I think it would be interesting project if anyone in future could create unified Vinaya Pitaka, for example all the stories, sub-stories and the differences and nuances of all schools could be put into one Vinaya Pitaka, each difference could be mentioned in brackets like [according to Theravada], [According to Mahasamghika] e.t.c.
I started working on that project, creating an Obsidian vault of various Vinaya resources linked together and cross referenced and searchable and so on:
https://labs.buddhistuniversity.net/vinaya/
And there has been absolutely zero interest from absolutely anyone
so I basically abandoned the project.
Most people aren’t really interested in the Vinaya, and those who are really into the Vinaya are generally highly sectarian and are into their particular teacher or tradition’s interpretations and aren’t interested in learning from anyone else. So the total addressable market is like… 4 or 5 people?
And the project is potentially HUGE in scope, so the ROI is just really hard to justify…
I was mildly interested.
I suspect that this is something that Ven @WayChuang might be interested in too.
I’d be interested too.
One of the problem is The Mulasarvastivada Vinaya.
They keep inserting stories. Very long stories. With only relevant vinaya rules at the end, very short. Sometimes maybe not, I haven’t really read all of them, they’re too long.
It has not been fully translated in English yet. And even the translated part is obscenely loooong.
Thank you, I think it’s not popular because the format is quite complicated to use, I tried to install app and open, but nothing happened, if it would be like web page format of pdf, or any other simple format it would be much more helpful, think many monks would be interesting to read and see difference.
Sorry, Venerable. Didn’t mean to call you a nobody!
“Absolutely zero” was a (very) slight exaggeration. I know there are a few of us who care about comparative Vinaya study! ![]()
For the features I personally consider essential (fast offline search, note taking, etc) it’s actually the least complicated solution.
It’s entirely possible that starting from a website built around parallels and then expanding from there may be the more viable MVP. But “a website built around parallels” is … SuttaCentral, right? And look how challenging it has been getting Ven. @vimalanyani 's Vinaya translations added to this website! Or cleaning up the parallels data structure. And so on. This path is also not easy!
Which is all just to say, I think it’s a good project idea. I even put months of my own time into exploring it! I just now suspect from that experience that this would take a dedicated team of scholars and significant funding to properly tackle, and for such a small audience it’ll be hard to pull together the resources to do it.
But I’m all ears for what building blocks towards this vision the community thinks are achievable in our generation. We can at least try to set up the next generation of monastics with better resources than we had. ![]()
Translations of the Chinese into English, for example, are definitely a desideratum! Sadly I can’t help much with that myself other than to cheer on Ven. @vimalanyani
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Thank you, Venerable, for the recommendation.
I’m actually interested in teasing out the differences and commonality between schools too. But I’m afraid it’s out of my depth at this point of my monastic life. I’m a new monk and still learning. But if I may be of service to this project, please let me know. I’ll gladly help if it is within my capability.
It’s an interesting concept, but IMHO it’d be better to focus on translating the Vinayas. With a translation and a table of parallels it’s usually trivial to check different versions.
Bhante, (and any sangha reading, dear Ayya Vimalayani I notice your translation and you in particular if anything you need that way, Venerable Passana, all sangha reading ) if you need any like server / resources / domains / wireguard -tailscale network between servers, etc please let me know! I can see how having the vinaya cross reference in like single place & accessible and commentaries etc - like people even knowing its there know there’s some base they could see &/or is seen by others could be important.