rds the council has put together a very
good account of the Buddha's teaching but has no claim to impose it on
those who have personal reminiscences of their own.

This want of a central authority, though less complete than in
Brahmanism, marks the early life of the Buddhist community. We read in
later works[555] of a succession of Elders who are sometimes called
Patriarchs[556] but it would be erroneous to think of them as possessing
episcopal authority. They were at most the chief teachers of the order.
From the death of the Buddha to Asoka only five names are mentioned. But
five names can fill the interval only if their bearers were unusually
long-lived. It is therefore probable that the list merely contains the
names of prominent Theras who exercised little authority in virtue of
any office, though their personal qualities assured them respect. Upali,
who comes first, is called chief of the Vinaya but, so far as there was
one head of the order, it seems to have been Kassapa. He is the Brahman
ascetic of Uruvela whose conversion is recorded in the first book of the
Mahavagga and is said to have exchanged robes with the Buddha[557]. He
observed the Dhutangas and we may conjecture that his influence tended
to promote asceticism. Dasaka and Sonaka are also designated as chiefs
of the Vinaya and there was perhaps a distinction between those who
studied (to use modern phrases) ecclesiastical law and dogmatic
theology.

The accounts[558] of the second Council are as abrupt as those of the
first and do not connect it with previous events. The circumstances said
to have led to its meeting are, however, probable. According to the
Cullavagga, a hundred years after the death of the Buddha certain
Bhikkhus of Vajjian lineage resident at Vesali upheld ten theses
involving relaxations of the older discipline. The most important of
these was that monks were permitted to receive gold and silver, but all
of them, trivial as they may seem, had a dangerous bearing for they
encouraged not only luxury but the formation of independent schools. For
instance they allowed pupils to cite the practice of their preceptors as
a justification for their conduct and authorized monks resident in one
parish to hold Uposatha in separate companies and not as one united
body. The story of the condemnation of these new doctrines contains
miraculous incidents but seems to have a historical basis. It relates
how a monk called Yasa, when a guest of the mon