The councils are how Buddhism settled things before it stopped settling things. The first was convened within a year of the death, with Ananda reciting the discourses and Upali the rules; the second, a century later, split over ten disputed monastic practices and produced the first schism; the third, under Ashoka, is claimed by the Theravada as the point its canon was fixed. Later ones were regional — Burmese councils in 1871 and 1954, the latter carving the canon onto 729 marble slabs that still stand in Mandalay. What no council ever had was authority over people who did not attend, which is why Buddhist disagreement produces new schools rather than heresies and excommunications.