Are there old layers within the Vinaya?

[sujato]

@Coemgenu

I recall reading somewhere that there was a considerable belief among a number of people that the Mahāsāṃghika vinaya is the oldest extant vinaya preserved today, although for what reason this is believed I cannot say, as I can’t recall all of the article I had read that in.

What is your take on the theory that the Mahāsāṃghika vinaya is the oldest? Are you familiar with reasons why some others believe it to be the oldest? What are your responses to their points?

I studied this in some depth during my research for Sects & Sectarianism, and in my view this argument is wholly without merit.

You can see the detailed arguments in an essay I wrote at the time. This was one of the series of articles which I recently republished here, but I omitted that article by mistake. It seems the original file for that essay was corrupted, and I have retrieved it from an old web posting. Here it is!

Why the Mahāsaṅghika is not the earliest Vinaya

Note: Accompanying my book Sects & Sectarianism I wrote a series of short articles on related matters. I recently came across these, tidied them up, and present them here for your enjoyment. Various scholars have offered opinions as to which of the extant Vinaya texts might be earliest. For scholars this is part of the enigmatically meaningful need to search for the origins of things. For myself as a practicing monk, it raises the question of how much should I regard various Vinaya guidelines…

One of the supporting arguments for this is a more detailed technical analysis of certain sekhiya rules, which is here:

Sekhiya Rules reconsidered

Note: Accompanying my book Sects & Sectarianism I wrote a series of short articles on related matters. I recently came across these, tidied them up, and present them here for your enjoyment. Pachow and Prebish both regard the differences in the sekhiya (training) rules of the pāṭimokkha as evidence for the antiquity of the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya. Prebish further argues, based on the Śāriputraparipṛcchā, that the differences in sekhiya rules were the decisive factor in causing the first schism be…