Soon after Buddha’s death a council of 500 members of the order was held in a cave, near the city of Rajagriha. This council met to form Buddha’s teachings into some sort of a system. A second council of 700 was held a hundred years later. This was to effect a settlement between certain heretics and the orthodox party. The Rules of the Order and the Doctrines of the Faith were passed in review and again settled. Then the heretics advanced still different opinions and called an opposition council. This was the first great schism. From this time sects multiplied among the Buddhists. The next council was the Great Council of King Asoka. Asoka was to the Buddhist Order what Constantine was to the early Christian Church. There are more men to honor him to-day than there are to honor Charlemagne or Cæsar. Yet Asoka really caused the downfall of Buddhism in India by the aid he gave it. As Dante had said: “Ah! Constantine, of how much ill was cause, Not thy conversion, but those rich domains That the first wealthy Pope received of thee.” Asoka built many monasteries and provided for the support of many monks. He became a very zealous supporter of Buddhism. Some of his edicts, based upon Gautama’s teachings, have been discovered within the last fifty years. In the eighteenth year of Asoka’s reign, a great council of 1,000 monks was held in Patna. This council finally determined the canon of the sacred Buddhist books. This council, held, probably, in the year 246 B.C., lasted nine months. Asoka was filled with an aggressive, missionary spirit, and at the close of this council missionaries were sent into various countries, or provinces of India, from Cashmere to Ceylon. The mission to Ceylon of Asoka’s own son, Mahinda, was the most important. In the year 62 A.D., the Chinese Emperor Ming-Ti sent to India and brought Buddhist books to China. From China Buddhism spread into Corea and Japan and Thibet. From Ceylon it spread to Burmah and Siam. Of late years the sources of our information as to Buddhist teachings and history have greatly changed. Formerly only Ceylon was looked to for this information, but of late years the work of Bigandet in Burmah, Alabaster in Siam, Schlagintweit in Thibet, and Beal in China, have given more thorough knowledge of the facts of Buddhist doctrine and history. BUDDHAGHOSHA, THE FAMOUS MONK AND MISSIONARY.