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Updated: June 16, 2025
In the Majjhima-Nikâya we find a story about Kakusandha and his disciples and Gotama once gave an extended account of Vipassî, whose teaching and career are represented as almost identical with his own. Different explanations have been given of this common element. There is clearly a wish to emphasize the continuity of the Dhamma and the similarity of its exponents in all ages.
The instruction, we gather, was oral. Gotama assimilated it thoroughly and rapidly but was dissatisfied because he found that it did not conduce to perfect knowledge and salvation . He evidently accepted his teachers' general ideas about belief and conduct—a dhamma, a vinaya, and the practice of meditation—but rejected the content of their teaching as inadequate. So he went away.
Asoka burns with zeal to propagate this Dhamma and his language recalls the utterances of the Dhammapada. He formulates the law under four heads : "Parents must be obeyed: respect for living creatures must be enforced: truth must be spoken ... the teacher must be reverenced by the pupil and proper courtesy must be shown to relations."
On the other hand in Asoka's time Buddhism, by whatever name it was called, was well known and there was evidently no necessity for the King to explain what he meant by Dhamma and Sangha. The Buddha had belonged to a noble family and was esteemed by the aristocracy of Magadha; the code of morality which he prescribed for the laity was excellent and sensible.
This meeting recited or compiled a new version of the Dhamma and Vinaya . It is not easy to establish any facts about the origin and tenets of this Mahâsangîtika or Mahâsanghika sect, though it seems to have been important.
This was approved and the Dhamma and Vinaya as chanted by the assembled Bhikkhus were accepted. The Abhidhamma is not mentioned. The name usually given to these councils is Sangîti, which means singing or chanting together. An elder is said to have recited the text sentence by sentence and each phrase was intoned after him by the assembly as a sign of acceptance.
The third Pitaka is known by the name of Abhidhamma. Dhamma is the usual designation for the doctrine of the Buddha and Buddhaghosa explains the prefix abhi as signifying excess and distinction, so that this Pitaka is considered pre-eminent because it surpasses the others. This pre-eminence consists solely in method and scope, not in novelty of matter or charm of diction.
The systems of philosophy then in vogue were mostly not theistic, and, strange as the words may sound, religion had little to do with the gods. If this be thought to rest on a mistranslation, it is certainly true that the dhamma had very little to do with devas. The example of Rome under the Empire or of modern China makes the position clearer.
In the Vinaya we hear of people who know special books: of monks who are preachers of the Dhamma and others who know the Sutta: of laymen who have learnt a particular suttanta and are afraid it will fall into oblivion unless others learn it from them.
Moreover in the Bhâbrû edict, which is distinctly ecclesiastical and deals with the Buddhist scriptures, he employs his favourite word Dhamma in the strict Buddhist sense, without indicating that he is giving it an unusual or new meaning.
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