In the present essay I wish to flesh out the ideas presented in my earlier proposal. I do not wish so much to expand the topic, at least not yet, as to take a deeper look at what it would entail to abolish some or all of the lesser rules for bhikkhunīs, as well as the rationale for doing so.
Once again, does the Canon allow for the abolishing of certain rules?
As I mentioned in my previous mini-essay, any reform is more likely to succeed, or at least be grudgingly accepted, if it is based on a solid reading of the Suttas and Vinaya. So, although the Buddha had given an allowance for abolishing the minor rules, the monks at the first Council, saṅgīti, decided it should not be done. But is this a once-and-for-all decision? And does it, perhaps, have any other constraints on it? Let us look at the relevant passage from the Vinaya Piṭaka:
Discussion of the lesser training rules
Ānanda said to the senior monks, “At the time of his final extinguishment, the Buddha said to me, ‘After my passing away, Ānanda, if the Sangha wishes, it may abolish the lesser training rules.’”
“But, Ānanda, did you ask the Buddha which are the lesser training rules?”
“No, I didn’t.”
Some senior monks said, “Apart from the four rules entailing expulsion, the rest are the lesser training rules.”
Others said, “Apart from the four rules entailing expulsion and the thirteen rules entailing suspension, the rest are the lesser training rules.”
Still others said, “Apart from the four rules entailing expulsion, the thirteen rules entailing suspension, and the two undetermined rules, the rest are the lesser training rules.”
Still others said, “Apart from the four rules entailing expulsion, the thirteen rules entailing suspension, the two undetermined rules, and the thirty rules entailing relinquishment and confession, the rest are the lesser training rules.”
Still others said, “Apart from the four rules entailing expulsion, the thirteen rules entailing suspension, the two undetermined rules, the thirty rules entailing relinquishment and confession, and the ninety-two rules entailing confession, the rest are the lesser training rules.”
Still others said, “Apart from the four rules entailing expulsion, the thirteen rules entailing suspension, the two undetermined rules, the thirty rules entailing relinquishment and confession, the ninety-two rules entailing confession, and the four rules entailing acknowledgment, the rest are the lesser training rules.”
Then Venerable Mahākassapa informed the Sangha:
“Please, I ask the Sangha to listen. We have training rules that relate to householders. The householders know what is allowable for us and what is not. If we abolish the lesser training rules, some people will say, ‘The ascetic Gotama laid down training rules for his disciples until the time of his death. But they practice the training rules only as long as their teacher is alive. Since their teacher has now attained final extinguishment, they no longer practice the training rules.’ If it seems appropriate to the Sangha, the Sangha should not lay down new rules, nor get rid of the existing ones, and it should undertake to practice the training rules as they are. This is the motion.
Please, Venerables, I ask the Sangha to listen. We have training rules that relate to householders. The householders know what is allowable for us and what is not. If we abolish the lesser training rules, some people will say, ‘The ascetic Gotama laid down training rules for his disciples until the time of his death. But they practice the training rules only as long as their teacher is alive. Since their teacher has now attained final extinguishment, they no longer practice the training rules.’ The Sangha doesn’t lay down new rules, nor gets rid of the existing ones, and it undertakes to practice the training rules as they are. Any monk who approves of not laying down new rules, nor abolishing the old ones, and of undertaking to practice them as they are should remain silent. Any monk who does not approve should speak up.
The Sangha doesn’t lay down new rules, nor gets rid of the existing ones, and it undertakes to practice the training rules as they are. The Sangha approves and is therefore silent. I will remember it thus.”
To start with, we here have the curious case of 500 arahants not being able to decide which are the lesser rules. According to this text, some of these arahants claimed that the saṅghādisesa offences are minor rules. It is hard to take this seriously. There is ample evidence in the Vinaya Piṭaka that the pārājikas and saṅghādisesas are heavy offences, garukāpatti, whereas the rest are light, lahukāpatti. The passage seems contrived. It is, perhaps, no more than a rhetorical device, not meant to be taken literally, but to give a plausible reason for the decision made.
Once the scene has been set, Ven. Mahākassapa proposes that all the rules be kept. This proposal is in the form of a saṅghakamma, a legal procedure that is binding on the Sangha. When a saṅghakamma has been unanimously approved, it is illegal to challenge it, except if the procedure itself is flawed. In the present case we have no basis for thinking the procedure was flawed. Still, we may ask whether the decision covers the bhikkhunī rules.
The text of the above saṅghakamma includes the following clauses that are relevant to our present concerns:
The ascetic Gotama laid down training rules for his disciples until the time of his death. But they practice the training rules only as long as their teacher is alive. Since their teacher has now attained final extinguishment, they no longer practice the training rules.
And:
The Sangha doesn’t lay down new rules, nor gets rid of the existing ones, and it undertakes to practice the training rules as they are.
This saṅghakamma is therefore predicated on the idea that one should practice what was laid down by the Buddha and that no new rules should be made. According to its own wording, this saṅghakamma does not apply to rules laid down after the Buddha’s passing. If we can be confident that many or all of the minor rules that apply to bhikkhunīs were not laid down by the Buddha, there is no barrier to abolishing them. In fact, if we are to follow the injunction made in the Mahāparinibbāna Sutta (DN16)—which seems to imply that adding rules may lead to the decline of the Dhamma—then it could be argued that these rules should be abolished. Here is that injunction once again:
As long as the mendicants don’t make new decrees or abolish existing decrees, but undertake and follow the training rules as they have been decreed, they can expect growth, not decline.
But this is not all. As pointed out by Ven. Vimalanyani, all sanghakamma is local and only affects the monastery in which it is carried out. And this is true regardless of the eminence of the gathering. In practice this means that the decisions made at the first saṅgīti only applies within the large monastic boundary that probably included Rājagaha and the Sattapaṇṇi Cave. Given the prestige of the first saṅgīti, its decision could, of course, be regarded as a guiding principle by other monastics. Yet it would have no legal force outside of the ancient capital of Magadha. And most importantly, it has no bearing on the bhikkhunīs, who form a separate Sangha with separate sanghakammas.
The more closely I look at these texts, the fewer impediments I can see to abolishing these rules. I would go so far as to say that in abolishing them, we would be in line with the Buddha’s intention.
Which rules should be abolished?
In part 1 of this essay I made three suggestions for which rules to abolish. Here they are again:
- The rules that the bhikkhunīs do not share with the monks are inoperative, except the pārājikas and saṅghādisesas.
- The rules that the bhikkhunīs do not share with the monks are inoperative, except the pārājikas, the saṅghādisesas, and those rules that are shared among most early schools of Buddhism.
- The rules that the bhikkhunīs do not share with the monks are inoperative, except the pārājikas, the saṅghādisesas, and those rules that concern morality as defined in the commentaries. (The commentary makes the distinction between rules that are loka-vajja and paṇṇatti-vajja, “faults of morality” and “faults by convention”.)
In her reply to my little essay, Ven. Vimalanyani argued that only options 1 or 3 would be workable. I now think option 3, too, is problematic. When I rendered lokavajja as “faults of morality” I was not being precise enough. Quite literally lokavajja means “fault according to the world”, and it refers to what is considered bad conduct in society at large. Such faults are obviously going to be heavily influenced by culture—that is, by time and place—which means the concept of lokavajja is not a suitable criterion for deciding which rules are applicable in a modern context. This leaves us with option 1.
If we focus on the pācittiyas, which form the bulk of the minor rules, are we able to be more specific about the case for abolishing all those that relate to the bhikkhunīs? In her PhD thesis “A Comparative Study of Bhikkhunī Pāṭimokkha”, Chatsumarn Kabilsingh (now Bhikkhunī Dhammanandā) arrives at 71 bhikkhunī pācittiyas that are common to all schools of Buddhism for which we still have manuscripts. Of these, 51 rules are in held common with the bhikkhus, leaving only 20 bhikkhunī pācittiyas that have a potential claim to authenticity. Considering that the Pali Vinaya contains 96 pācittiyas that are exclusive to the bhikkhunīs, 20 rules constitutes only a small minority.
Yet even this small number of rules cannot reliably be attributed to the Buddha, quite the contrary. If we assume, conservatively, that the pre-sectarian period of Buddhism lasted 100 years after the Buddha’s passing (see Bhante Sujato’s “Sects and Sectarianism”), we have a considerable period during which bhikkhunī pācittiya rules may have been added and yet incorporated into the Pātimokkhas of all schools. In other words, it is quite conceivable that the Buddha did not lay down any pācittiyas at all specifically for the bhikkhunīs, or if he did, that the number is tiny.
We may now return to the Buddha’s injunction in DN16 that we should not change his teachings, including the Monastic Codes (the Pātimokkhas) that he laid down. If, as seems likely, he lay down few, if any, pācittiyas for the bhikkhunīs, we are on solid ground in disregarding these rules. They do not constitute our shared Buddhist heritage as bequeathed by the Buddha, but were authored by anonymous people, some of whom may have been outrightly deluded, but all of whom would have lacked the wisdom and foresight of the Buddha. Many of these rules are likely to be no more than cultural norms that lost their relevance long ago. We need not hesitate in abandoning such rules, for it seems the Buddha himself urged us to do so.