[Buddha-l] Sects and Sectarianism (Sujato, 2006) free book

[L.S. Cousins]

Dear Piya Tan,

I had not seen this. Thanks for telling us about it.

>In his Supplementary paper on "Chronology" he rejects Cousins and 
>Gombrich's proposal that the Second
>Council is 60-80 After the Nirvana. It would be interesting to hear 
>from Lance.

Well, actually I slightly disagree with Richard Gombrich who places 
it earlier (around 60 if I remember correctly), whereas I think of 
around 70-80.

I don't find what Ven. Sujaato has to say on this particular point convincing:

1. He doesn't seem to understand the point that a figure of 100 years 
is very unlikely to be anything but a round number. This is normally 
the case in the Pali canonical texts. 500 monks means 'a lot of 
monks', not 499 + 1 monks. So dating the Second Communal Recitation 
to a literal 80 years after the Buddha is not at all in disagreement 
with the canonical figure of around 100 years.

2. Despite his arguments it still seems improbable to me that at a 
(literal) date of 100 years after the Parinibbaana there could have 
been a whole group of active monks who had been disciples of Aananda. 
This is because I do not find it probable that Aananda lived more 
than 20 years after the Buddha. According to Ven. Sujaato:
"Aananda was probably about 45 at the time of the Parinibbana, and 
may well have lived for another 40 years or so. Both the Pali and the 
northern traditions contain statements to this effect."

As far as I know, the Pali canonical sources say only that Aananda 
attended the Buddha for 25 years. This would mean that he could not 
be less than 45 years old at the time of the Parinibbaana, but he 
could easily be older. Ven. Sujaato cites T45, 1852 p10a08 as his 
evidence from the 'Northern sources'. I cannot evaluate that.

Lance Cousins