Third Buddhist Council and Ashoka's Buddhist missions
- Date
- c. 250 BCE
- Category
- Religion & ideology
- Region
- Northern India (Pataliputra) and Sri Lanka
- Era
- Classical Antiquity
- Significance
According to Theravada tradition, around 250 BCE the emperor Ashoka convened the Third Buddhist Council at his capital Pataliputra under the presidency of the elder Moggaliputta Tissa, to purge heterodox doctrines and standardise the monastic order.
The council is credited with finalising the core of the Pali canon (the Tipitaka, 'Three Baskets') and with resolving to spread the dharma beyond Magadha. Buddhist missionaries were dispatched to Gandhara, the northwest, the western coast, the Himalayas and lands beyond — most consequentially Ashoka's son (or brother) Mahinda, who carried Theravada Buddhism to Sri Lanka, where it took root as the state religion and survives as the majority faith. These state-sponsored missions, corroborated in spirit by Ashoka's own edicts referring to dharma-emissaries sent to Hellenistic kings, mark the decisive moment at which Buddhism began its transformation from an Indian movement into one of the great world religions of Asia.
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Empires active in c. 250 BCE
- Maurya Empire322 BCE – 185 BCE
- Roman Republic509 BCE – 27 BCE
- Odrysian Kingdom480 BCE – 46 CE
- Seleucid Empire312 BCE – 63 BCE
- Ptolemaic Kingdom305 BCE – 30 BCE
- Kingdom of Kush1070 BCE – 350 CE
Related religion & ideology events
- Ashoka commissions the Great Stupa at Sanchic. 250 BCE
- The Septuagint: Hebrew scripture translated into Greekc. 250 BCE
- Confucianism becomes Han state ideology; Imperial Academy foundedc. 136–124 BCE
- Enlightenment of the Buddha at Bodh Gayac. 528 BCE (traditional)
- Crucifixion of Jesus and the origins of Christianityc. 30 CE
- Roman destruction of the Second Temple in Jerusalem70 CE
Further reading
The wider story
A Little History of Religion
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