en like Devadatta
or the Nirgranthas to do his work. He is often represented with 100
arms, and riding on an elephant." The oldest form of the legend in
this paragraph is in "Buddhist Suttas," Sacred Books of the East, vol.
xi, pp. 41-55, where Buddha says that, if Ananda had asked him thrice,
he would have postponed his death.

(10) Or the Vinaya-pitaka. The meeting referred to was an important
one, and is generally spoken of as the second Great Council of the
Buddhist Church. See, on the formation of the Buddhist Canon, Hardy's
E. M., chap. xviii, and the last chapter of Davids' Manual, on the
History of the Order. The first Council was that held at Rajagriha,
shortly after Buddha's death, under the presidency of Kasyapa;--say
about B.C. 410. The second was that spoken of here;--say about B.C.
300. In Davids' Manual (p. 216) we find the ten points of discipline,
in which the heretics (I can use that term here) claimed at least
indulgence. Two meetings were held to consider and discuss them.
At the former the orthodox party barely succeeded in carrying their
condemnation of the laxer monks; and a second and larger meeting, of
which Fa-Hsien speaks, was held in consequence, and a more emphatic
condemnation passed. At the same time all the books and subjects of
discipline seem to have undergone a careful revision.

The Corean text is clearer than the Chinese as to those who composed
the Council,--the Arhats and orthodox monks. The leader among them was
a Yasas, or Yasada, or Yedsaputtra, who had been a disciple of Ananda,
and must therefore have been a very old man.

CHAPTER XXVI

REMARKABLE DEATH OF ANANDA.

Four yojanas on from this place to the east brought the travellers
to the confluence of the five rivers.(1) When Ananda was going from
Magadha(2) to Vaisali, wishing his pari-nirvana to take place (there),
the devas informed king Ajatasatru(3) of it, and the king immediately
pursued him, in his own grand carriage, with a body of soldiers, and
had reached the river. (On the other hand), the Lichchhavis of Vaisali
had heard that Amanda was coming (to their city), and they on their
part came to meet him. (In this way), they all arrived together at the
river, and Ananda considered that, if he went forward, king Ajatasatru
would be very angry, while, if he went back, the Lichchhavis would
resent his conduct. He thereupon in the very middle o