________________ 142 Homage to Vaisali lag behind Vaigali, a similar courtesen was installed there under orders of Bimbisara. THE BUDDHIST COUNCIL OF VAISALI Students of Buddhist religion will be glad to know that a council held at Vaisali, a hundred years after Budha's parinirvana, resulted in a complete schism between two groups of monks quarrelling over 10 points of discipline. The conservative party, upholding traditional views, was the minority and separated from the main assembly. When it had left in the majority held a council of its own, known as the Mahasangha, or the Maha-Sangiti ("the great assembly or Great Recitation') and we may be justified in detecting in this designation a fore-runner of the term Mahayana. The occurrence of such a schim should not surprise us when we remember that it was again at Vaigali that the Buddha permitted the foundation of the order of nuns (against his own personal wishes) at the instance of Ananda and his foster-mother Prajapati Gautami, who became the first Buddhist nun. In the fifth year after his enlightenment Buddha stayed in the Kutagara-sala at Vaisali. At this time his father Suddhodana died. Buddha flew through the air and preached to his father on the death bed. The widowed' Mabaprajapati, foster-mother of Buddha, went to Buddha and asked that women might be allowed to leave the world under the doctrine and discipline of the Tathagata. Buddha refused three times and returned to Vaisali. Prajapati Gautami then cut off her hair, put on yellow robes and followed him with other Sakya women. Being of delicate frame, they arrived at Vaigali with swollen feet and covered with dust. Poor Ananda who was noted for his compassion, found them all weeping outside the door and begging him to intercede with Buddha for their admission Ananda fared no better, and Buddha refused his request three times. Then Ananda, with his characteristic appeal, asked Buddha "Oh, Lord, is a woman who has gone forth from her house to a houseless life to a doctrine and discipline declared by you, capable of realising the fruit of entering the stream, or of the once-returner, or of the nonreturner, or of Arbatship ?" The Buddha replied "a woman is capable." "If so, My Lord, Prajapati Gautami, your aunt was of great service to you, she was your nurse, and when your own mother died, fed you from her own breasts. It were good, My Lord, for women to be allowed to go forth.......". Such was the appealing question of Ananda. The Buddha answered "If, Ananda, Mabaprajapati will take upon herself the eight Strict Rules (Gurudhamma), let this be her ordination". Ananda duly imparted the Buddha's decision to the old lady who immediately said "just as, oh, Ananda, a woman or a man who is young and fond
