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Firstly the Sanskrit Abhidharma of the Sarvâstivâdins seems to date from his council and secondly a Buddhist drama by Aśvaghosha of about the same time represents the Buddha as speaking in Sanskrit whereas the inferior characters speak Prakrit.
His name is derived from that of his mother Sarika, the wife of Tishya, a native of Nalanda. Several Sastras are ascribed to him, and indeed the followers of the Abhidharma look on him as their founder. He died before Sakyamuni; but is to reappear as a future Buddha. Eitel, pp. 123, 124. Mugalan, the Singhalese name of this disciple, is more pronounceable.
This may be reasonably held to include a recension of the text commented on but we do not know what that text was, and the brief and perplexing accounts of the Council which we possess indicate not that it gave its imprimatur to Mahayanist sutras but that it was specially concerned with the Abhidharma works of the Sarvâstivâdin school.
The traditions indicate that the council to some extent sifted and revised the Tripitaka and perhaps it accepted the seven Abhidharma books of the Sarvâstivâdins. But it is not stated or implied that it composed or sanctioned Mahayanist books. Târanâtha merely says that such books appeared at this time and that the Hinayanists raised no active objection.
During this period Vasubandhu was a Sarvâstivâdin but of liberal views and while in this phase wrote the Abhidharma-kośa, a general exposition of the Abhidharma, mainly according to the views of the Vaibhâshikas but not without criticism. This celebrated work is not well known in Europe but is still a text-book amongst Japanese Buddhist students.
Assuredly there were mysteries in the Abhidharma impenetrable, incomprehensible!... It was a golden coin, stamped with the symbol of an elephant, not more of an illusion, indeed, than the gifts of Kings to the Buddha! Gold upon her bosom also, less fine than the gold of her skin. Naked between the silken sash and the narrow breast-corslet, her young waist curved glossy and pliant as a bow.
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 Sûtra-piṭaka 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 Śrâvakas raised no opposition.
In another place where he describes the curriculum followed by monks he says that they learn the Yogâcârya-śâstra first and then eight compositions of Asanga and Vasubandhu. Among the works prescribed for logic is the Nyâyadvâra-śâstra attributed to Nâgârjuna. The monk should learn not only the Abhidharma of the Sarvâstivâdins but also the Âgamas, equivalent to the Sûtra-piṭaka.
The texts of the Tripitaka were collected and the Council "composed 100,000 stanzas of Upadeśa Śâstras explanatory of the canonical sûtras, 100,000 stanzas of Vinaya-vibhâshâ Śâstras explanatory of the Vinaya and 100,000 of Abhidharma-vibhâshâ Śâstras explanatory of the Abhidharma.
In the community here, moreover, he got the Samyuktâbhi-dharma-hridaya-sâstra, containing about six or seven thousand gâthas; he also got a Sûtra of two thousand five hundred gâthas; one chapter of the Pari-nirvâna-vaipulya Sûtra, of about five thousand gâthas; and the Mahâsânghikâ Abhidharma.
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