Second Buddhist Council - Modern Scholarship - Addition of Vinaya Rules

Addition of Vinaya Rules

Under the influence of materials from the Theravāda school, some modern historians have tended to see the Mahāsāṃghikas as a lax, breakaway group. However, the account by the Mahāsāṃghika school itself saw the Sthaviras as being the breakaway group which was attempting to modify the original Vinaya. Skilton has suggested that the problems of contradictory accounts are solved by the Mahāsāṃghika Śariputraparipṛcchā, which is the earliest surviving account of the schism. In this account, the council was convened at Pāṭaliputra over matters of vinaya, and it is explained that the schism resulted from the majority (Mahāsaṃgha) refusing to accept the addition of rules to the Vinaya by the minority (Sthaviras). Regarding this matter, L.S. Cousins writes, "The Mahāsāṃghikas were essentially a conservative party resisting a reformist attempt to tighten discipline. The likelihood is that they were initially a larger body, representing the mass of the community, the mahāsaṃga."

The Śariputraparipṛcchā contains an account in which an old monk rearranges and augments the traditional Vinaya, consequently causing dissention among the monks that required the king's arbitration and eventually precipitating the first schism. Scholars have generally agreed that the matter of dispute was indeed a matter of vinaya, and have noted that the account of the Mahāsāṃghikas is bolstered by the vinaya texts themselves, as vinayas associated with the Sthaviras do contain more rules than those of the Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya. For example, the Mahāsāṃghika Prātimokṣa has 67 rules in the Śaikṣa-dharma section, while the Sthavira version has 75 rules.