all
who had heard the Buddha preach to communicate what they remembered.
Many spirits responded and contributed their reminiscences which were
examined by the Council and, when they did not contradict the sutras
and the Vinaya, were accepted, but otherwise were rejected. The
selected pieces were grouped according to their subject-matter. Those
about wisdom formed the Prajna Grantha, and those about meditation the
Dhyana Grantha and so on. After finishing the eight books they
proceeded to the composition of a commentary or Vibhasha and invited
the assistance of Asvaghosha. When he came to Kashmir, Katyayani-putra
expounded the eight books to him and Asvaghosha put them into literary
form. At the end of twelve years the composition of the commentary was
finished. It consisted of 1,000,000 verses.... Katyayani-putra set up
a stone inscribed with this proclamation. "Those who hereafter learn
this law must not go out of Kashmir. No sentence of the eight books,
or of the Vibhasha must pass out of the land, lest other schools or
the Mahayana should corrupt the true law." This proclamation was
reported to the king who approved it. The sages of Kashmir had power
over demons and set them to guard the entrance to the country, but we
are told that anyone desirous of learning the law could come to
Kashmir and was in no way interrupted.

There follows a story telling how, despite this prohibition, a native
of Ayodhya succeeded in learning the law in Kashmir and subsequently
teaching it in his native land. Paramartha's account seems
exaggerated, whereas the prohibition described by Hsuean Chuang is
intelligible. It was forbidden to take the official copies of the law
out of Kashmir, lest heretics should tamper with them.

Taranatha[197] gives a singularly confused account of the meeting,
which he expressly calls the third council, but makes some important
statements about it. He says that it put an end to the dissensions
which had been distracting the Buddhist Church _for nearly a century_
and that it recognized all the eighteen sects as holding the true
doctrine: that it put the Vinaya in writing as well as such parts of
the Sutra-pitaka and Abhidharma as were still unwritten and corrected
those which already existed as written texts: that all kinds of
Mahayanist writings appeared at this time but that the Sravakas raised
no opposition.

It is hard to say how much history can be extracted from these vague
and discrepant stories.