The First Buddhist Council is traditionally seen as the origin ofBuddhist canonical literature , the Tipitaka, The details of the Council are described in a section in the monastic code for Buddhist monks and nuns. Close examination of the account of the First Council, and the comparison of that account with numerous passages throughout the Tipitaka, and with Brahmanical texts and traditions, revea ls serious contradictions and an unstated agenda. It appears that those who called for and attend ed the First Council (or those who wrote its story) were most likely faithful followers of Brahmanical law who were dissatisfied with the Buddha's instruction that women were to be ordained as equals to men. The focus of the account of the council,meeting; the charges made agains t Ananda (half of which center on women, and concern violations ofBrahmanical law, but not violations of Buddhist Dharma or Vinaya); the fact that the First Council ignored the Buddha's instructions that the entire Sangha should meet together to set down the Dharma and Vinaya, and that the Dharma (not any individual person) should become the Sangha's leade r after his death ; as 'well as considerable other evidence found throughout the Tipitaka, all strongly suggest that one of the primary motiv es of the First Council or its writers was to marginalize and disempower Ananda and the nuns, who emerge in the texts as having been especially active and important in the promotion of Buddhism.
