These works are said to have occupied seven months.[499] In the doctrine of Buddha a comparatively simple meaning prevailed, which by its contrast to the fancifulness of the Brahmans must have excited the desire to collect and retain what was in existence. Moreover, the faith and conduct of the Buddhists had their starting-points and centre so eminently in the life, example, and doctrine of the master, that a meeting of disciples at the very moment when their living centre was lost appears thoroughly probable. The need of possessing the pure and entire doctrine of the master for support and guidance, now that he was present in person no more, must have been very deeply felt. But the tradition is obviously wrong in ascribing to the earliest council the compilation of the entire canon of the Buddhist scriptures as they were known at a later period, in the three divisions of discipline, commands, and speculation. This assembly could do no more than collect the speeches, doctrine, and rules of the master from memory, and establish a correct copy of them by mutual control. It is the words and commands, the sutras of Buddha, which were established and collected at this meeting. Unfortunately we do not possess them in their oldest and simplest form, since at a later time the occasion and situation and place at which the master had spoken this or that sentence, had uttered this or that doctrine, were added to the words of Buddha. But in part at least it is possible to distinguish the old simple nucleus from these additions.[500]