The Fourth Buddhist Council

The 4 Buddhist Council was held at Jalandhar Kashmir. Nearly 400 years after the
demise of the Buddha, and was held during the reign of the King Kaniska (120-162
A.D).
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Monks divided into different schools at that time, and explain the original teachings
of the Buddha differently according to their own understanding. This made way to a
great chaos on the basic teachings of the Buddha.
After King Kaniska became a Buddhist of the Sarvastivada School. Many Buddhist
Scholars served as advisors to king, the famous Buddhist Scholars including Parsva,
Vasumitra, Nagajurna, Asvaghosha. King Kaniska used to listen to the teachings
of the Buddha from the Buddhist monks. Hearing the teaching in different explanation
on the basic concept of Dhamma King understood that the teachings of the Buddha
were mistake by monks.
These compelled him to preserve the original teachings of the Buddha. King sought
help from Ven. Parsva to rebuild the original teachings of the Buddha. With the help
of the Ven. Parsva, the king organizes this Council.
King invited all Buddhist scholars without caring the schools they belonged to take
part in the assembly. King invited all scholars to join in writing the commentaries to
the holy teaching of the Buddha. These commentaries should be written impartially
those commentaries should also be agreeable to all sects.
Asvaghosa and Vasubhandhu were among the famous people who attended to the
council. In this manner, the Sutras were collected selected 500 learned monks to
study them before writing the commentaries.
King invited learned monks to write commentaries on the basic teachings of the
Buddha, the commentaries were known as Vibhasa. As a result of the request made
by the king, learned monks wrote commentaries on the Sutta; the Vinaya & the
Abhidhamma.
The King collected all commentaries and preserved them in Tope. As a result of this
Council all dissension on the Dhamma came to and end.
Monks from Sri Lanka and other Theravada Buddhist countries did not join this
Council. This Council made way for the propagation of Buddhism in central Asia.
Ven.Matanga & Ven. Kasyapa were the leader of those missions. Those monks
propagate Buddhism in old famous towns such as Kuva, Kashgar, Turfan, Khotan,
Ulikviran, Kunttuan.