BPSC 71st CCE Prelims General Studies · Question 95 of 150

Correct — D, Fourth. The first three councils all met inside what is now Bihar; the fourth did not, on either of the two accounts that survive of it. The Sarvastivada tradition places the Fourth Council in Kashmir, convened by the Kushan emperor Kanishka I at the Kundalvana vihara — a site usually placed around Harwan near Srinagar — after he sought the advice of the elder Parsva; the Theravada tradition places a quite different Fourth Council in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE, at the Alu Vihara, also called Aloka Lena, under King Vattagamani Abhaya, and it is to that assembly that the writing down of the Pali canon is credited. Kashmir or Sri Lanka: either way, not Bihar. That is what makes this an unusually forgiving question — a candidate who has learnt only one of the two Fourth Councils still answers it correctly. Now the three that were in Bihar. The First Council met at a cave near Rajagriha, modern Rajgir in Nalanda district, immediately after the Buddha's parinirvana, with the support of King Ajatashatru and under the presidency of Mahakassapa; Ananda recited the discourses and Upali the monastic rules. The Second Council met a century later at the Valukarama in Vaishali, in north Bihar, under King Kalashoka. The Third Council met at Pataliputra — Patna — the Mauryan capital, convened by Ashoka and led by the elder Moggaliputta Tissa. One caveat that a serious student should carry: modern scholarship questions the historicity of these councils, or at least the accounts we have of them, and treats the Theravada version of the Third and the Sarvastivada version of the Fourth as partisan. The exam is testing the received tradition, and within that tradition the answer is unambiguous. It also helps to see the spacing between them, because the gaps are what move the geography. The First follows the Buddha's death immediately. The Second comes a full century later, by which time the discipline has drifted far enough to need arbitration. The Third belongs to Ashoka's reign, when royal patronage had become large enough to attract people into the order for the wrong reasons. Only then does the fourth arrive, in the first century BCE in Sri Lanka and in the Kushan period in Kashmir, by which point there is no longer one sangha to summon and so no longer one place to summon it to. Read that way, the question is not really about four venues at all. It is asking whether you can translate three ancient names — Rajagriha, Vaishali, Pataliputra — into the modern map of Bihar, and then notice that the fourth name on the list has no equivalent there.

• (a)First — The First Council was held in Bihar. It met at a cave near Rajagriha, today's Rajgir in Nalanda district, in the year following the Buddha's parinirvana, with King Ajatashatru of Magadha as patron and Mahakassapa presiding; Ananda recited the Suttas, Upali the Vinaya, and the assembly resolved unanimously to keep every rule intact even though the Buddha had allowed the minor ones to be dropped. Candidates who fix the parinirvana at Kushinagar in Uttar Pradesh sometimes assume the council that followed it stayed there.
• (b)Second — The Second Council was held in Bihar, at the Valukarama in Vaishali, a hundred years after the parinirvana and under the patronage of King Kalashoka. It was called after the monk Yasa Kakandakaputta objected to ten lax practices of the Vajjiputtaka monks — the dasa vatthuni, of which the tenth and gravest was accepting gold and silver — and the ten points were declared invalid. Tradition dates the first schism of the sangha to this dispute. Vaishali reads as a generic ancient-India name to many candidates, but it is a Bihar district.
• (c)Third — The Third Council was held in Bihar, at Pataliputra — the Mauryan capital, today's Patna — convened by Ashoka and led by the elder Moggaliputta Tissa with about a thousand monks. Its purpose was to purge the order of opportunists drawn in by royal patronage, it settled that the Buddha was a Vibhajjavadin, a Teacher of Analysis, and it added the Kathavatthu to the canon. The pull towards a wrong answer here is Ashoka's association with Sanchi, Sarnath and Kalinga rather than with his own capital.

A Buddhist council is a sangiti, literally a reciting together: an assembly of the monastic community called to fix what the Buddha had actually taught and how the order should live, at moments when the answer had become contested. The first three sit inside a single political geography. Magadha was the dominant power of the eastern Gangetic plain, and each of these councils was called under the protection of a Magadhan or Mauryan king — Ajatashatru at Rajagriha, Kalashoka at Vaishali, Ashoka at Pataliputra — which is precisely why all three met in what is now Bihar. Each produced something the tradition still uses: the First recited the Sutta and Vinaya collections and refused to relax a single rule; the Second rejected the ten lax practices of the Vaishali monks and is remembered as the moment the sangha first split, into Sthaviravada and Mahasanghika; the Third produced the Kathavatthu and, in the Theravada account, launched the missions that carried Buddhism to Sri Lanka and beyond. By the time of the fourth, that unity was gone. Buddhism had fragmented into regional schools with regional patrons, so there is no single Fourth Council at all — the Sarvastivadins of the north-west held one under Kanishka in Kashmir, and the Theravadins of the south held their own in Sri Lanka, where the oral canon was finally written down. The series did not stop there: a Fifth Council was held in 1871 and a Sixth in 1954, both in Myanmar.

The fastest route is the patron test, and it is worth learning as a rule rather than as four separate memories. Ask who called each council. Ajatashatru is a king of Magadha, Kalashoka is a king of Magadha, Ashoka rules from Pataliputra — so the first three are Magadhan events and Magadha is Bihar. Kanishka is a Kushan whose empire is centred on the north-west, and Vattagamani Abhaya is a Sinhalese king. The instant the patron stops being a ruler of Magadha, the venue stops being Bihar. That single observation answers the question without any place-name recall at all. If you prefer place names, the test becomes a translation exercise: Rajagriha is Rajgir in Nalanda district, Vaishali is the district of that name in north Bihar, Pataliputra is Patna. What actually catches candidates out is a different assumption — that 'Buddhist site' means 'Bihar'. It does not. The Buddha's life is split across two modern states and a neighbouring country: Lumbini is in Nepal, Sarnath, Kushinagar and Shravasti are in Uttar Pradesh, while Bodh Gaya, Rajgir, Vaishali and Nalanda are in Bihar. A candidate who eliminates the First Council because the Buddha died at Kushinagar has applied a real fact to the wrong question. The single discriminating fact here is that the Fourth Council has two rival venues, Kashmir and Sri Lanka, and neither of them is in India's eastern heartland.

• First Council — held at a cave near Rajagriha, today's Rajgir in Nalanda district of Bihar, in the year after the Buddha's parinirvana, with the support of King Ajatashatru and presided over by Mahakassapa; Ananda recited the discourses, Upali the monastic rules, and the assembly unanimously kept every rule despite the Buddha's permission to drop the minor ones.
• Second Council — held a century after the parinirvana at the Valukarama in Vaishali, north Bihar, under the patronage of King Kalashoka; it was triggered by Yasa Kakandakaputta's objection to the ten points, the dasa vatthuni, practised by the Vajjiputtaka monks, of which accepting gold and silver was the tenth. The ten points were declared invalid and tradition dates the first schism of the sangha here.
• Third Council — convened by the Mauryan emperor Ashoka at Pataliputra, modern Patna, under the elder Moggaliputta Tissa with about a thousand monks; it settled that the Buddha was a Vibhajjavadin and added the Kathavatthu to the canon. Ashoka's Minor Pillar Edicts at Sarnath, Sanchi and Kosambi refer to division in the sangha and its reunification.
• Fourth Council — two rival accounts, neither in Bihar. The Sarvastivada version was convened by the Kushan emperor Kanishka I at the Kundalvana vihara in Kashmir, a site usually placed near Harwan close to Srinagar, on the advice of the elder Parsva. The Theravada version was held in Sri Lanka in the first century BCE at the Alu Vihara, or Aloka Lena, under King Vattagamani Abhaya, when the Pali canon was committed to writing.
• Modern Buddhist studies questions the historicity of these councils or at least the surviving descriptions of them — David Snellgrove judged the Theravada account of the Third and the Sarvastivada account of the Fourth equally tendentious. The series nevertheless continued: a Fifth Council in 1871 and a Sixth in 1954, both held in Myanmar.

• Treating 'Buddhist site' as a synonym for Bihar — Lumbini is in Nepal and Sarnath, Kushinagar and Shravasti are in Uttar Pradesh, so the Buddha's death at Kushinagar tells you nothing about where the First Council met
• Assuming there is exactly one Fourth Council — the Sarvastivada tradition places it in Kashmir under Kanishka and the Theravada tradition in Sri Lanka under Vattagamani Abhaya, and an answer built on only one of them is still correct here but will fail a question that asks for the president or the text produced
• Presenting the councils as settled history; scholars dispute the historicity of the later ones, so a card or an answer should say 'according to tradition' rather than assert dates as established fact

BPSC asks this as a one-line Bihar-anchored elimination — three of the four options are in the state, so the item doubles as a test of whether a candidate can translate Rajagriha, Vaishali and Pataliputra into modern Bihar districts, which is exactly the sort of local-geography overlay the Commission builds into its ancient-history questions. UPSC never frames it by state. It goes straight for the specifics that a memorised venue list will not cover: who presided over the council Kanishka called in Kashmir, or whether Fa-Hien could have attended it — questions that require the president, the century and the patron together, and that punish a candidate who has learnt only the four place names.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Third Buddhist Council was convened by Ashoka at which place ?

  • (a)Rajagriha
  • (b)Vaishali
  • (c)Pataliputra
  • (d)Kundalvana

  Answer(c) Pataliputra — Ashoka convened the Third Council at his capital, modern Patna, under Moggaliputta Tissa; Rajagriha hosted the First, Vaishali the Second and Kundalvana in Kashmir the Sarvastivada Fourth Council under Kanishka.

• practice — not a real PYQ

  The Second Buddhist Council, held at Vaishali, was convened during the reign of

  • (a)Ajatashatru
  • (b)Kalashoka
  • (c)Ashoka
  • (d)Kanishka

  Answer(b) Kalashoka — the Second Council met at the Valukarama in Vaishali a century after the Buddha's parinirvana under Kalashoka's patronage, over the ten lax practices of the Vajjiputtaka monks; Ajatashatru patronised the First, Ashoka the Third and Kanishka the Sarvastivada Fourth.