3
The Development of
Early Indian Buddhism
3.1 THE FORMATION OF THE CANON
T
he Buddha's own name for the religion he founded was Dharma-Vinaya,
the Doctrine and Discipline. Shortly before his Parinirva.!fa, he report-
edly told his followers that the Dharma he had taught and the Vinaya
he had promulgated would serve as their teacher after he was gone. Thus the
early arhants took great pains to organize, memorize, and transmit the words
that were to serve as teacher for their own generation and for those to come.
Nevertheless, no ungarnished collection of the Buddha's sayings has survived.
The later versions of the early canon (accepted scripture) preserved in Pali,
Sanskrit, Chinese, and Tibetan are sectarian variants of a still-earlier corpus
that grew and crystallized during three centuries of oral transmission after the
Parinirva.!fa.
Buddhist chronicles present an idealized story of the First Council (sangiti,
recitation), held at Rajagrha during the first three-month monsoon retreat
after the Parinirva.!fa for the purpose of standardizing the Buddha's words into
tradition. Whether or not the First Council ever occurred as described, it sig-
naled the transition from a Sangha led by a living charismatic founder to one
led by his teachings. Five hundred arhants reportedly gathered, led by
Mahakasyapa, who first questioned Upali on the Vinaya and then Ananda on
the Dharma. Their responses were accepted as the standard for the first two of
the three collections, or Pitakas (baskets, collections of oral traditions), that
came to comprise the canon. This canon was then memorized-a prodigious51