The Account of the Buddha's Nirvana and the first Councils according to the Vinayaksudraka
By Eugéne Obermiller
Summary
Under the “Miscellany” section, this article analyses Professor L. Finot’s theory that the Pāli texts Mahāparinibbāna‑sutta and Cullavagga were originally part of a single narrative describing the Buddha’s passing and the subsequent councils. Finot argued that the compilers of the Pāli Canon separated the part containing the Buddha’s own utterances into the Sutta‑piṭaka and relegated the account of the councils and monastic discipline to the Vinaya. The author summarises Finot’s arguments and extends them by examining the Vinayaksudraka, a Northern Buddhist text preserved in Tibetan, which appears to present the funeral, the first and second councils and the disciplinary rules as one continuous narrative. Using this source, the article lists the sequence of events: the Buddha’s illness, his last words to Ānanda, his passing at Kuśinagara, the division of relics and the funeral rites, and then the convocation of the First Council under Mahākāśyapa. It notes details such as Ānanda’s attainment of arahantship on the eve of the council, Upāli’s recitation of the Vinaya and the arrangement of the Abhidharma. The Vinayaksudraka continues with the Second Council at Vaiśālī, recounting Mahādeva’s ten controversial points and the schism with the Vatsiputriyas. The author compares these narratives with Pāli, Chinese and Tibetan sources, highlighting similarities and divergences. He concludes that the story of the councils begins immediately after the description of the Buddha’s burial in the Vinayaksudraka, supporting Finot’s view that these episodes were originally part of a larger historical work. The article suggests that the northern tradition preserved by Bu‑ston may represent an early stratum and that studying such texts can illuminate the formation of the Buddhist canon. The overall argument is that the separation of the Mahāparinibbāna‑sutta and Cullavagga in the Pāli Canon masks an underlying unity that reflects the early community’s concern to record both the Buddha’s final teachings and the establishment of monastic regulations.
Conclusion
Through a careful comparison of Pāli and Tibetan sources, the article supports Professor Finot’s hypothesis that the narrative of the Buddha’s parinibbāna and the first two councils once formed a single continuous text. The Vinayaksudraka preserves this unity, recounting the Buddha’s death and the councils without interruption. Recognising this helps explain certain anomalies in the canonical arrangement and underlines how editorial decisions shaped the scriptures. The study demonstrates the value of cross‑cultural textual analysis for reconstructing early Buddhist history and emphasises that canon formation was a dynamic process influenced by doctrinal and institutional considerations.