at they agree in
essentials and differ only in details and this seems to have been true
not only when he wrote (about 420 A.D.) but throughout their history. In
different epochs and countries Buddhism presents a series of surprising
metamorphoses, but the divergences between the sects existing in India
at any given time are less profound in character and less violent in
expression than the divisions of Christianity. Similarly the so-called
sects[564] in modern China, Burma and Siam are better described as
schools, in some ways analogous to such parties as the High and Low
Church in England. On the other hand some of the eighteen schools
exceeded the variations permitted in Christianity and Islam by having
different collections of the scriptures. But at the time of which we are
treating these collections had not been reduced to writing: they were of
considerable extent compared with the Bible or Koran and they admitted
later explanatory matter. The record of the Buddha's words did not
profess to be a miraculous revelation but merely a recollection of what
had been said. It is therefore natural that each school should maintain
that the memory of its own scholars had transmitted the most accurate
and complete account and that tradition should represent the successive
councils as chiefly occupied in reciting and sifting these accounts.

It is generally agreed that the eighteen[565] schools were in existence
during or shortly before the reign of Asoka, and that six others[566]
arose about the same period, but subsequently to them. The best
materials for a study of their opinions are afforded by the text and
commentary[567] of the Katha-vatthu, a treatise attributed to Tissa
Moggaliputta, who is said to have been President of the Third Council
held under Asoka. It is an examination and refutation of heretical views
rather than a description of the bodies that held them but we can judge
from it what was the religious atmosphere at the time and the commentary
gives some information about various sects. Many centuries later I-ching
tells us that during his visit to India (671-695 A.D.) the principal
schools were four in number, with eighteen subdivisions. These four[568]
are the Mahasanghika, the Sthavira (equivalent to the old Theravada),
the Mulasarvastivada and the Sammitiya, and from the time of Asoka
onwards they throw the remaining divisions into the shade[569]. He adds
that it is not determined which of the four should be