given in the Mahavamsa[42] is obscure, but the
dispute resulted in the Pitakas, which had hitherto been preserved orally,
being committed to writing. The council which defined and edited the
scriptures was not attended by all the monasteries of Ceylon, but only by
the monks of the Mahavihara, and the text which they wrote down was their
special version and not universally accepted. It included the Parivara,
which was apparently a recent manual composed in Ceylon. The Mahavamsa says
no more about this schism, but the Nikaya-Sangrahawa[43] says that the
monks of the Abhayagiri monastery now embraced the doctrines of the
Vajjiputta school (one of the seventeen branches of the Mahasanghikas)
which was known in Ceylon as the Dhammaruci school from an eminent teacher
of that name. Many pious kings followed who built or repaired sacred
edifices and Buddhism evidently flourished, but we also hear of heresy. In
the third century A.D.[44] King Voharaka Tissa suppressed[45] the Vetulyas.
This sect was connected with the Abhayagiri monastery, but, though it
lasted until the twelfth century, I have found no Sinhalese account of its
tenets. It is represented as the worst of heresies, which was suppressed by
all orthodox kings but again and again revived, or was reintroduced from
India. Though it always found a footing at the Abhayagiri it was not
officially recognized as the creed of that Monastery which since the time
of Vattagamani seems to have professed the relatively orthodox doctrine
called Dhammaruci.

Mention is made in the Katha-vatthu of heretics who held that the
Buddha remained in the Tusita heaven and that the law was preached on
earth not by him but by Ananda and the commentary[46] ascribes these
views to the Vetulyakas. The reticence of the Sinhalese chronicles
makes it doubtful whether the Vetulyakas of Ceylon and these heretics
are identical but probably the monks of the Abhayagiri, if not
strictly speaking Mahayanist, were an off-shoot of an ancient sect
which contained some germs of the Mahayana. Hsuan Chuang in his
narrative[47] states (probably from hearsay) that the monks of the
Mahavihara were Hinayanists but that both vehicles were studied at the
Abhayagiri. I-Ching on the contrary says expressly that all the
Sinhalese belonged to the Aryasthavira Nikaya. Fa-Hsien describes the
Buddhism of Ceylon as he saw it about 412 A.D., but does not apply to
it the terms Hina or Mahayana. He evidently regarded the Abhayag