The Mahāvaṃsa or The Great Chronicle of Ceylon. Translated by Wilhelm Geiger. London: Published for the Pali Text Society by Henry Frowde, Oxford University Press, 1912, Chapter V, “The Third Council,” pp. 40–50.
One day the prince (Tissa), when sporting joyously in the wild hunting, saw gazelles, and at this sight he thought: “Even the gazelles sport thus joyously, who feed on grass in the wild. Wherefore are not the bhikkhus joyous and gay, who have their food and dwelling in comfort?”
Returned home he told the king his thought. To teach him the king handed over to him the government of the kingdom for one week, saying: “Enjoy, prince, for one week my royal state; then will I put thee to death.” Thus said the ruler.
And when the week was gone by he asked: “Wherefore art thou thus wasted away?” And when (Tissa) answered: “By reason of the fear of death,” the king spoke again to him and said: “Thinking that thou must die when the week was gone by, thou wast no longer joyous and gay; how then can ascetics be joyous and gay, my dear, who think ever upon death?”
And (Tissa), when his brother spoke thus, was turned toward faith in the doctrine (of the Buddha). And afterwards when he once went forth hunting, he saw the thera Mahādhammarakkhita, the self-controlled, sitting at the foot of a tree, and fanned by a cobra with a branch of a sāla-tree. And that wise (prince) thought: “When shall I, like this thera, be ordained in the religion of the Conqueror, and live in the forest-wilderness?”
When the thera, to convert him, had come thither flying through the air, standing on the water of the pond in the Asokārāma, he, leaving his goodly garments behind him in the air, plunged into the water and bathed his limbs. And when the prince saw this marvel he was filled with joyful faith, and the wise man made this wise resolve: “This very day will I receive the pabbajjā-ordination.”
He went to the king and respectfully besought him to let him receive the pabbajjā. Since the king could not turn him from (his resolve) he took him with him and went with a great retinue to the vihāra. There (the prince) received the pabbajjā from the thera Mahādhammarakkhita, and with him four hundred thousand persons, but the number of those who afterwards were ordained is not known.
A nephew of the monarch known by the name Aggibrahmā was the consort of the king’s daughter Saṅghamittā, and the son of these two (was) named Sumana. He (Aggibrahmā) also craved the king’s leave and was ordained together with the prince.
The prince’s ordination, whence flowed blessing to many folk, was in the fourth year of (the reign of) king Asoka. In the same year he received the upasampadā-ordination, and since his destiny was holiness the prince, zealously striving, became an arahant, gifted with the six supernormal powers.
All those beautiful vihāras (then) begun they duly finished in all the cities within three years; but, by the miraculous power of the thera Indagutta, who watched over the work, the ārāma named after Asoka was likewise quickly brought to completion. On those spots which the Conqueror himself had visited the monarch built beautiful cetiyas here and there.
On every side from the eighty-four thousand cities came letters on one day with the news: “The vihāras are completed.” When the great king, great in majesty, in wondrous power and valour, received the letters, he, desiring to hold high festival in all the ārāmas at once, proclaimed in the town with beat of drum: “On the seventh day from this day shall a festival of all the ārāmas be kept, in every way, in all the provinces. Yojana by yojana on the earth shall great largess be given; the ārāmas in the villages and the streets shall be adorned. In all the vihāras let lavish gifts of every kind be bestowed upon the brotherhood, according to the time and the means (of givers), and adornments, such as garlands of lamps and garlands of flowers, here and there, and all that is meet for festivals, with music of every kind, in manifold ways.
“And all are to take upon themselves the duties of the uposatha-day and hear religious discourse, and offerings of many kinds must they make on the same day.”
And all the people everywhere held religious festivals of every kind, glorious as the world of gods, even as had been commanded, and (did) yet more. On that day the great king, wearing all his adornments and with the women of his household, with his ministers and surrounded by the multitude of his troops, went to his own ārāma, as if cleaving the earth. In the midst of the brotherhood he stood, bowing down to the venerable brotherhood.
In the assembly were eighty kotis of bhikkhus, and among these were a hundred thousand ascetics who had overcome the āsavas. Moreover there were ninety times one hundred thousand bhikkhunīs, and among these a thousand had overcome the āsavas. These (monks and nuns) wrought the miracle called the “unveiling of the world” to the end that the king Dhammāsoka might be converted.
Caṇḍāsoka (the wicked Asoka) was he called in earlier times, by reason of his evil deeds; he was known as Dhammāsoka (the pious Asoka) afterwards because of his pious deeds. He looked around over the (whole) Jambudīpa bounded by the ocean and over all the vihāras adorned with the manifold (beauties of) the festival, and with exceeding joy, as he saw them, he asked the brethren, while taking his seat: “Whose generosity toward the doctrine of the Blessed One was ever (so) great (as mine), venerable sirs?”
The thera Moggaliputta answered the king’s question: “Even in the lifetime of the Blessed One there was no generous giver like to thee.”
When the king heard this he rejoiced yet more and asked: “Nay then, is there a kinsman of Buddha’s religion like unto me?”
But the thera perceived the destiny of the king’s son Mahinda and of his daughter Saṅghamittā, and foresaw the progress of the doctrine that was to arise from (them), and he, on whom lay the charge of the doctrine, replied thus to the king: “Even a lavish giver of gifts like to thee is not a kinsman of the religion; giver of wealth is he called, O ruler of men. But he who lets son or daughter enter the religious order is a kinsman of the religion and withal a giver of gifts.”
Since the monarch would fain become a kinsman of the religion he asked Mahinda and Saṅghamittā, who stood near: “Do you wish to receive the pabbajjā, dear ones? The pabbajjā is held to be a great (good).”
Then, when they heard their father’s words, they said to him: “This very day we would fain enter the order, if thou, O king, dost wish it; for us, even as for thee, will blessing come of our pabbajjā.”
For already since the time of the prince’s (Tissa’s) pabbajjā had he resolved to enter the order, and she since (the ordination) of Aggibrahmā. Although the monarch wished to confer on Mahinda the dignity of prince-regent, yet did he consent to his ordination with the thought: “This (last) is the greater dignity.”
So he permitted his dear son Mahinda, distinguished (above all others) by intelligence, beauty and strength, and his daughter Saṅghamittā, to be ordained with all solemnity.
At that time Mahinda, the king’s son, was twenty years old, and the king’s daughter Saṅghamittā was then eighteen years old. On the very same day did he receive the pabbajjā- and also the upasampadā-ordination, and for her the pabbajjā-ordination and the placing under a teacher took place on the same day.
The prince’s master was the thera named after Moggali; the pabbajjā-ordination was conferred on him by the thera Mahādeva, but Majjhantika pronounced the ceremonial words, and even in the very place where he (received) the upasampadā-ordination this great man reached the state of an arahant together with the special kinds of knowledge.
The directress of Saṅghamittā was the renowned Dhammapālā, and her teacher was Āyupālā; in time she became free from the āsavas. Those two lights of the doctrine, who brought great blessing to the island of Laṅkā, received the pabbajjā in the sixth year of king Dhammāsoka.
The great Mahinda, the converter of the island (of Laṅkā), learned the three piṭakas with his master in three years. This bhikkhunī, even like the new moon, and the bhikkhu Mahinda, like the sun, illumined always the sky, the doctrine of the Sambuddha.
Once in time past, a dweller in the forest, who went forth into the forest from Pāṭaliputta, loved a wood-nymph named Kuntī. Owing to the union with him she bore two sons, the elder was Tissa and the younger was named Sumitta. Afterwards both received the pabbajjā-ordination from the thera Mahāvaruṇa and attained to arahantship and the possession of the six supernormal powers.
(Once) the elder suffered pains in the foot from the poison of a venomous insect, and when his younger brother asked (what he needed) he told him that a handful of ghee was the remedy. But the thera set himself against pointing out to the king what things were needful in sickness, and against going in search of the ghee after the midday meal. “If on thy begging-round thou receivest ghee, bring it to me,” said the thera Tissa to the excellent thera Sumitta.
When he went forth on his begging-round he received not one handful of ghee, and (in the meanwhile) the pain had come to such a pass that even a hundred vessels of ghee could not have cured it. And because of that malady the thera was near to death, and when he had exhorted (the other) to strive unceasingly he formed the resolve to pass into nibbāna. Lifted up in the air as he sat, and winning mastery of his own body by the fire-meditation, according to his own free resolve, he passed into nibbāna. The flames that broke forth from his body consumed the flesh and skin of the thera’s whole body; the bones they did not consume.
When the monarch heard that the thera had died in this wise he went to his own ārāma surrounded by the multitude of his troops. Mounted on an elephant the king brought down the bones, and when he had caused due honour to be paid to the relics, he questioned the brotherhood as to (the thera’s) illness. Hearing about it he was greatly moved, and had tanks made at the city gates and filled them with remedies for the sick, and day by day he had remedies bestowed on the congregation of the bhikkhus, thinking: “Might the bhikkhus never find remedies hard to obtain.”
The thera Sumitta passed into nibbāna even when he was walking (in meditation) in the caṅkama-hall, and by this also was a great multitude of people converted to the doctrine (of the Buddha). Both these theras, the sons of Kuntī, who had wrought a great good in the world, passed into nibbāna in the eighth year of Asoka.
From that time onwards the revenues of the brotherhood were exceeding great, and since those who were converted later caused the revenues to increase, heretics who had (thereby) lost revenue and honour took likewise the yellow robe, for the sake of revenue, and dwelt together with the bhikkhus. They proclaimed their own doctrines as the doctrine of the Buddha and carried out their own practices even as they wished.
And when the thera Moggaliputta, great in firmness of soul, saw the coming-out of this exceedingly evil plague-boil on the doctrine, he, far-seeing, deliberated upon the right time to do away with it. And when he had committed his great company of bhikkhus to (the direction of) the thera Mahinda, he took up his abode, all alone, further up the Ganges on the Ahogaṅga-mountain, to solitary retreat.
By reason of the great number of the heretics and their unruliness, the bhikkhus could not restrain them by the law; and therefore the bhikkhus in Jambudīpa for seven years held no uposatha-ceremony nor the ceremony of pavāraṇā in all the ārāmas.
When the great king, the famed Dhammāsoka, was aware of this, he sent a minister to the splendid Asokārāma, laying on him this command: “Go, settle this matter and let the uposatha-festival be carried out by the community of bhikkhus in my ārāma.”
This fool went thither, and when he had called the community of bhikkhus together he announced the king’s command: “Carry out the uposatha-festival.”
“We hold not the uposatha-festival with heretics,” the community of bhikkhus replied to that misguided minister.
The minister struck off the head of several theras, one by one, with his sword, saying, “I will force you to hold the uposatha-festival.” When the king’s brother, Tissa, saw that crime he came speedily and sat on the seat nearest to the minister. When the minister saw the thera he went to the king and told him (the whole matter).
When the monarch heard it he was troubled and went with all speed and asked the community of bhikkhus, greatly disturbed in mind: “Who, in truth, is guilty of this deed that has been done?”
And certain of them answered in their ignorance: “The guilt is thine,” and others said: “Both of you are guilty”; but those who were wise answered: “Thou art not guilty.”
When the king heard this he said: “Is there a bhikkhu who is able to set my doubts to rest and to befriend religion?”
“There is the thera Tissa, the son of Moggali, O king,” answered the brethren to the king. Then was the king filled with zeal.
He sent four theras, each attended by a thousand bhikkhus, and four ministers, each with a thousand followers, that same day, with the charge laid on them by (the king) himself to bring the thera thither; but though they prayed him he came not.
When the king heard this he sent again eight theras and eight ministers, each with a thousand followers, but even as before he came not.
The king asked: “Nay then, how shall the thera come?”
The bhikkhus told him how the thera could be moved to come: “O great king, if they shall say to him, ‘Be our helper, venerable sir, to befriend religion,’ then will the thera come.”
Again the king sent (messengers) sixteen theras and sixteen ministers, each with a thousand followers, laying that (same) charge upon them, and he said to them: “Aged as he is, the thera will not enter any wheeled vehicle; bring the thera by ship on the Ganges.”
So they went to him and told him, and hardly had he heard (their message) but he rose up. And they brought the thera in a ship, and the king went to meet him. Going down even knee-deep into the water the king respectfully gave his right hand to the thera, as he came down from the ship. The venerable thera took the king’s right hand from compassion toward him, and came down from the ship.
The king led the thera to the pleasure-garden called Rativaddhana, and when he had washed and anointed his feet and had seated himself the monarch spoke thus, to test the thera’s faculty: “Sir, I would fain see a miracle.”
And to the question which (miracle he desired) he answered: “An earthquake.” And again the other said to him: “Which wouldst thou see, of the whole (earth shaken) or only of a single region?” Then when he had asked: “Which is the more difficult?” and heard (the reply): “The shaking of a single region is the more difficult,” he declared that he desired to see this last.
Then within the boundary of a yojana (in extent) did the thera place a waggon, a horse and a man, and a vessel full of water at the four cardinal points, and over this yojana by his miraculous power he caused the earth to tremble, together with the half of (each of) these (things), and let the king seated there behold this.
Then the monarch asked the thera whether or not he himself shared the guilt of the murder of the bhikkhus by the minister.
The thera taught the king: “There is no resulting guilt without evil intent,” and he recited the Tittira-jātaka.
Abiding a week there in the pleasant royal park he instructed the ruler in the lovely religion of the Sambuddha. In this same week the monarch sent out two yakkhas and assembled together all the bhikkhus on the earth. On the seventh day he went to his own splendid ārāma and arranged an assembly of the community of bhikkhus in its full numbers.
Then seated with the thera on one side behind a curtain the ruler called to him in turn the bhikkhus of the several confessions and asked them: “Sir, what did the Blessed One teach?” And they each expounded their wrong doctrine, the Sassata-doctrine and so forth. And all these adherents of false doctrine did the king cause to be expelled from the order; those who were expelled were in all sixty thousand.
And now he asked the rightly-believing bhikkhus: “What does the Blessed One teach?” And they answered: “He teaches the Vibhajja-doctrine.”
And the monarch asked the thera: “Sir, does the Sambuddha (really) teach the Vibhajja-doctrine?” The thera answered: “Yes.” And when the king knew this he was glad at heart and said: “Since the community is (henceforth) purified, sir, therefore should the brotherhood hold the uposatha-festival,” and he made the thera guardian of the order and returned to his fair capital; the brotherhood held thenceforth the uposatha-festival in concord.
Out of the great number of the brotherhood of bhikkhus the thera chose a thousand learned bhikkhus, endowed with the six supernormal powers, knowing the three piṭakas and versed in the special sciences, to make a compilation of the true doctrine. Together with them did he, in the Asokārāma, make a compilation of the true dhamma. Even as the thera Mahākassapa and the thera Yasa had held a council so did the thera Tissa.
In the midst of this council the thera Tissa set forth the Kathāvatthuppakaraṇa, refuting the other doctrines. Thus was this council under the protection of king Asoka ended by the thousand bhikkhus in nine months.
In the seventeenth year of the king’s reign the wise (thera), who was seventy-two years old, closed the council with a great pavāraṇā-ceremony. And, as if to shout applause to the re-establishment of doctrine, the great earth shook at the close of the council.
Nay, abandoning the high, the glorious Brahma-heaven and coming down for the sake of the doctrine to the loathsome world of men, he, who had fulfilled his own duty, fulfilled the duties toward the doctrine. Who else verily may neglect duties toward the doctrine?
Here ends the fifth chapter, called “The Third Council,” in the Mahāvamsa, compiled for the serene joy and emotion of the pious
