All that Gautama did was to preach his Dharma, ‘Law,’ during forty-five years of itineration, and oral teaching. It was not till some time after his death that his sayings were collected ([p. 97]), and still longer before they were written down. Itineration, recitation of the Law, and preaching were the chief instruments for the propagation of Buddhism.
At present the Buddhist Canon is about as extensive as the Brāhmanical[21], and in both cases we are left in doubt as to the date when the books were composed. How, then, did their composition take place?
All that can be said is that at three successive epochs after the Buddha’s death, three gatherings of his followers were held for the purpose of collecting his sayings and settling the true Canon, and that a fourth assembly took place much later in the North.
The first of these assemblages can scarcely with any fitness be called a Council. Nor can the fact of its meeting together in any formal manner be established on any trustworthy historical basis. It is said that a number of monks (about five hundred, called Mahā-sthavirāḥ, ‘the great elders,’ Pāli Mahā-therā) assembled in a cave called Sattapaṇṇi, near the then capital city of Magadha—Rāja-gṛiha, now Rāj-gīr—under the sanction of king Ajāta-ṡatru, during the rainy season immediately succeeding the death of Gautama, to think over, put together, and arrange the sayings of their Master, but not, so far as we know, to write them down.
There, in all likelihood, they made the first step towards a methodical arrangement. But even then it is doubtful whether any systematic collections were composed. The assembled monks chose Kāṡyapa (or Mahā-kāṡyapa, [p. 47]), the most esteemed of all the Buddha’s surviving disciples, as their leader, and chanted the Thera-vāda (Sthavira-v°), ‘words of the elders,’ or precepts of their Founder preserved in the memory of the older men; the rules of discipline (Vinaya) being recited by Upāli[22], and the ethical precepts (Sūtra), which constituted at first the principal Dharma[23] (par excellence, in contradistinction to the Vinaya), being imparted by Gautama’s favorite Ānanda ([p. 47]); while the philosophical doctrines—then undeveloped—were communicated by the president, Kāṡyapa. If any arrangement was then made it was probably in two collections—the Vinaya and Dharma (say about 400 B.C.)
In regard to the Dharma, two main lines were, in all likelihood, laid down as the basis of all early teaching. The first consisted of the four sublime verities, as they are called—that is, of the four fundamental truths originally taught by the Founder of Buddhism, namely, the inevitable inherence of suffering in every form of life, the connexion of all suffering with indulgence of desires, especially with craving for continuity of existence, the possibility of the cessation of suffering by restraining lusts and desires, and the eightfold course leading to that cessation (see [p. 44]).
The second line of doctrine probably consisted of an outline of the twelve-linked chain of causality (nidāna), which traced back all suffering to a still deeper origin than mere lusts and desires—namely, to ignorance ([p. 103]).
It is not, however, at all likely that any philosophical or metaphysical doctrines were clearly and methodically formulated at the earliest assembly which took place soon after Gautama’s death. It is far more probable that the first outcome of the gathering together of the Buddha’s disciples was simply the enforcing of some strict rules of discipline for the Order of monks, and this may have taken place soon after 400 B.C.
After a time, certain relaxations of these rules or unauthorized departures from them (ten in number, such as reception of money-gifts, eating a second meal in the afternoon, drinking stimulating beverages, if pure as water in appearance[24]), began to be common. The question as to whether liberty should be allowed in these points, especially in the first, shook the very foundations of the community. In fact the whole society became split up into two contending parties, the strict and the lax, and a second Council became necessary for the restoration of order. All ten points were discussed at this Council, said to have consisted of 700 monks and held at Vaiṡālī (Vesālī, now Besārh), 27 miles north of Patnā, about 380 B.C.[25] The discussions were protracted for eight months, and all the ten unlawful relaxations were finally prohibited.
It has been observed that this second Council stands in a relation to Buddhism very similar to that which the Council of Nicæa bears to Christianity.