Dear Stephen,

>> Robert is referring to the early usage of Vajjiputtaka, you
>> are referring to the later one. Both are found in Pali
>> texts.

> Yes, I realize now that I was mistaken, although it still
> does not alter the fact, though for different reasons, that
> the Vajjiputtakas and the Mahasanghikas were unrelated as I
> mention in my reply to Bhante Sujato.

While this may be the case in the non-Theravaadin texts that
you are relying upon, in Theravaadin usage "Mahaasa`nghika"
refers either to the Vajjiputtakas of Vesaalii after they
had rejected the verdict of the elders Soreyya Revata and
Sabbakaami and held their own recital, or else is a
collective name for the half a dozen schools that arose
from this group and whose views were among those refuted at
the Council of Paatalii.


In an earlier post you wrote:

> And for the minority party to claim that they were the
> "victors" is rather ludicrous -- how could they be the
> victors if matters were decided by consensus ?

Pali sources acknowledge that the shameless Vajjiputtakas
outnumbered the scrupulous monks by about ten to one, but
the respective size of the two parties is not relevant here.
It would be relevant only in a dispute that is resolved by
putting the matter to the vote. This is not what happened at
the Council of Vesaalii as it is reported in Pali sources.

In the Vinaya various ways are prescribed for resolving a
dispute over what is or is not Dhamma and Vinaya, and these
have to be carried out in stages. Deciding matters by the
verdict of the majority (yebhuyyena adhikara.nasamatha) is
used only as a last resort, and the Council of Vesaalii
never got to this stage. (A verdict reached by putting a
matter to the vote is also of the least authoritative sort:
a later council can rescind it if it proves to have been
contrary to Dhamma and Vinaya).

At the Second Council both parties agreed that they would
settle the matter by putting it to an ubbaahika. I.B. Horner
mistranslates this as "referendum", but it is really an
arbitration panel, usually of ten monks, comprising four
delegates from each of the disputing parties, together with
a questioner, and an adjudicator who must be agreeable to
both sides and whose verdict they both agree to accept as
binding. After the questioner and the adjudicator have
reached a verdict, they then swap roles and the questions
are repeated. If the new adjudicator gives the same answers
as the previous one then the verdict is final.

[I'm sure there is a bit more to it than this, but the
Cullavagga gives only a terse account of the procedure and
doesn't explain what the other eight monks were doing]

In this case the adjudicators were the venerables Soreyya
Revata and Sabbakaami. The scrupulous monks approved of
these two out of respect for their judgment; the shameless
Vajjiputtakas because they believed they would be able to
sway Revata with bribes. As it turned out they failed in their
attempts, though they did succeed in corrupting his student,
Uttara, who was then disowned by Revata and appointed as
leader of the shameless faction.

After consideration of the evidence the ubbaahika ruled
against the shameless monks. The Cullavagga account then
ends with the 700 scrupulous monks holding a recital of the
Paatimokkha.

As for what happened after the Council (I'm just relying on
my memory here) later texts explain that the Vajjiputtakas,
having lost the verdict, decided to renege on their earlier
agreement. Knowing themselves to be the majority they made
an unlawful demand that the dispute be allowed to proceed to
the yebhuyyena stage. The scrupulous monks were under no
obligation to agree to this and rightly refused to do so.
The Vajjiputtakas nevertheless went ahead and voted by
themselves, unanimously approved the ten theses and held a
separate Paatimokkha recital, in effect fomenting a schism.

From a Vinaya point of view the earlier decision made at the
appointed arbitrator stage was a perfectly valid one and
thus the Vinaya-observant minority party were the ones
preserving the Saasanaa correctly, hence the "victors".

And in another post you wrote:

> But still there is no evidence that the Vajjiputakasa had
> anything to do with the Mahasanghikas -- if they did, we
> would expect to find the ten points of disciplinary dispute
> accepted into the Mahasanghika Vinaya, which we do not,
> except for the handling of coin.

Do you mean that the Vajjiputtakas' ten theses are not
explicitly stated in the Mahasa`nghika *paatimokkha*? If so,
then this would not be surprising, for most of the ten have
to do with how the training rules are interpreted, not with
how they are stated, and not all of them even pertain to
Paatimokkha rules. Are there any Mahaasa`nghika *Vinaya*
texts (I mean Khandhaka-like works or commentaries on the
Paatimokkha) in which these ten points are clearly expounded
according to a non-Vajjiputtaka / Theravaadin interpretation?

Best wishes,

Dhammanando