The pātimokkha began as poetry. The oldest use—old in the mythic time-frame of Buddhist cosmology—was many eons ago in the time of the Buddha Vipassī. His story is told in detail in DN 14, a long mythic narrative that culminate is a set of verses on monastic lifestyle. The text calls these the ovādapātimokkha, the “pātimokkha of advice”. And while modern scholars are happy to treat this as a forerunner to the monastic code of rules, they have not, so far as I know, taken the poetics of the word seriously.
I’ve spoken previously of the difference between poets and engineers, and how the world of early Buddhism tends to attract the latter. But much of the mystery and magic of language lies in the things that cannot be quantified; the connotation rather than denotation. The pātimokkha is, perhaps, an unlikely term for poetic illumination, but let us explore further. We shall have to start with a bit of engineering, however, because we need to sort out what the word actually means.
what does pātimokkha mean?
The literal sense of pātimokkha is not obvious, and there is a long history of discussion of its meaning, starting in the Pali canon itself, and extending to the present day.
As for the canon, we find an explicit definition in the Vinaya at Kd 2:3.4.2:
Ādimetaṁ mukhametaṁ pamukhametaṁ kusalānaṁ dhammānaṁ. Tena vuccati pātimokkhanti.
This is the beginning, this is the front, this is the foremost of wholesome qualities, hence it is called the pātimokkha.
A similar definition is found in the Abhidhamma at Vb 12.9.1:
“Pātimokkhan”ti sīlaṁ patiṭṭhā ādi caraṇaṁ saṁyamo saṁvaro mokkhaṁ pāmokkhaṁ kusalānaṁ dhammānaṁ samāpattiyā.
“Pātimokkha” means ethics, foundation, beginning, conduct, constraint, restraint, the front, the foremost for attaining wholesome qualities.
And while the word pātimokkha is not used, the same definition is applied in the Niddesa, eg. Cnd 5.45.3:
Khuddako sīlakkhandho mahanto sīlakkhandho sīlaṁ patiṭṭhā ādi caraṇaṁ saṁyamo saṁvaro mukhaṁ pamukhaṁ kusalānaṁ dhammānaṁ samāpattiyā—ayaṁ adhisīlasikkhā.
The minor specturm of ethics, the major spectrum of ethics, ethics, foundation, beginning, conduct, constraint, restraint, the front, the foremost for attaining wholesome qualities—this is the training in higher ethics.
Here “higher ethics” is essentially a synonym for pātimokkha.
Thus we have definitions from Vinaya, Sutta (more or less), and Abhidhamma, all of which explain pātimokkha as mukha, “front, foremost”.
Notice that only the Vibhanga entry uses the form mokkha. This is a genuine form attested frequently in the sense, “best, topmost, foremost” (eg. SN 34.10:1.8, aggo ca seṭṭho ca mokkho ca uttamo ca pavaro ca).
If this reading is accepted, it would seem we should resolve the term as pa + ati + mokkha, where the two prefixes act as intensifiers. Some of the commentarial glosses suggest this.
Nonetheless, though this interpretation enjoys strong support in the Pali canon, and is linguistically straightforward, most modern scholars have dismissed it as a mere pun. Why?
Well, there are a few reasons. The Pali commentaries play with other meanings, leaning on the root muñc (“to free”); for these I refer you to Nyanatusita’s “A Translation and Analysis of the Pātimokkha”. This suggests that the Theravada tradition had a somewhat playful sense of the meaning given in the canon. This sense is standard in the Buddhist Sanskrit tradition, which invariably has prātimokṣa from root muñc. Finally, the Vedic tradition attests pratimuñcati quite widely.
Let us, then, agree with the modern and Sanskrit traditions and look to root muñc. This solves the problem. Except, of course, that would be boring! Because we have two quite distinct, nay opposing, senses from this form.
The prefix paṭi occurs frequently in Pali in the senses “against, back, back towards, before”, somewhat similar to the English prefix “re-”. The Sanskrit form is prati; note the presence of the r, which influences Pali to use a retroflex ṭ, but inconsistently, as the form pati is also found.
Here, therefore, it could mean “against freedom” i.e. “fastening, binding”, or it could be one of several prefixes for mokkha that do little to change the meaning. It is in this latter sense that the Pali commentaries typically take it, yielding the sense “liberation”. Later Sanskrit texts attest a similar usage.
However, in early Pali and Sanskrit, the sense “binding” is predominant, if not universal. In Ja 513:6, there is the line:
Taṁ saṅgaraṁ paṭimukkaṁ na muttaṁ
That promise to which I am bound is not released.
Here, paṭimukka is the past participle form (cf. Sanskrit pratimukta). Note that the verse uses the related form mutta, also root muñc.
Ja 524:10 speaks of:
Yaṁ natthuto paṭimokk’assa pāse
(the binding) that was bound through (the dragon’s) nose in a noose.
The verse uses related forms mocayiṁsu, mutto. The connection with a “noose” or “snare” (pāsa) is also found in a stock phrase, eg. SN 35.115:1.3:
paṭimukk’assa mārapāso
He is bound in Māra’s snare.
The connection with “noose” is also current in the Vedic texts, for example a repeated refrain in Atharva Veda 13.3 has pratimuñca pāśān, “catch in your snare”. This sense is quite frequent in that text (eg. 5.14.3, 7.77.2, 9.3.24).
In particular, note AV 19.31.13, where pratimuñce (binding) on the amulet of Udumbara parallels badhyate (binding) in the next line.
Returning to the Pali, there is one final usage, among a list of medicinal treatments at eg. DN 1:1.27.2.
osadhīnaṁ paṭimokkho
bandage of herbs
The commentary explains it as a cure via a counter-treatment, but I think the sense “binding” (i.e. “bandage”) is well attested by now.
Note that here we have the form paṭimokkha rather than pātimokkha. As noted, there is a natural variation in Pali with ṭ vs. t here, so that is no issue. The initial long ā, however, demands attention. Typically such variations in Pali stem from a process called “secondary derivation”, whereby a suffix is added (which may be invisible) and the initial vowel is sometimes lengthened. This process is found in the names of most of the pātimokkha rules. For example, paṭidesana means “confession”, while the name of the rule pātidesanīya means “that which entails confession”. Pātimokkha has undergone a similar process, with the suffix -ya disappearing, yielding the sense, “that which entails binding”.
There thus seems to be strong reason to accept the sense of “binding” for pātimokkha. This seems appropriate for a set of obligatory rules, but at the same time, sits uneasily with a philosophy that promises liberation. I think this is the root of the unease that has prompted the diversity of explanations. And the junction of linguistic ambiguity and emotional tension is precisely where poetry flourishes.
the poetics of pātimokkha
After this sadly long discursion in linguistic engineering, it is time to indulge in a little poetry.
Recall the origins of the term in DN 14. Now, that text is a long mythic text that, among other things, lists the names of the parents and cities of the seven Buddhas. In my notes I discuss these. For example, the Buddha before Vipassī is Sikhī, the son of King Dawn and Queen Radiant in the City of the Dawn. Here, Sikhī is the streaming rays of sunrise, and the set of names recall a solar myth. Such mythologizing is entirely appropriate, as these beings inhabit the same mythic past as the progenitors of the Vedas, where solar imagery is everywhere.
Vipassī’s father is Bandhumā (after whom his mother and city are named). This is, on the face of it, a prosaic name, as it merely means “one with kin”. In such a context, however, it is very unlikely a name should have no greater implications. A King Bandhumant is, in fact, recorded as a descendant of Ikṣvāku, son of Manu, son of the Sun (Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.1). Gotama, likewise, was a “kinsman of the sun” (ādiccabandhu). Thus Vipassī is ultimately part of the same lineage as our Buddha, and Bandhumā is an allusion to kinship with the sun.
So we found, hidden in the mythic imagery of DN 14, allusions to a solar myth, which ultimately function as a setting and an authorization for the pātimokkha. A tenuous connection perhaps, but it is such things that delight the poet.
The oldest Indian text, the Rig Veda, sheds more light—pun intended. At Rig Veda 4.53.2 we find (translations Jamison/Brereton):
piśaṅgaṃ drāpim pratimuñcate
(the sage-poet) fastens on himself a ruddy cloak.
This is a verse to Savitar, one of the many manifestations of the Sun. It is clearly a reference to the dawn, as the deity prepares for his day of illuminating all creation by doing what we all do in the morning, get dressed.
Rig Veda 5.81.2 has an altogether more mysterious image:
viśvā rūpāṇi pratimuñcate kaviḥ
The sage-poet fastens all forms upon himself
Again the deity is Savitar and it is a solar reference. The idea seems to be that when the sun rises, all “forms”, that is, visible entities, are manifested in reflection of his rays, fastened as it were to the light. Commentators explain this as he comprehends or binds in himself all forms, or alternatively that he liberates all forms; this latter explanation seems to rest on a later sense.
While the exact meaning is deliberately obscure, the connotation is undeniably uplifting. There is a sense that, with the dawn, the divine sun rises shedding its light and that we, and all else in the visible world, are somehow connected to that divinity in his light. Thus the binding here is not like getting caught in a noose, it is a connection with something sacred.
These verses are taken up in the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, where the sacrificer fastens a gold plate around his neck, “for that gold plate is yonder sun” (eg. 6.7.1.1, 6.7.2.1, 13.4.1.7). The plate or ring has twenty knobs (twelve months of the year, five seasons, and three worlds), and the sacrificer is the twenty-first. The gold plate is first of all identified with the truth, for the truth is revealed in the light of the sun. Bearing it is a kind of ascension, for it enables a mere mortal to sustain the radiance of divinity.
As the gold disk recalls the cloak of Savitar donned at dawn in our first Vedic reference, the sacrificer also dons a sling or netting (śikya) in which the fire is carried, and which represents “all forms”, thus alluding to the second Vedic passage.
Now, this is obviously no ordinary donning of jewellery. It is a part of the preparatons for the sacrifice, where the sponsor is led by the presiding priest, the Adhvaryu, to embody, detail by detail, the divinity, making them not only worthy of the sacrifice, but absolved of the sin of killing.
When dressing him with the golden disk, the Adhvaryu makes him recite a line of poetry (13.4.1.7): “Fire thou art, light and immortality”. Gold is the earthly manifesting of the untarnished light of the sun, and hence is immortal, and grants immortality to the bearer. Then the Adhvaryu says to him, “‘Restrain thy speech!’ for the sacrifice is speech.” Here, perhaps, we can glimpse the first connection between the pātimokkha and moral restraint, which is found in the Pali expression pātimokkhasaṁvara.
To be sure, the sense of trapping in a noose is still alive in the Śatapatha, where it is applied to the sad fate of the sacrificed animal. For example, 3.7.4.1:
ṛtasya tvā devahaviḥ pāśena pratimuñcāmīti
I bind you with the noose of the sacred Truth
Yet it was the Buddha’s way to elevate his language and divest religious terms of violent connotations.
From a variety of passages it is clear that Gotama, in his period of training under his former teachers, studied in the lineage of the Śatapatha Brāhmaṇa, referred to in DN 13 as addhariya (= Adhvaryu). It is entirely possible, plausible even, that he was well aware of these passages, and perhaps had even participated in such rites himself.
We started with the observation that the mythic narrative of DN 14 suggests a solar connotation for the pātimokkha. This is not the only such case.
In a famous event recorded at Kd 19, AN 8.20, and Ud 5.5, the Buddha is sitting with the Sangha on the uposatha evening. Ānanda asks him twice through the night to recite the pātimokkha. But the Buddha remains silent. Finally, “in the last watch of the night, as dawn stirred, bringing joy to the night”, Ānanda asked a third time. But the Buddha refused, saying there was a corrupt monk in the assembly.
From then on he did not recite the pātimokkha, but delegated it to the Sangha. The commentary says it is the Ovāda Pātimokkha referred to here.
In any case, there is a connection between the pātimokkha and the dawn, reinforcing the symbolic link found with the term since its first appearance a thousand years before in the Rig Veda.
If this is admitted, it suggests that the Buddha saw the “binding” of the pātimokkha not solely in terms of the constraint of a noose or snare, but as a sacred undertaking by an initiate as a commitment to the highest spiritual goal, the illumination of the truth, the freedom from death, and the inoculation against wickedness. By binding oneself to the Truth, one is elevated and uplifted, manifesting one’s highest potential, becoming a mendicant who has “slipped free of Māra’s dominion and shines like the sun”. (Iti 59:2.1)
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likes poetry