be sent to some better
instructed monastery to learn it. And further we hear[633] that a
learned Bhikkhu was expected to know not merely the precepts of the
Patimokkha but also the occasion when each was formulated. The place,
the circumstances and the people concerned had been in each case handed
down. There is here all the material for a narrative. The reciter of a
sutta simply adopts the style of a village story-teller. "Thus have I
heard. Once upon a time the Lord was dwelling at Rajagaha," or wherever
it was, and such and such people came to see him. And then, after a more
or less dramatic introduction, comes the Lord's discourse and at the end
an epilogue saying how the hearers were edified and, if previously
unconverted, took refuge in the true doctrine.

The Cullavagga states that the Vinaya (but not the other Pitakas) was
recited and verified at the Council of Vesali. As I have mentioned
elsewhere, Sinhalese and Chinese accounts speak of another Council, the
Mahasangha or Mahasangiti. Though its date is uncertain, there is a
consensus of tradition to the effect that it recognized a canon of its
own, different from our Pali Canon and containing a larger amount of
popular matter.

Sinhalese tradition states that the canon as we now have it was fixed at
the third Council held at Pataliputra in the reign of Asoka (about
272-232 B.C.). The most precise statements about this Council are those
of Buddhaghosa who says that an assembly of monks who knew the three
Pitakas by heart recited the Vinaya and the Dhamma.

But the most important and interesting evidence as to the existence of
Buddhist scriptures in the third century B.C. is afforded by the Bhabru
(or Bhabra) edict of Asoka. He recommends the clergy to study seven
passages, of which nearly all can be identified in our present edition
of the Pitakas[634]. This edict does not prove that Asoka had before him
in the form which we know the Digha and other works cited. But the most
cautious logic must admit that there was a collection of the Buddha's
sayings to which he could appeal and that if most of his references to
this collection can be identified in our Pitakas, then the major part of
these Pitakas is probably identical in substance (not necessarily
verbally) with the collection of sayings known to Asoka.

Neither Asoka nor the author of the Katha-vatthu cites books by name.
The latter for instance quotes the well-known lines "anupubbena medhavi"
not as com