CHAPTER XIII.

THE FIRST CONVOCATION.

BUDDHA died miserably under a tree; but, according to the Atthakathâ, there were near Râjâgṛiha, at the moment of his death, eighteen great vihâras (monasteries) all "filled with rubbish," because the monks had gone off to be present at the saint's cremation. The monks determined to repair these monasteries, for fear of the reproach that the enormous wealth" bestowed for religious purposes was misapplied. Five hundred of them got together, and said, "Let us employ ourselves in the first month of Wasso (the Buddhist Lent) in repairing the monasteries. the middle month of Wasso we will hold a convocation on Dhammo and Winayo." At the end of the first month these repairs were completed.

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The monks then went to the King of Râjâgriha and said, "Mahârâja, we propose to hold a great convocation on religion and discipline. On the Webhara

Mountain is a cave called Sattapanni. Be graciously pleased to prepare that cave for us!"

The king at once gave orders that a mighty cavetemple should be scooped out of the rock. A "hall," with "pillars" and "walls," was executed as if by the hand of Viśvakarma, the architect of heaven. "Flights of steps, embellished with representations of festoons of flowers and of flower-creepers, rivalling the splendour of the decorations of his palace, and imitating the magnificence of the mansions of the devas," were constructed. Five hundred carpeted seats were prepared for the monks, and a pulpit for the principal. A preaching desk, "for the sanctified Buddha himself," in the centre of the hall facing the east was erected, and an ivory fan placed upon it. This incident shows, I think, that the early sermon-monger was supposed to get his inspiration direct from the dead Tathâgata.

In two months this great cave-temple was completed; and the monks were summoned. A difficulty arose about Ânanda, who had not acquired the miraculous powers that stamp the adept in the knowledge of Prajnâ Pâramitâ, the wisdom of the unseen world. Thus, as first constituted, the convocation consisted of 499 members, and a vacant carpet was spread for Ânanda. During the night he meditated on the Kâyagastâ Satiyâ, and in the morning these

powers came; and in proof he reached his seat through the medium of the floor of the temple.

Maha Kasyapa was the chief Thêrô, and he opened the proceedings by requesting Upali, to detail Buddha's injunctions on discipline. Upali before answering, sat in the pulpit of Buddha, and held the mystic ivory fan. Three hundred and four Sikkhapadini on form and rites were wearily gone through. After Upali detailed each section the monks at once chanted it forth. When Upali took the mystic fan in his hand the mighty earth quaked. As the narrative announces that this was done to give the assembly a greeting similar to the one that Buddha used to give his Arhats, I think the idea plainly was that, instead of being annihilated, the great teacher was present, obsessing Upali in his chair. After Upali had revealed all that he recollected from Buddha's lips on the subject of discipline, Ânanda stepped into the

pulpit of the sanctified Buddha himself," and detailed all the utterances that he could call to mind about Dharma. The Northern account gives to Ânanda the Sûtras, and to Kasyapa the department of Prajńâ Pâramitâ, or Dharma. The convocation sat for seven months. Earthquakes and other miracles greeted its finish.

Now it seems to me we are here in the presence of a piece of pure history. The details of the great cave

temple with its mats, pulpits, ivory fan, chanting monks, etc., are too lifelike to be absolute invention. The incident of the eighteen tumble-down vihâras filled with rubbish, but hastily got ready, is not the sort of incident that would have suggested itself to a Cingalese writer of fiction. The Mahâwanso, describing the great banquets during Aśoka's inauguration, announces that elks, wild hogs, and winged game came to the king's kitchen of their own accord, and then expired; that parrots daily brought nine hundred thousand loads of hill paddy, and mice husking that hill paddy converted it into rice. The fine fancy of a Cingalese historian, if left to itself, would have gone off into similar flights.

But if the convocation described is a bonâ fide convocation, it cannot be the first convocation of the Cingalese records; nor yet the second, nor even the third. The cave which is thought to be the Sattapanni cave (though its identity is questioned by Mr. Fergusson) is, according to that authority, a natural cave" slightly improved by art." In Aśoka's day the cave-temple was a small cave without sculpture, and with merely a polished roof. Even in Kaniśka's day there was no cave-temple of the gorgeous pattern here described. This gives a very modern date to the narrative. It gives us, I think, without any doubt, some details of "Indian Architecture," p. 108.

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Kaniśka's convocation. Observe that the number of monks in Kaniśka's convocation, and the number of monks in the first convocation as recorded by Buddhaghosa, are in each case exactly four hundred and ninety-nine. In each case, also, this is made up to five hundred by a monk performing a miracle.

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It must be remembered that, if in the third or fourth century of our era a writer in Ceylon were drawing up a history of the convocations, the details of the last one would naturally be the most prominent in his mind. He would see the panorama of history reversed. The last convocation would be clear, the second and first dim and shadowy. must point out, too, that the incident of the chanting monks could not have taken place, as described in the Ceylon books. It would be quite impossible to get five hundred monks to learn by heart a voluminous canon, four times as long as our Bible, in the time given. Two contradictory narratives have been made use of—a story similar to the Northern story, which announced that three disciples collected the scanty scraps of the remembered precepts of Buddha three months after his death, and a narrative of Kaniśka's convocation, which would have had the incident of the chanting monks. At that period they could have sung out all the canonical books, as they knew them by heart. The incident of Ânanda's