Chapter 2: The First Councils—Consensus or Conflict?

This chapter is part of the book The Sacred Editors: Buddhism.

"The Dharma is one taste—but the flavors multiplied quickly."

Vaishali, circa 380 BCE. The afternoon heat shimmers above the assembly hall where monks from across the Vajji confederation have gathered. Perspiration beads on shaved heads as tensions rise with the temperature. A monk named Yasa, recently arrived from the western territories, stands before his assembled colleagues, his voice carrying across the silent hall with accusations that will split the Buddhist community forever.

He points to practices that have become commonplace among the Vajji monks: accepting gold and silver donations directly into their hands, eating meals after the sun has passed its zenith, drinking diluted buttermilk as an afternoon refreshment, even storing salt for future use. "These practices," Yasa declares, his voice steady but urgent, "were never permitted by the Blessed One. We are abandoning the very discipline that defines us as his followers."¹

Across the hall, senior monks bristle with indignation. These are respected elders who have maintained their communities for decades, adapting the Buddha's teachings to local customs and practical necessities. For them, Yasa's rigid interpretation threatens the very flexibility that has allowed Buddhism to flourish across diverse regions and circumstances. What he calls corruption, they call skillful adaptation.

The subsequent council at Vaishali, often overshadowed by the more famous First Council at Rājagṛha, reveals a crucial truth about early Buddhism: even within the generation that knew the Buddha personally, his teachings were not preserved unchanged but were constantly interpreted, debated, and contested. From the very beginning, memory clashed with interpretation, universal principles bent under local pressures, and different communities developed varying understandings of what faithful transmission meant.

The idea of a single, unchanging Buddhist canon—already under strain—was about to fracture into multiple streams that would never fully reunite.

From Rajgir to Vaishali: The Complexity of Early "Unity"

The traditional narrative, preserved in the Cullavagga of the Pāli Vinaya and echoed in various Chinese and Tibetan sources, presents a reassuring picture of early Buddhist textual formation. According to these accounts, shortly after the Buddha's death around 480 BCE, the First Council was convened at Rājagṛha (modern Rajgir) under the leadership of Mahākāśyapa. Five hundred fully enlightened monks (arahants) gathered during the rainy season retreat to systematically preserve the Buddha's teachings. Ānanda, the Buddha's personal attendant for twenty-five years, recited the discourses (Sutta Piṭaka), while Upāli, renowned for his mastery of monastic discipline, recited the rules of conduct (Vinaya Piṭaka). The goal was straightforward: to fix the Dharma and Vinaya into authoritative oral forms that could be transmitted without corruption to future generations.²

But contemporary historians and the textual record itself reveal a far more complicated picture that challenges this idealized account on multiple levels.

First, the earliest reliable accounts of the First Council appear in texts composed centuries after the events they purport to describe, often serving clear theological and sectarian agendas. As the distinguished Buddhist scholar Étienne Lamotte observed, these narratives read more like retrospective attempts to legitimize particular textual traditions than like objective historical reporting. The emphasis on unanimous agreement among five hundred enlightened monks reflects later ideals about consensus and authority rather than credible historical memory of actual proceedings.³

Second, parallel accounts preserved in different Buddhist traditions offer significantly divergent versions of the council proceedings, raising fundamental questions about what actually occurred. The Mahāsāṅghika Vinaya, for example, includes different participants in key roles and suggests alternative readings of crucial monastic regulations. Some traditions describe additional councils not mentioned in others, while certain schools claim textual authorities not recognized elsewhere. Jan Nattier's comprehensive analysis of early Buddhist literature reveals that even basic details—the number of participants, the specific texts recited, the precise formulations of key teachings—vary substantially across different traditional accounts.⁴

Third, archaeological and manuscript evidence suggests that the process of textual stabilization was far more gradual and geographically dispersed than the council narratives suggest. Gregory Schopen's groundbreaking work on Buddhist epigraphy has shown that different communities were developing their own approaches to preserving and organizing Buddhist teachings well into the early centuries of the Common Era, often with minimal reference to putative central authorities or standardized collections.⁵

By the time of the Second Council at Vaishali, probably occurring about a century after the Buddha's death, whatever unity may have existed earlier had clearly begun to fracture. This council was convened not to address doctrinal disagreements but to resolve disputes over proper monastic conduct—what counted as acceptable behavior for Buddhist monks in changing social and economic circumstances. Yet the stakes proved enormous, extending far beyond specific disciplinary questions to fundamental issues of interpretive authority and adaptive flexibility.

The Vaishali proceedings, as recorded in multiple Vinaya traditions, involved extensive debate over ten specific practices that had developed among the Vajji monks. A committee of elders from both eastern and western regions was assembled to adjudicate these disputes. After careful deliberation, they ruled against the Vajji innovations, declaring them inconsistent with the Buddha's original intentions. But unlike the idealized consensus of the First Council narrative, this decision provoked immediate and lasting division. The Vajji monks refused to accept the committee's authority, asserting their own understanding of proper adaptation to contemporary circumstances.⁶

The result was Buddhism's first major schism, leading to the emergence of distinct schools that would eventually number at least eighteen nikāyas by the time of Emperor Aśoka's reign three centuries later. Each school developed its own textual lineage, distinctive oral emphases, and occasionally unique sutras not found in other collections. Some, like the Mahāsāṅghika ("Great Assembly"), emphasized the flexibility and adaptability that the Vajji monks had defended. Others, like various Sthavira ("Elder") schools, stressed fidelity to established precedent and careful preservation of inherited forms.

The "early Buddhist canon," therefore, was never a single, fixed collection awaiting preservation. From the earliest recoverable historical period, it was already plural, already in motion, already shaped by competing visions of what faithful transmission required in changing circumstances.

Why These Councils Shaped Buddhism's Future

Despite their contested nature and disputed historicity, the early Buddhist councils had profound and lasting impacts on how Buddhist texts were conceived, organized, and transmitted across subsequent centuries.

Most fundamentally, the councils institutionalized the revolutionary idea that the Buddha's teachings could be systematically collected, carefully organized, and authoritatively standardized through communal effort rather than individual charisma or divine revelation. Even if perfect consensus proved elusive, the council model established procedures for textual validation: oral recitation before qualified witnesses, communal verification of accuracy, and collective agreement about authoritative versions. This created a framework for imagining that there could be a definitive Buddhist canon, even when different communities disagreed about its precise contents or boundaries.

The councils also gave birth to the systematic specialization that would characterize Buddhist textual culture for millennia. Ānanda's role as the primary reciter of the Buddha's discourses and Upāli's responsibility for preserving monastic discipline laid the foundation for the tripartite organizational structure that became standard across Buddhist traditions: the Sutta Piṭaka (discourses), Vinaya Piṭaka (monastic discipline), and eventually the Abhidhamma Piṭaka(philosophical analysis). This division created distinct areas of expertise within Buddhist communities and influenced how texts were copied, translated, studied, and transmitted across cultural boundaries.

Perhaps most significantly, the councils established a precedent for religious authority grounded in collective memory and communal agreement rather than in hierarchical decree or mystical revelation. Unlike traditions that developed centralized religious authorities with power to define orthodoxy, Buddhism's council model emphasized consensus-building and collaborative decision-making. This democratic approach allowed Buddhist communities to adapt successfully to diverse cultural contexts while maintaining connections to shared textual traditions. However, it also created ongoing challenges in resolving disputes and maintaining coherence across geographically dispersed communities.

The councils also had important exclusionary effects that shaped Buddhism's subsequent development in ways that are only now being fully recognized by scholars. The emphasis on male monastic elders as the primary preservers and interpreters of the Buddha's teachings effectively marginalized other voices that had played important roles in early Buddhist communities. While texts like the Therīgāthā preserve evidence that women made significant contributions to early Buddhist literature and practice, their exclusion from the councils formalized a male monastic editorial hierarchy that would influence Buddhist textual culture for centuries.⁷

Similarly, the focus on preserving teachings in their most formal, systematic presentations may have led to the neglect of more popular, accessible, or practically oriented materials that served important functions in early Buddhist communities but didn't fit the councils' organizational schemes.

What Would Have Changed?

The early Buddhist councils represented crucial decision points where alternative approaches to textual preservation and religious authority were possible. Leading scholars have explored several plausible alternative scenarios that illuminate both what was gained and what was lost through the historical choices that were made.

Decentralized Preservation Without Formal Councils

Gregory Schopen has argued that if Mahākāśyapa had not convened formal councils, Buddhist textual preservation might have remained more organically decentralized, with individual monasteries and regional communities developing their own approaches to maintaining the Buddha's teachings without appeal to centralized authority.⁸ Archaeological evidence suggests that many Buddhist communities were already creating local systems for preserving and organizing texts through ritual use, devotional practice, and educational curricula that operated independently of formal council proceedings.

Such decentralized preservation might have produced greater textual diversity but could have avoided the bitter schisms that formal councils sometimes provoked. Without authoritative precedents to appeal to, different communities might have maintained more fluid relationships, recognizing legitimate differences in practice and interpretation without demanding uniformity or declaring rival approaches heretical.

Inclusion of Women and Lay Practitioners in Council Proceedings

Karma Lekshe Tsomo and Rita Gross have both argued that if women monastics and experienced lay practitioners had been included in early council deliberations, the resulting textual collections might have reflected a significantly broader range of Buddhist experience and insight.⁹ The Therīgāthā and scattered references in other early texts suggest that women made substantial contributions to early Buddhist poetry, meditation instruction, and community leadership that were later marginalized or forgotten.

Including women's voices in formal preservation efforts might have led to greater emphasis on household-based practice, family relationships, and the integration of spiritual development with daily life responsibilities. It might also have preserved more diverse approaches to meditation, more varied forms of community organization, and more inclusive visions of spiritual attainment that acknowledged different life circumstances and social positions.

Similarly, greater lay participation might have preserved more practical guidance for integrating Buddhist principles with economic activity, political involvement, and social relationships—areas that became increasingly peripheral in texts preserved primarily by monastic communities focused on renunciant lifestyle.

Acceptance of Regional Adaptation in Monastic Discipline

Paul Harrison has suggested that if the Second Council had endorsed the Vajji monks' adaptive innovations rather than condemning them, Buddhist monastic law might have developed along more flexible, regionally responsive lines similar to the common law traditions that evolved in some legal systems.¹⁰ Rather than rigid adherence to supposedly unchanging rules, Buddhism might have developed "living Vinaya" traditions that maintained core principles while adapting specific practices to diverse cultural and environmental circumstances.

Such flexibility might have facilitated Buddhism's expansion into new cultural contexts by reducing resistance to practices that seemed foreign or impractical. It might also have prevented some of the sectarian divisions that emerged from disputes over proper adaptation to local conditions.

However, this flexibility might also have led to such diversity in monastic practice that the sense of unified Buddhist identity would have been compromised, potentially limiting the tradition's ability to maintain coherence across vast geographical and cultural distances.

Rejection of Scholastic Elaboration

The later inclusion of Abhidhamma texts in the canonical collections was not universal—some schools rejected these philosophical elaborations as unnecessary departures from the Buddha's practical teaching methods. If early councils had established precedents against such systematic elaboration, Buddhist intellectual culture might have remained more pragmatically focused and less scholastically complex.¹¹

This could have made Buddhist teaching more accessible to ordinary practitioners while preventing the development of elite scholarly classes that sometimes became divorced from practical spiritual concerns. However, it might also have limited Buddhism's ability to engage effectively with sophisticated philosophical traditions in cultures like India, Tibet, and East Asia where intellectual rigor was highly valued.

Scholar Debate

Contemporary scholars remain thoughtfully divided over fundamental questions about the historical reality and lasting significance of the early Buddhist councils, with different researchers emphasizing different aspects of these complex traditions.

Charles Prebish, whose comprehensive study of Buddhist council literature remains foundational to modern scholarship, argues that the First Council should be understood primarily as "a legitimizing myth"—a way for later Buddhist communities to claim authentic connection to the Buddha's original teaching by projecting institutional unity backward onto a period that was actually characterized by diversity and experimentation. In Prebish's analysis, the detailed narratives of unanimous agreement among hundreds of enlightened monks reflect idealized visions of how textual preservation should work rather than credible historical accounts of what actually occurred.¹² This perspective emphasizes the constructed nature of canonical authority and the role of later editorial processes in creating impressions of original consensus.

Gregory Schopen, drawing on his extensive analysis of Buddhist inscriptions, archaeological remains, and material culture, offers a different but related critique of traditional council narratives. Schopen argues that the actual preservation and transmission of Buddhist teachings happened primarily through material practices—ritual performance, devotional copying, relic veneration, and liturgical use—rather than through the formal deliberative processes described in council accounts. His research reveals that Buddhist communities were creating written records, establishing textual collections, and developing preservation methods well before the supposed transition from oral to written transmission described in traditional histories.¹³ This archaeological perspective suggests that council narratives may obscure more than they reveal about how Buddhist textual traditions actually developed.

Jan Nattier and Étienne Lamotte, while acknowledging the mythic elements in council narratives, argue for a more nuanced interpretation that recognizes these accounts as preserving important insights about early Buddhist values and aspirations even when their historical details are questionable. Lamotte's influential analysis suggests that even if the councils didn't occur exactly as described, they reflect genuine concerns about textual preservation and community authority that shaped early Buddhist development in significant ways.¹⁴ Nattier's detailed study of early Buddhist translation practices reveals evidence for systematic approaches to textual organization and preservation that could plausibly have emerged from council-like processes, even if the specific narratives are legendary.¹⁵

Luis Gómez, whose work on early Mahāyāna literature has illuminated the complex relationship between textual innovation and claims to authenticity, sees the early council narratives as establishing crucial precedents that later Buddhist movements repeatedly invoked and imitated. Rather than representing unique historical events, the councils became templates that various Buddhist schools used to legitimize their own textual collections and interpretive approaches.¹⁶ From this perspective, the councils' lasting significance lies not in their historical accuracy but in their function as powerful models for how Buddhist communities could claim authentic connection to the Buddha's teaching through careful preservation and collective validation.

The emerging scholarly consensus suggests that while the specific historical details of the early councils remain uncertain and probably legendary, their role in establishing patterns of Buddhist textual culture and religious authority was profound and lasting. The councils represent early Buddhism's innovative solution to fundamental challenges that face all religious traditions: How can authentic teaching be preserved across time? Who has authority to interpret sacred texts? How can unity be maintained while allowing for necessary adaptation?

Contemporary Relevance

The early Buddhist councils continue to resonate in contemporary Buddhist life and scholarship in ways that illuminate ongoing challenges about textual authority, religious authenticity, and community decision-making.

Every major Buddhist tradition today traces its textual lineage—explicitly or implicitly—back to the memory of these early preservation efforts. Whether examining the Theravāda's Pāli Canon, the Chinese Āgamas, the Tibetan Kangyur, or the various collections preserved in Sanskrit, Gāndhārī, and other languages, each tradition claims to preserve the Buddha's authentic voice through careful transmission stretching back to the councils. Yet as modern practitioners increasingly gain access to multiple canonical traditions through translation and digital resources, awareness is growing that no single version contains the complete record and that significant differences exist even in supposedly parallel collections.

This recognition is forcing contemporary Buddhist communities to wrestle with questions that echo the original council debates: What constitutes authentic Buddhist teaching? How much variation is acceptable while maintaining tradition's integrity? Who has authority to make such determinations? Some modern Buddhist movements have responded by emphasizing scholarly approaches that attempt to identify the "earliest" or "most authentic" forms of Buddhist teaching through historical-critical methods. Others have embraced the diversity of textual traditions as reflecting the Buddha's skillful adaptation of teaching to different audiences and circumstances.

The councils also provide important precedents for how Buddhist communities might approach contemporary challenges in religious authority and decision-making. The emphasis on collective deliberation, consensus-building, and communal validation offers alternatives to both autocratic religious leadership and purely individualistic approaches to spiritual authority. Some modern Buddhist organizations have drawn explicitly on council models in developing democratic governance structures and collaborative approaches to interpreting traditional teachings for contemporary circumstances.

The exclusions embedded in traditional council narratives—particularly the marginalization of women's voices and lay perspectives—also continue to generate important discussions about inclusive authority and representative participation in Buddhist textual interpretation. Contemporary Buddhist feminists and scholars have used council narratives both to critique historical patterns of exclusion and to imagine more inclusive models for preserving and interpreting Buddhist wisdom.

Perhaps most significantly, the early councils remind contemporary Buddhists that canonization was never simply pure transmission but always involved interpretation, selection, and adaptation. Understanding this history can foster more mature approaches to textual authority that honor the wisdom preserved in traditional collections while remaining open to ongoing interpretation and contemporary insight.

The spirit of the early councils—the commitment to preserving authentic wisdom through collective effort and careful deliberation—remains alive in contemporary Buddhist scholarship, practice, and community life. Whether in academic conferences where scholars debate textual authenticity, in meditation centers where practitioners wrestle with how to apply ancient teachings to modern circumstances, or in monastic communities where traditional forms are adapted to new cultural contexts, the fundamental questions raised by the councils continue to generate creative responses.

As the Buddha himself taught, "Beings are prone to dispute"—but so too is the longing for wisdom, clarity, and authentic connection to transformative insight. The early councils reveal how this tension between diversity and unity, innovation and preservation, individual insight and communal authority has shaped Buddhist textual culture from its earliest origins and continues to generate creative solutions to perennial challenges in religious life.

In the next chapter, we will explore how these council precedents influenced the momentous transition from oral to written preservation that occurred in ancient Sri Lanka, creating new possibilities and new challenges for maintaining Buddhist teaching across time and cultural boundaries.

Notes

This scene is reconstructed from accounts in the Cullavagga (XII.1-2) and parallel versions in Chinese Vinaya literature. For analysis of the historical issues involved, see Charles S. Prebish, "A Review of Scholarship on the Buddhist Councils," Journal of Asian Studies 33, no. 2 (1974): 239-254.
The traditional account of the First Council is preserved in the Cullavagga (XI.1) of the Pāli Vinaya and in various Chinese and Sanskrit parallels. For translations and analysis, see T.W. Rhys Davids and Hermann Oldenberg, trans., Vinaya Texts, vol. 3 (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1885), 371-394.
Étienne Lamotte, History of Indian Buddhism: From the Origins to the Śaka Era, trans. Sara Webb-Boin (Louvain-la-Neuve: Université Catholique de Louvain, 1988), 158-162.
Jan Nattier, A Few Good Men: The Bodhisattva Path according to The Inquiry of Ugra (Ugraparipṛcchā)(Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 2003), 25-47.
Gregory Schopen, "Archaeology and Protestant Presuppositions in the Study of Indian Buddhism," History of Religions 31, no. 1 (1991): 1-23.
For detailed analysis of the Second Council accounts and their historical problems, see André Bareau, "The Buddhist Councils," in Encyclopedia of Religion, 2nd ed., ed. Lindsay Jones (Detroit: Macmillan Reference USA, 2005), 2:1024-1028.
On the exclusion of women from council narratives and its implications, see Karma Lekshe Tsomo, ed., Buddhist Women and Social Justice: Ideals, Challenges, and Achievements (Albany: SUNY Press, 2004), 15-31.
Gregory Schopen, "The Phrase 'sa pṛthivīpradeśaś caityabhūto bhavet' in the Vajracchedikā: Notes on the Cult of the Book in Mahāyāna," Indo-Iranian Journal 17, no. 3/4 (1975): 147-181.
Karma Lekshe Tsomo, "Change in Continuity: Family Values in Buddhist Cultures," in Women in Buddhism: Images of the Feminine in the Mahāyāna Tradition, ed. Diana Y. Paul (Berkeley: University of California Press, 1985), 63-79; Rita M. Gross, Buddhism After Patriarchy: A Feminist History, Analysis, and Reconstruction of Buddhism (Albany: SUNY Press, 1993), 77-95.
Paul Harrison, "Who Gets to Ride in the Great Vehicle? Self-Image and Identity among the Followers of the Early Mahāyāna," Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 10, no. 1 (1987): 67-89.
On the debates over Abhidhamma inclusion, see Rupert Gethin, "The Mātikās: Memorization, Mindfulness, and the List," in In the Mirror of Memory: Reflections on Mindfulness and Remembrance in Indian and Tibetan Buddhism, ed. Janet Gyatso (Albany: SUNY Press, 1992), 149-172.
Charles S. Prebish, "A Review of Scholarship on the Buddhist Councils," Journal of Asian Studies 33, no. 2 (1974): 239-254.
Gregory Schopen, Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks: Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: University of Hawaiʻi Press, 1997), 23-55.
Lamotte, History of Indian Buddhism, 144-168.
Jan Nattier, A Guide to the Earliest Chinese Buddhist Translations: Texts from the Eastern Han 東漢 and Three Kingdoms 三國 Periods (Tokyo: International Research Institute for Advanced Buddhology, Soka University, 2008), 45-78.
Luis O. Gómez, "Proto-Mādhyamika in the Pāli Canon," Philosophy East and West 26, no. 2 (1976): 137-165.