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WHILE preparing an article on Buddhist Councils for Hastings' Encyclopaedia of Religion and Ethics, I came to identify the so-called “Five Points” of Mahādeva with some “heretical” tenets of the Kathāvatthu. If I am right in this identification, and I believe I am, the fact cannot be without importance, for it establishes a link, hitherto wanting, between the Cingalese tradition of the Third Council and the Northern traditions concerning councils and the origin of the Mahāsāṃghikas. I do not intend to draw the conclusions that can be derived therefrom, namely, as concerns the redaction of the Kathāvatthu: this book, one of the richest of Buddhist antiquity, has not yet been studied enough, and its interpretation is beset with many difficulties. Careful comparison with “Northern” documents on sects would prove very useful, and, to say the truth, much help will be derived from the forthcoming translation of the Kathāvatthu itself. |
