Dear Friends,
I am trying to figure out what seems like a conundrum in the bhikkhunī Vinaya. It concerns bhikkhunī pārājika 5. The rule reads as follows:
Yā pana bhikkhunī avassutā avassutassa purisapuggalassa adhakkhakaṁ ubbhajāṇumaṇḍalaṁ āmasanaṁ vā parāmasanaṁ vā gahaṇaṁ vā chupanaṁ vā paṭipīḷanaṁ vā sādiyeyya, ayampi pārājikā hoti asaṁvāsā ubbhajāṇumaṇḍalikā ti.
If a lustful nun consents to a lustful man making physical contact with her, to touching her, to taking hold of her, to contacting her, or to squeezing her, anywhere below the collar bone but above the knees, she too is expelled and excluded from the community. The training rule on above the knees. (Bi Pj 5:1.54.1)
It seems quite clear from this that there is only a pārājika offence when a bhikkhunī consents to a man touching her, not when a bhikkhunī touches a man. I have always found this rather strange, because it means there is no rule for a bhikkhunī inappropriately touching a man, as there is in the parallel case of monks touching a woman.
I thought I had found a solution to this conundrum in the Vibhaṅga, the explanatory material that accompanies the rules, more specifically in the permutation series. Until recently, I had thought that this material expands the rule to include the case of a bhikkhunī touching a man. Having looked at it again, however, I am no longer so sure. I would be interested to hear others’ considered view of the matter.
But first, let me give some more details on how I have seen this issue until now. Hopefully this will help everyone understand where I am coming from.
There is an important difficulty in interpreting the entire permutation series of pārājika 5, namely, that the agent of the verb āmasati, “to touch”, is never specified. Here is the first sentence from this series, which is typical of the whole sequence:
Ubhatoavassute adhakkhakaṁ ubbhajāṇumaṇḍalaṁ kāyena kāyaṁ āmasati, āpatti pārājikassa.
If both have lust and he/she makes physical contact, below the collar bone but above the knees, body to body, she commits an offense entailing expulsion. (Bi Pj 5:2.2.1)
The question is, who makes the physical contact? This is not clear from the sentence itself, but on the face of it, one would expect the agent to be the man, because that would match with what we find in the rule. Yet the commentary explains that the person here refers to either the man or the bhikkhunī:
Kāyena kāyaṃ āmasatīti bhikkhunī yathāparicchinnena kāyena purisassa yaṃkiñci kāyaṃ puriso vā yena kenaci kāyena bhikkhuniyā yathāparicchinnaṃ kāyaṃ āmasati, ubhayathāpi bhikkhuniyā pārājikaṃ.
Makes physical contact, body with body: the bhikkhunī touches whatever (part of the) body of a man with her body as delimited, or the man touches the body of the bhikkhunī as delimited with whatever (part of) his body. In both cases, there is a pārājika offence for the bhikkhunī. (“As delimited” presumably refers to the fact that the touching must be below the collar bone and above the knees.) (Sp 2.659)
Is there anything in the Canonical text to give support to the commentary? As it happens, it appears that there is. The ambiguity in the agent continues for the entire permutation series, except in one sentence:
Ubhatoavassute yakkhassa vā petassa vā paṇḍakassa vā tiracchānagatamanussaviggahassa vā adhakkhakaṁ ubbhajāṇumaṇḍalaṁ kāyena kāyaṁ āmasati, āpatti thullaccayassa.
If both have lust and she makes physical contact with a spirit, a ghost, a paṇḍaka, or an animal in human form, below the collar bone but above the knees, body to body, she commits a serious offense. (Bi Pj 5:2.2.29.1)
Contrary to the formulation of the rule, in this sentence it seems required that the bhikkhunī is the agent. The various beings that are mentioned here are all in the genitive/dative case, which suggests they are not doing the touching, but are being touched. If the agent of āmasati here is the bhikkhunī, then it would be natural to conclude that the same must be true for the entire permutation series. The parallels in wording are just too strong. This would lend support to the commentarial interpretation, which would mean that the agent may be either the man or the bhikkhunī. This would resolve the ambiguity.
Still, this argument is not quite satisfactory. I will now set out why I don’t think so.
There are some immediate problems with the above suggestion. As we have just seen, the above sentence (Bi Pj 5:2.2.29.1) suggests that the bhikkhunī is the only agent. Yet taking the bhikkhunī as the sole agent for the entire permutation series goes too far, because it would fly in the face of the wording of the rule. What we have, in fact, are two different and irreconcilable positions: (i) the positron of the rule, which says the man is the agent, and (ii) the position of the one sentence from the Vibhaṅga, which says the bhikkhunī is the agent. Only in the Commentary is this combined to suggest that either the man or the bhikkhunī can be the agent in all cases, including in the rule. Yet it is by no means obvious that the commentary is right about this.
Let’s return to the sentence above that apparently concerns a bhikkhunī touching various kinds of beings. The first problem with understanding this sentence in this way is that it leaves out the case of these being touching the bhikkhunī. This is a rather major problem since the bhikkhunī being touched, not the bhikkhunī touching, is the concern of the main rule. It would mean that there is no statement anywhere about what the offence is if, for instance, a bhikkhunī consented to being touched by a paṇḍaka. In this way, a secondary development would be mentioned, whereas the main concern of the rule would not.
Another problem is that the permutation series would then mention the case of a bhikkhunī touching a number of beings of various kinds, including those belonging to non-human realms, but would not mention the case of a bhikkhunī touching a man. Thus, the most important case, by far, would be left out.
Given these obvious problems, I am uncomfortable reading the entire permutation series in light of this one unusual sentence. My preference is to disregard it, and understand the rule as only concerned with the case of a bhikkhunī consenting to a man touching her. The case of a bhikkhunī touching a man would then not be covered.
Is there any way of explaining why we have the above sentence with a bhikkhunī touching all sorts of beings? My suggestion is that this sentence may originally have had a structure closer to the one in the main rule. In the main rule the bhikkhunī consents to the touch of a man. The man is in the genitive case, purisapuggalassa. I suggest the genitive in the permutation series should be understood in the same way, that is, the beings in the genitive are actually doing the touching. This would solve both of the problems set out above. Yet as the text stands, this is not a natural reading. Could it be, however, that the text has got corrupted?
I would love to hear from any monastics on the forum, especially bhikkhunīs, who might be able to throw some light on what is going on here. Anyone else is, of course, also most welcome to comment.