Teaching of Buddha and his disciples (543/477 A.D. Buddha's death). Collection of Patimokkha rules (first code). Comment and glosses on these rules. Stories in illustration of these rules (vibhanga). Mahavagga and Kullavagga (Khandhaka).p. xxxv

Council of Vesali for the repression of ten abuses (443/377 A.D.) Description of First and Second Councils in Kullavagga. The Kulavagga ascribes the settlement of the canon to the First Council, and does not even claim a revision of that canon for the Second Council. The Dipavamsa claims a revision of the canon by the 700 Arhats for the Second Council.

CHRONOLOGY.

In order to bring the Council of Vesali in connection with the chronology of the world, we must follow the Buddhist historians for another century. One hundred and eighteen years after the Council of Vesali they place the anointment of King Asoka, during whose reign a Third Council, under the presidency of Tissa Moggaliputta, took place at Pataliputta, the new capital adopted by that king, instead of Ragagaha and Vesali. This Council is chiefly known to us through the writings of the southern Buddhists (Dipavamsa, Mahavamsa, and Buddhaghosa), who belong to the school of Moggaliputta (Theravada or Vibhaggavada), which ruled supreme at Pataliputta, while Upagupta, the chief authority of the northern Buddhists, is altogether ignored in the Pali chronicles.

Now it is well known that Asoka was the grandson of Kandagutta, and Kandagutta the contemporary of Alexander the Great. Here we see land, and I may refer to my History of Sanskrit Literature, published in 1859, for the process by which the storm-tossed ship of Indian chronology has been landed in the harbour of real historical chronology. We are told by the monks of the Mahavihara in Ceylon that Asoka was crowned, according to their computation, 146 + 18 years before the accession of Dutthagamani, 161 B.C., i.e. 325 B.C.; that between his coronation and his father's death four years had elapsed (329 B.C.); that his father Bindusara had reigned twenty-eight years[1] (357-329 B.C.), and Bindusara's father, Kandagutta,

[1. Mahavamsa, p. 21.]

p. xxxvi twenty-four years (381-357). As we know that Kandagutta, whom the Ceylonese place 381-357 B.C., was king of India after Alexander's conquest, it follows that Ceylonese chronology is wrong by more than half a century. For reasons stated in my History of Sanskrit Literature, I fix the exact fault in Ceylonese chronology as sixty-six years, assigning to Kandagutta the dates 315-291, instead of 381-357. This gives us 291-263 for Bindusara, 259 for Asoka's abhisheka; 259 + 118 = 377 for the Council of Vesali, and 377 + 100 = 477 for Buddha's death, instead of 543 B.C.[1]