had disclosed themselves to their meditation, in the same way as Buddha had done. According to the command of the master, they might not, like the Brahman penitents, spend the rainy season in the forest; they must pass it together in protected places, in caves, villages or cities, at friendly houses: in this season they must mutually instruct each other and confess their sins. Complete isolation of the initiated would have been opposed to the whole tendency of the doctrine and the pattern of the master. The Bhikshus, who came from various circles of life, and different castes, and had abandoned the hereditary and customary law of the castes, could not but feel the need of assuring themselves mutually of the new law now governing their life, of observing and developing it in common. The adherents, and above all the representatives, of any new doctrine always feel it incumbent on them to keep alive and nourish the sense of their fellowship and mutual support as against existing authority. These motives early led to a monastic life among the adherents of Buddha who had received the initiation of the mendicant, and wished to advance to complete liberation from regeneration. The places of refuge and shelter in which they passed the rainy season were regularly visited. There they resided; but in the finer season of the year they left them in order to beg in the country and to preach, or to meditate in the forest; and at the beginning of the rains (which in the Buddhist calendar extended from the full moon of July to the full moon of November) they again returned to the accustomed shelter. These retreats were partly rocky caves, partly detached buildings, of which a hall of assembly (vihara) must form part.
At the time when king Kalaçoka sat on the throne of Magadha (453 B.C.-425 B.C.) the initiated in a monastery in the city of Vaiçali are said not to have strictly kept the rules and commands of the Enlightened, and to have abandoned the correct mode of conduct. They permitted themselves to sit on carpets, to drink intoxicating liquors, and to receive gold and precious things as alms. Relying on the protection of king Kalaçoka, they disregarded the exhortations of pious men. To put an end to this scandal, Revata, who surpassed all the Buddhists in the depth of his knowledge and the purity of his conduct, warned, as it is said, by a dream, declared himself against these deviations, and summoned a great council of Bhikshus to Vaiçali. With the usual exaggeration of the Indians the legends maintain that more than a million of the initiated met together. Revata chose four of the wisest Sthaviras of the west and four of the east, and with these he retired into the Balukarama-Vihara, a sequestered monastery at Vaiçali, in order to ascertain whether the conduct of the monastery could be maintained in the face of the teaching of Buddha or not. The result of the investigation was, that the teaching of Buddha did not permit such proceedings, and that the monastery must be expelled from the community of the faithful. In order to establish this decision, to revise the discipline, and "maintain the good law," seven hundred initiated were selected from the great assembly and met in the Vihara under the presidency of Sarvakami. This more limited council is said to have ordered the exclusion of 10,000 ecclesiastics of Vaiçali as heterodox and sinners from the community of the believers in Buddha, and to have established the general rule that everything which agreed with the prescripts of the ethics and spirit of the doctrine of Buddha, must be recognised as legal, whether it dates from an ancient period or comes into existence in the future; all that contradicts this, even though already in existence, is to be rejected.
Whatever be the case with the separate facts in this tradition, we may regard it as certain that when the first assembly of Sthaviras after Buddha's death had collected his sayings, this second council undertook the first statement in detail of the rules of discipline (vinaya). The council was held one hundred and ten years after the death of the Enlightened, in the year 433 B.C., in Vaiçali, i. e. in the territory of Magadha, and consequently under the protection of king Kalaçoka; their labours are said to have lasted eight months.[501] Owing to the protection which Kalaçoka extended to Buddhism he is called among the Brahmans, Kakavarna, i. e. Raven-black.[502]
Kalaçoka was succeeded on the throne of Magadha by his sons Bhadrasena, Nandivardhana, and Pinjamakha.[503] Pinjamakha, according to the statements of the Buddhists, was deposed by a robber of the name of Nanda. The band to which Nanda belonged is said to have attacked and plundered villages after Kalaçoka's time. When the chief was killed in an attack, Nanda became the leader, and set before his companions a higher aim in the acquisition of the throne. Strengthened by reinforcements, he formed an army, conquered a city, and there caused himself to be proclaimed king. Advancing further, and favoured by success, he finally took Palibothra, and with the city he gained the kingdom. This Nanda, who ascended the throne of Magadha in the year 403 B.C., is called by the Brahmans Ugrasena, i. e. leader of the terrible army, or Mahapadmapati, i. e. lord of the innumerable army, and they maintain that he was the son of the last king of Kalaçoka's tribe, who had begotten him with a Çudra woman.[504] This statement and the epithets quoted at any rate confirm the usurpation and the fact that it was accomplished by force.
Nanda's successors did not maintain themselves on the throne of Magadha beyond the middle of the fourth century. We are without definite information about their achievements, and can only conclude from the renown of the kingdom at this time, that the supreme power which Magadha had acquired in the land of the Ganges, under Ajataçatru and Kalaçoka, was not lost under their dominion; and from the confusion in the statements of the Buddhists about this dynasty we may gather that they favoured the Brahmans. The last genuine Nanda was Daçasiddhika. He was deposed and murdered by the paramour of his wife, Sunanda, a barber, who is sometimes called Indradatta, and sometimes Kaivarta after his despised caste. Indradatta bequeathed the crown thus obtained to his son, whom the Buddhists called Dhanananda, i. e. the rich Nanda, or Dhanapala, i. e. the rich ruler, and the Brahmans Hiranyagupta, i. e. the man protected by gold. His reign lasted from the year 340 B.C. to 315 B.C., and he is said to have amassed great treasures. Western writers called this king Xandrames or Agrames, and his kingdom the kingdom of the Prasians, i. e. of the Prachyas (the Easterns) or the Gangarides. They tell that Xandrames was of such a low and contemptible origin that he was said to be the son of a barber. But his father had been a man of extraordinary beauty, and by this means had won the heart of the queen, who by craft killed her husband, the king. In this way the father of Xandrames acquired the throne of the Prasians, and he bequeathed it to his son, who nevertheless was detested and despised for his low origin and his wickedness. At the same time the Greeks tell us that Xandrames could put into the field an army of 200,000 foot soldiers, 20,000 horses, 4000 elephants, and more than 2000 chariots of war; others raise the number of the horse to 80,000, of the elephants to 6000, and put the chariots at 8000.[505] From these statements of the Greeks and what they tell us elsewhere of the kingdom of the Prasians or Gangarides, the western border of which is the Yamuna, it follows that neither the change in the dynasty owing to the accession of the first Nanda, nor the usurpation of Indradatta, interrupted the rise of the power of Magadha, which had begun under Ajataçatru, and attained greater dimensions under Kalaçoka. Not the army only but the gold of Dhanapala-Xandrames, the son of Indradatta, is evidence of the splendour and extent of the kingdom, which must have comprised the whole valley of the Ganges to the east of the Yamuna.
FOOTNOTES:
[482] Burnouf, "Introduction," p. 351, 372. Lassen, "Ind. Alterth." 2, 80 ff. Köppen, "Rel. d. Buddha," s. 117.
[483] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 86 ff.
[484] Lassen, loc. cit. 22, 89.
[485] Von Gutschmid, "Beiträge," s. 81.