724 Examination of the Pali Buddhistical Annals. [Sept. 



From the date however of the second convocation in the 10th 

 year of Ka'La'soko's reign, a pretended prophecy already quoted, does 

 occur to fetter Buddhist annalists, and compel them to make the 2 1 8th 

 year of Sa'kya, fall to the 4th of the reign of Asoko. 



If without reference to any of these prophetic dates, or historical 

 predictions, we follow the narrative history of the Buddhist patriarchs, 

 and which is termed " the sacerdotal succession," we shall find ample 

 justification for throwing equal discredit on the dates of hoth convo- 

 cations. In that narrative will be found a consecutive and detailed 

 account of no less than " six generations of preceptors" having inter- 

 vened from the death of Sa'kya to the meeting of the third convoca- 

 tion ; comprising a period of 235 years, and affording an average of 

 about 39 years for each preceptor. Sabbakami, a member of the first 

 generation, is represented to have presided over the second convoca- 

 tion, and Moggaliputtatisso, a member of the sixth generation, over 

 the third convocation. Had we no other dates given to us, than 

 those of the death of Sa'kya, and of the third convocation, we 

 should, dealing with averages, place the second convocation over 

 which Sabbakami presided within 39 years after Sa'kya's death, and 

 in that case the sentence " these eight pious priests in aforetime had 

 seen the deity who was the successor of former Buddhos," instead of 

 being a glaring absurdity would have amounted to an obvious proba- 

 bility. But the unfortunate imposture, emanating apparently in Mog- 

 galiputtatisso, which asserted that Sabbaka'mi had said in the 

 second convocation, " In eighteen, plus one, hundred years hence, a 

 calamity will befall our religion which we shall not ourselves witness," 

 in reference to the schism that Moggaliputtatisso suppressed in the 

 reign of Asoko, has led to these fatal, and at the same time clumsy 

 distortions of historical and chronological data, by Buddhist authors. 

 By placing the second convocation over which Sabbaka'mi presided 

 in the 100th year, they are obliged to assign to him the age of 140 

 years, and to make it appear also that the age of the first generation 

 of preceptors had not then passed away. And at the time the third 

 convocation was held, only 135 years afte the second, Moggali- 

 puttatisso, who presided over it, is represented in the ensuing extract 

 to be of the six generations of preceptors and " an aged person." 

 The Mahdivonso mentions with greater distinctness that " in the 

 seventeenth year of the reign of this king (Asoko) this all-perfect 

 minister of religion (Moggaliputtatisso) aged seventy-two years, 

 conducted with the utmost perfection this great convocation on reli- 

 gion." We are in short, on the one hand, told that at the end of the 

 first century some of the preceptors of the first generation were alive, 



