The Tree of Enlightenment

the Dharma they themselves had heard from the Buddha. Both
episodes indicate the degree of freedom of thought that existed
at the time of the early Buddhist community.
Let us now look at the record of the Second Council which
was held about a hundred years later. At this council, the issue
that dominated the debate, and that precipitated the calling of
the council was disciplinary. A number of monks had taken up
practices which the elder monks considered breaches of monastic
discipline. ere were ten such practices, including carrying salt
in a hollowed horn, which was considered a breach of the rule
forbidding the storage of food; seeking permission for an action
after the action had already been done; and accepting gold and
silver, which was considered a breach of the rule forbidding the
accumulation of wealth. e erring monks were declared in violation
of the orthodox code of discipline and censured accordingly.
Again the conservative stand of Maha Kashyapa was adopted by
the Elders at the council, and indeed the rules of monastic discipline
have remained virtually unchanged over the centuries notwithstanding
many actual modifications in practice.
In spite of the apparently easy resolution of the disciplinary
dispute, the years after the Second Council saw the emergence
and proliferation of many separate schools such as the Maha
Sanghikas who some regard as the progenitors of the Mahayana,
Vatsiputriyas and others. Consequently, by the time of the ird
Council, held during the reign of Emperor Ashoka, in the third
century b.c.e., there were already at least eighteen schools, each
with its own doctrines and disciplinary rules.
Two schools dominated the deliberations at the ird
Council, an analytical school called the Vibhajyavadins, and a
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