The Foundations of Buddhism

54 The Word of Buddha: Scriptures and Schools

become an issue in determining whether he could participate in

the formal ceremonies of the Sangha. The failure to realize this

is something of a shortcoming in Bareau's pioneering and schol-

arly study of the Buddhist councils.

Certain non-Theravadin sources are also suggestive of a dis-

pute at Pataliputra during the reign of Asoka, but they link. the

dispute to the second communal recitation or, as we have seen,

the question of Mahadeva's five points; only one of these sources

-a relatively late one-mentions a third communal recitation

in this connection.^28 Yet that some kind of dispute did occur at

Pataliputra during the reign of Asoka receives some corrobora-

tion in the form of his so-called schism edict.

Ancient Buddhist sources preserve various lists of schools

which invariably state the total number to be eighteen while in

fact listing rather more; the number eighteen seems to be ideal

and symbolic.^29 A rough assessment of the evidence in the light

of the witness of inscriptional evidence, extant Vinayas, and the

Chinese pilgrims, suggests that we should rather think in terms

of four major groupings-the Mahasarpghikas, the Sthaviras,

the Vatsiputriya-Sarpmatiyas, and the Sarvastivadins-with the

Mahisasakas, Dharmaguptakas, and Kasyapiyas also represent-

ing significant sub-schools of the Sthaviras.

It is legitimate, I think, to see the exposition of the basic prin-

ciples and method of Abhidharma as the product of the first gen-

eration of the Buddha's disciples. As such it obviously carried

great weight and authority, and for much of the tradition was

indeed 'the word of the Buddha'. And yet, even while granting

it the status of the Buddha's word, in acknowledging the con-
tribution of the early disciples in its transmission, the tradition
itself retains a sense that the Abhidharma is one step removed

from the Teacher himself. It is in this respect that I suggest that

the early Abhidharma can be seen as the original 'commentary'
upon the Buddha's teaching. But as Buddhism spread across the
Indian subcontinent, subsequent generations of the Buddha's
disciples further refined the Abhidharma systems of thought and
contribut~d to the gradual evolution of the different schools.
Increasingly in this context the Buddhist tradition as a whole began