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Updated: June 21, 2025
The major part of the Buddha's activity was concerned with the instruction of his disciples and the organization of the Sangha or order.
The troubles which arose in the Sangha are often ascribed in the Vinaya to the Chabbaggiyas, six brethren who became celebrated in tradition as spirits of mischief and who are evidently made the peg on which these old monkish anecdotes are hung. As a rule the intervention of the Buddha was sufficient to restore peace, but one passage indicates resistance to his authority.
Accordingly five hundred monks met near this town and enquired into the authenticity of the various rules and suttas. They then went on to ask what the Buddha had meant by the lesser and minor precepts which might be abolished. Kassapa finally proposed that the Sangha should adopt without alteration or addition the rules made by the Buddha.
What, then, are the jewels of the Buddhist which he would fain see in the world's spiritual treasury? He will tell you that he has many jewels, but that three of them stand out conspicuously the Buddha, the Dharma, and the Sangha. Must we not pronounce it the finest of religious narratives, and thank the scholars who made the Lalita Vistara known to us?
The result was a conference at Vesâlî in which the principal figures are Revata and Sabbakâmi, a pupil of Ânanda, expressly said to have been ordained one hundred and twenty years earlier . The ten theses were referred to a committee, which rejected them all, and this rejection was confirmed by the whole Sangha, who proceeded to rehearse the Vinaya.
Sang and sang-kea represent the Sanskrit sangha, constituted by at least four members, and empowered to hear confession, to grant absolution, to admit persons to holy orders, &c.; secondly, the third constituent of the Buddhistic Trinity, a deification of the communio sanctorum, or the Buddhist order.
But I am mocked instead by the semblance of relief, and am told to look to Buddha, who has ceased to exist; to the Dharma that never was in existence, and to the Sangha, the members of which are real existences, but like myself are partakers of sorrow and sin."
The fact that the Sangha, though nearly five hundred years older than any Christian institution, is still vigorous shows that this noble freedom is not unsuccessful as a practical policy. The absence of anything that can be called worship or cultus in Gotama's regulations is remarkable.
And this antithesis contains historical truth: the Sangha, like the similar orders of the Jains and other Kshatriya sects, was in its origin a protest against the exclusiveness and ritualism of the Brahmans. Yet compared with anything to be found in other countries the two bodies have something in common. For instance it is a meritorious act to feed either Brahmans or Bhikkhus.
The most celebrated are the pathetic tale of Kunâla which closely resembles a Jâtaka , and the account of how Asoka vowed to present a hundred million gold pieces to the Sangha and not being able to raise the whole sum made a gift of his dominions instead. Asoka had a decisive effect on the history of Buddhism, especially in making it a world religion.
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