Like a Shadow That Never Departs by Randall K. Scott

Author:Randall K. Scott [Scott, Randall K.]
Language: eng
Format: epub
ISBN: 9781663230447
Publisher: iUniverse
Published: 2021-12-01T05:00:00+00:00

8

The First Council Is Planned

The Buddha’s parnirvanization was a serious test for the senior monks in the Order. The rivalries and power struggles in the sangha that the Buddha had struggled to control were now in the open. Just one week after the Buddha’s parinirvanization, elder Mahakassapa heard arhat Subhadda give a speech to the assembled monks. Earlier, the weak, but still commanding Buddha overruled Ananda’s objections and agreed to answer questions that Subhadda had about Buddhism. Subhadda, who had been so interested in learning from the Buddha a week ago, now seemed to coldly dismiss the Master: “Surely, friends, do not grieve, do not lament, it’s good riddance for us. We were annoyed by that great ascetic, who told us what is proper and is not proper. Now we can do what we wish to do and not do what we don’t wish to do.”323

Subhadda’s attack on the Buddha seems particularly vicious and unnecessary. The Buddha was in his final moments of life; but he helped Subhadda overcome his obstacles to enlightenment; allowing Sudhadda to quickly become an arhat. Subhadda was the last of the Buddha’s great disciples. He could have been a respected elder. Why did he turn on the Buddha and disparage him?

This is another example of a senior monk, an arhat, who is supposedly enlightened, exhibiting very little enlightened behavior. The account of this incident notes that Sudhadda “had become a monk in old age.”324The relevance of Subhadda’s age is not immediately clear, unless the chronicler intended to lessen the sting of Sudhadda’s comments by inferring, perhaps, that Sudhadda was old and addled and did not understand what he was saying. It also should be noted that Ananda tried to prevent Subhadda from talking with the Buddha. Perhaps Ananda had a better insight into people’s true motives than the Buddha. Ananda might have sensed Subhadda’s treachery and was trying to protect the Buddha.

Whether he understood the significance of his words or not, Subhadda was suggesting that the sangha’s successful discipline and structure instituted by the Buddha should now be abandoned. Kassapa knew if Subhadda’s point-of-view was adopted, it would be the end of the Order.325The sangha was being weakened by these internal battles. Kassapa mulled over the remarks by Subhadda and saw that an official, authentic record of the Dhamma and Vinaya had to be established as-soon-as-possible to save the Order:

This setting which now exists is one where evil monks

think ‘this word is from a teacher who has passed away,’

and when they get followers, the true dhamma may

disappear quickly. As long as the dhamma and vinaya

exist, there will be the word of a teacher who has not

passed away. Since the Blessed One said, ‘Oh Ananda,

the dhamma and the vinaya that I have taught and made

known to you will be your teacher after my death,’

what if I should recite the dhamma and the vinaya so

that this sasana [teaching] will last for a long time and be

perpetual?326

Kassapa, now confident about what needed to be done, gave a rousing speech to the assembled monks.

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