Hsuean
Chuang[192] which present many difficulties. He tells us that the
king, acting in consultation with Parsva, issued summonses to all the
learned doctors of his realm. They came in such crowds that a severe
test was imposed and only 499 Arhats were selected. There was some
discussion as to the place of meeting but finally Kashmir[193] was
selected and the king built a monastery for the Brethren. When the
Council met, there arose a question as to whether Vasumitra (who is
not further described) should be admitted seeing that he was not an
Arhat but aspired to the career of a Bodhisattva. But owing to the
interposition of spirits he was not only admitted but made president.

The texts of the Tripitaka were collected and the Council "composed
100,000 stanzas of Upadesa Sastras explanatory of the canonical
sutras, 100,000 stanzas of Vinaya-vibhasha Sastras explanatory of the
Vinaya and 100,000 of Abhidharma-vibhasha Sastras explanatory of the
Abhidharma. For this exposition of the Tripitaka all learning from
remote antiquity was thoroughly examined; the general sense and the
terse language (of the Buddhist scriptures) was again and again made
clear and distinct, and learning was widely diffused for the
safe-guiding of disciples. King Kanishka caused the treatises when
finished to be written out on copper plates and enclosed these in
stone boxes which he deposited in a tope made for the purpose. He then
ordered spirits to keep and guard the texts and not to allow any to be
taken out of the country by heretics; those who wished to study them
could do so in the country. When leaving to return to his own country,
Kanishka renewed Asoka's gift of all Kashmir to the Buddhist
Church."[194]

Paramartha (499-569 A.D.) in his _Life of Vasubandhu_[195] gives an
account of a council generally considered to be the same as that
described by Hsuean Chuang, though the differences in the two versions
are considerable. He says that about five hundred years[196] after the
Buddha's death (_i.e._ between 87 B.C. and 13 A.D. if the Buddha died
487 B.C.) an Indian Arhat called Katyayani-putra, who was a monk of
the Sarvastivadin school, went to Kipin or Kashmir. There with 500
other Arhats and 500 Bodhisattvas he collected the Abhidharma of the
Sarvastivadins and arranged it in eight books called Ka-lan-ta
(Sanskrit _Grantha_) or Kan-tu (Pali _Gantho_). This compilation was
also called Jnana-prasthana. He then made a proclamation inviting