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apart from one another. Vinaya Pitaka is no exception to this. There are some scholars who go to the length of denying that there was any such thing as the first Buddhist Council. Thus Oldenberg suggests that as the Mahaparinivvāna Sūtta makes no mention about this first Council, it is no more than a historians' fancy(12). Supporting this view, Frank writes,
"The only material supporting the first Council are the 11th and the 12th Chapters of the Cullavagga, and this support has its root in tradition. Hence its value should not be over-estimated(13). But Hermann Jacobi does not agree with this view. He is of opinion that if the Mahāparinivvana Sutta, makes no reference to the Council, it is because the Council had no relevance for the Sutta (14). Some scholars are, however, of opinion that the two Chapters of the Cullavagga mentioned above must have once been parts of Mahāparinivvāna Sutta, but were at some later period included in the Cullavagga (15). The real position appears to be that the literary style of, and the ideas contained in, the two Chapters are somewhat inconsistent and out of tune with the rest of the Cullavagga, but they bear a family affinity with the Mahāparinivvāna Sutta. In a text entitled Samyukta Vastu, the two accounts of the liberation of Gautama Buddha and the first Council are given together, This lends support to the contention of some scholars that these two Chapters were once parts of the Mahäparinivvāna Sutta. With so much support in its favour, the meeting of the first Buddhist Council cannot be ruled out altogether, though there is yet dearth of information about its deliberations. Besides, scholars hold different views about the material that was actually collected and codified at this Council. As G.C. Pande was opined, it would have been a sheer physical impossibility to compile the complete text either of the Vinaya, Pitaka or of the Sutta, Pitaka during that limited time(16). The Vinaya Pitaka mentions of the two Buddhist Councils, but not of the third which met sometime in the third century BC., nor does it make mention of Emperor Asoka who ascended the throne in 269 B.C(17). So it may be said with a fair degree of certainity that the Vinava Pitaka must have been compiled before these two events. According to G. C. Pande, the Vinaya Pitaka has reached the present bulk only after passing through at least five enlargements from time to time (18).
