Confused as are the notices of these ancient sects, we see with some clearness that in opposition to the Theravada there was another body alluded to in terms which, though hostile, still imply an admission of size and learning, such as Mahasanghika or Mahasangitika, the people of the great assembly, and Acaryavada or the doctrine of the Teachers.  It appears to have originated in connection with some council and to embody a popular protest against the severity of the doctrine there laid down.  This is natural, for it is pretty obvious that many found the argumentative psychology of the Theravadins arid and wearisome.  The Dipavamsa accuses the Mahasanghikas of garbling the canon but the Chinese pilgrims testify that in later times their books were regarded as specially complete.  One well-known work, the Mahavastu, perhaps composed in the first century B.C., describes itself as belonging to the Lokuttara branch of the Mahasanghikas.  The Mahasanghikas probably represent the elements which developed into the Mahayana.  It is not possible to formulate their views precisely but, whereas the Theravada was essentially teaching for the Bhikkhu, they represented those concessions to popular taste from which Buddhism has never been quite dissociated even in its earliest period.

2

For some two centuries after Gotama’s death we have little information as to the geographical extension of his doctrine, but some of the Sanskrit versions of the Vinaya[577] represent him as visiting Muttra, North-west India and Kashmir.  So far as is known, the story of this journey is not supported by more ancient documents or other arguments:  it contains a prediction about Kanishka, and may have been composed in or after his reign when the flourishing condition of Buddhism in Gandhara made it seem appropriate to gild the past.  But the narratives about Muttra and Kashmir contain several predictions relating to the progress of the faith 100 years after the Buddha’s death and these can hardly be explained except as references to a tradition that those regions were converted at the epoch mentioned.  There is no doubt of the connection between Kashmir and the Sarvastivadins nor anything improbable in the supposition that the first missionary activity was in the direction of Muttra and Kashmir.

But the great landmark in the earlier history of Buddhism is the reign of Asoka.  He came to the throne about 270 B.C. and inherited the vast dominions of his father and grandfather.  Almost all that we know of the political events of his reign is that his coronation did not take place until four years later, which may indicate a disputed succession, and that he rounded off his possessions by the conquest of Kalinga, that is the country between the Mahanadi and the Godavari, about 261 B.C.  This was the end of his military career.  Nothing could be gained by further conquests, for his empire already exceeded the limits set to effective government by the imperfect communications of the epoch, seeing that it extended from Afghanistan to the mouths of the Ganges and southwards almost to Madras.  No evidence substantiates the later stories which represent him as a monster of wickedness before his conversion, but according to the Dipavamsa he at first favoured heretics.