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His two most distinguished and favouritedisciples were Sariputra and Maudgalyayana,both of whom died before him. He is said tohave had eighty other distinguished followers,but many of them evidently belong to a laterdate.
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Sakya Muni (like Socrates) had spent his lifein proclaiming his doctrine orally, and he leftnothing written behind him ; the canonical bookswhich contain his doctrines are avowedly thework of others. Three general councils play animportant part in Buddhist legend; but it isnot easy to reconcile the different traditions. Allaccounts agree that shortly after his death thefirst council was held at Kajagriha, while Ajata-satru was still reigning. Five hundred of themost distinguished disciples met there under thepresidency of Kasyapa, and there the three divi-sions of Buddhist doctrine are said to have beencompiled, from the recollected discourses of thedeceased master. That of the Vinaya , or dis-/
cipline, was repeated by Upali, a Siidra; that ofthe Sittras, or discourses of Buddha, by Buddha’scousin, Ananda; and that of the Abhidharma, ormetaphysics, by the president. Each rehearsedwhat he remembered, to the assembly, and thewhole assembly afterwards repeated with a loudvoice what they had heard. p Nothing is said asto anything having been committed to writing;and it is quite certain that, if such a collectionwas then made, it could have been only of theheads of the discourses. The very title, sutras ,which is a well-known technical term, and appliedin Sanskrit only to a series of concise aphorisms,seems to shew that the original memoranda socalled could not have been the voluminous andtautological works which at present bear thatname. These three divisions are collectivelycalled the tripitaka , or “ triple basket.’’ [For thetnpitaka of the North, see Csoma de Koros, Asiat.iJcs. xx., Burnouf, Introd . ; for that of the South,see Tumour, Mahaw. pref. p. lxxv., and Feer,Joum. Asiat. 1871.]
The second general council, according to thesouthern tradition, was held at Vaisali underthe presidency of Sarvakamin, where 700 monksmet to consider some irregular deviations fromtraditional customs which had arisen in a greatmonastery in that city. The vinaya was themain object of their deliberations, and no doubtit was re-arranged and extended. This led tothe first Buddhist schism, that of the Mahasan-ghikas. The southern Buddhists (of Ceylon) placethis council 100 years after Buddha’s death inthe reign of Kalasoka, the sixth successor of Aja-tasafcru, but the very existence of this prince isin the highest degree problematical. The northernBuddhists (of Nepal) fix it 110 years after thatevent in the reign of Dharmasoka, or in otherwords their second council is what the southernBuddhists reckon as the third. According to thesouthern authorities, the third council was held235 years after Buddha’s death, in Pataliputra,
setia and the Yonaka king Milinda of Srfgala (Hardy,Manual, 512-516), i. e. apparently the Greek (Ya-vana) Menander who reigned in SayyaAa b.c. 140, andwhose name is written on his coins Menada, Minanda(Weber, Ind. Stud . iii. 121).
P Compare the Jewish legend of the repetition of theMiahna by Joshua to the elders.
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in the seventeenth year of the reign of Dharma-soka ; according to the northern it was held inCashmir, more than 400 years after Buddha’sdeath, in the reign of Kanishka, apparently theKanerki of the Indo-scythian coins. Dharmasokais, alike in Buddhist and Hindu tradition, thegrandson of the Chandragupta, who, born oflow origin, overthrew the nine Nandas who pre-viously held the throne; but the traditions differas to the names of the kings between theseNandas and Ajatasatru. Here we have to fallback on the great point of contact between Greekand Indian history in Chandragupta, who haslong been identified as the Sandracottus (orSandracoptos) of classical writers. The identi-fication is almost certain; and in the utter con-fusion of all Hindu chronology it may well becalled a “ sheet-anchor,” for “ every thing inIndian chronology depends on it (Prof. Miiller’sAnc. San. Lit. p. 274; cf. pp. 274-298). San-dracottus was the king of Palibothra (Patali-putra), whose court Megasthenes several timesvisited, and with whom Seleucus Nicator (b.c.312?) made a treaty. This synchronism enablesus to grope our way in the maze of legend, andwe may suppose Chandragupta to have begunto reign about B.c. 315. All accounts agree thathe reigned twenty-four years, so that his sonBindusara would begin his reign B.c. 291.
Bindusara is said to have reigned twenty-fiveor twenty-eight years; this will give B.c. 266or 263 for the date of his son Asoka’s accession,but his inauguration is said to have taken placefour years afterwards. If we take the latterdate B.C. 263 (the Ceylonese), that of his inaugu-ration will be B.C. 259, and the council wouldbe held in 242 ; and 242 4- 235 gives us 477 B.c.the supposed date of Buddha’s death (Miilier’sAnc. San. Lit. p. 298), but of course this is onlyconjectural. Professor Kern lias recently putforward a theory that there were two divergenttraditions in Ceylon as to the date of the Nir-vana, one fixing it 100, the other 118 years be-fore Asoka’s accession; both were adopted by theSinghalese writers, and hence their two councilsHe thus makes Asoka begin to reign in 270, andplaces the Nirvana in 370 or 388.
Asoka (Dharmasoka) was at first a zealous up-holder of the Brahmans, but he was convertedto Buddhism, and became in fact the Constantineof the new religion. He extended his empireover a large part of India, and is said to haveerected 84,000 topes or monuments over therelics of Buddha, in different provinces.* 1 He issupposed on the authority of the southern Bud-dhists to be thePiyadasi, whose edicts, written ina kind of Pali, are found engraved on pillars atDelhi and Allahabad, and on rocks at Kapur diGiri in Afghanistan, Girnar in Guzerat, Dhauliin Orissa, and Bhabra on the road from Jaipurto Delhi. In some of these inscriptions we findmentioned as friendly princes the names of theGreek princes Antiochus (Antiyoko yona raja),Ptolemy ( Turamayo ), Antigonus (Antikona), Ma-gas ( Mako or Maga), and Alexander ( Aiikasunari ).If Antiochus II. be meant (B.c. 261-246), theothers may be Antigonus Gonatus (b.c. 276—243),Ptolemy Philadelphus (B.c. 284-246), Magas otCyrene (b.c. 308-258), and Alexander II. of
q The Chinese traveller Hiouen Thsang finds themeverywhere.