On the Chronicles of Ceylon

III. Historical Position – 96
Duṭṭhagāmaṇi Abhaya who was the national hero of Ceylon in the
estimation of Mahānāma, the famous author of the Mahāvaṁsa.
Unexpectedly the account given of the Rājagaha Thūpa of Ajātasattu
with all the details of its construction 157 is highly exaggerated. This
account presupposes not only a Buddhist stūpa in India, such as that
of Bhārhut completed as late as 100 B.C., but also even those built in
Ceylon in the time of Duṭṭhagāmaṇi.
As regards the part played by Ajātasattu: in connection with the First
Buddhist Council, the Pali Canonical account in the Vinaya
Cullavagga, Chap. XI, is completely silent. The chronicles while
giving an account of the First Council overstep certain limits set in
the earlier and more authentic Vinaya description. The latter, for
instance, does not associate the place of the Council with the
Sattapaṇṇi Cave, nor does it tell us that the three Piṭakas were
brought into existence by the Theras under the leadership of
Mahākassapa. [57]
The description goes only so far as to state that the nucleus of the
Buddhist canon was formed by the five Nikāyas and two Vinaya
books, namely, the Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga and the Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga. 158
It is true that the Vinaya account of the Second Buddhist Council,
too, clearly points to 100 B.C. as an important chronological
landmark of the early history of Buddhism, and the fact is
corroborated by the internal evidence of a few other Canonical
157 Sumaṅgalavilāsinī, ii, pp. 611ff.; Thūpavaṁsa, pp. 34-35.
158 Vinaya Piṭaka, edited by Oldenberg, II, p. 287.