You’re right. My bad. I should have checked this before I quoted. The problem, as always, is time.
As for pācittiya 72 and 73, they both concern listening to the pātimokkha and then being worried about the minor rules that are being recited (pāc. 72) or arguing you don’t know about the rules (pāc. 73). There is no indication that worrying about non-pātimokkha rules is a problem, nor that not knowing about such rules matters. The implication in both cases is that only breaches of the pātimokkha rules need to be confessed.
The rule specifically refers to what is recited at the pātimokkha. The Vibhaṅga then expands on this, but that is a later development.
I think it is strongly implied. Otherwise there would not be much point in saying it.
You seem to imply that the confessing means this refers to an offence. But monks would sometimes confess things that were not actual offences, see e.g. AN 3.91.
This difference between the Theravāda and the Sarvāstivāda versions quite likely shows how dukkata offences emerged from mere dukkatas.
Exactly. The word dukkata or dukkata offence is not used. This could mean that the use of dukkata to refer to a class of offences postdates the schism between the Sthāviras and the Mahāsaṅghikas.
In the case of AN 4.244 the argument from silence does carry weight because it is consistent with the rest of the four Nikāyas. The word pārājika is found elsewhere, whereas the word thullaccaya is no found anywhere in the four Nikāyas, nor is dukkata āpatti or dubbhāsita.
The word “dubbhāsita” (without āpatti) occurs in: DN 1, DN 3, MN 53, MN 129, SN 6.9, SN 8.5, AN 3.3, AN 10.89 etc.
BTW: The term “kammavācā” also doesn’t occur anywhere in the four Nikāyas. Would it be safe to conclude that it is a late term, or could it be that it is more relevant to Vinaya-matters, wherefore it is mentioned 100+ times in the Vinayapiṭaka (but never in the four Nikāyas)?
It is noteworthy that the Sanskrit equivalent of the Pali term in question (accaya) - i.e. atyaya - carries as well the meaning of transgression, offense.
P.S.: Interesting as well is the way the SN11.24’s equivalent in the Chinese corpus - SA2 37 - provides a more elaborated account of the events.
Thanks Bhante, this is an interesting observation.
Pāc 72 forbids criticizing the smaller and minor rules (khuddānukhuddakāni sikkhāpadāni) while the pātimokkha is being recited. The same term occurs famously in the context of the 1st council, where the Arahants couldn’t decide what the smaller and minor rules were and blamed Ven. Ananda for not having asked the Buddha.
Now, let’s assume that thullaccaya, dukkaṭa and dubhāsita were not yet āpattis at the Buddha’s time. This means that the smaller and minor rules can only have been the 122 pācittiyas (30 nissaggiya + 92 pure) and the four pāṭidesaniya rules.
Even a non-expert to Vinaya, such as myself, would be able figure that out pretty easily, wherefore I wonder why this was so difficult for Ven. Upāli and the other Arahants at the 1st council to understand.
The difficulty would be more understandable, if the smaller and minor rules included also thullaccayas, dukkaṭas and dubhāsita.
These are all pertinent points, Bhante.
Another problem with Ven. Ananda’s dukkatas at the 1st council is, that as a general principle the first offender is always free from offence. For most of those accusations Ven. Ananda would indeed have been the first offender and therefore should have been free from offence.
It is hard to imagine that the 499 remaining Arahants, including Ven. Upali, wouldn’t speak up against such an unfair and unlawful treatment.
Particularly in the context of the 1st sangīti this is hard to imagine, because this would mean that at the very same council and the very same Arahants who decided not to add or remove any Vinaya-rules (in the context of their discussion on the minor offences), would make Ven. Ananda confess something as a Vinaya-offence that is not a Vinaya-offence and thereby implicitly introduce new Vinaya-rules.
For this reason too, to make Ven. Ananda confess offences of previously non-existent (on the spot created) rules, would appear very strange.
So why do some parallels then speak of an offence against the Vinaya?
A possible answer may be that we need to consider the type of literature (a Vinaya text) in which the account of the 1st council has been transmitted. It is therefore not surprising to find standard Vinaya termimology being used.
I think this could be part of the explanation why some parallels indeed report the incident as if Ven. Ananda was made to confess Vinaya-offences.
In reality he may have been accused of having committed a wrongdoing, but not necessarily a wrongdoing in the Vinaya-sense.
But this subtle difference may have gotten overlooked by the compilers/reciters, wherefore standard Vinaya-terminology was applied, which would be easy to imagine, particularly in an oral setting of textual transmission.
Just as Ven. Brahmali and you said, maybe Ven. Ananda was originally just made to acknowledge his wrong-doings (dukkatas), but without having to formally confess them towards another monk as a Vinaya-offence, using the confession-formula.
Comparable to this case:
Another monk walks into my kuti, thinking I am inside, but really I am elsewhere. As he looks for me inside my kuti, accidently he drops a glass on the floor and it breaks.
When I return to my kuti I see the broken glass and recognize the monks’ distinct footmarks in the sand in front of the kuti.
On a later occasion I speak to him and ask him to confess his wrongdoing (dukkaṭa) of having dropped my glass on the floor.
But my asking him to acknowledge/confess his fault would not be meant in a Vinaya-sense (since there is no Vinaya-rule against breaking glasses), but only in a day-to-day (informal) sense.
Even if he did not deliberately drop it, nor did he have any bad intentions (just like Ananda), it’s still his fault that the glass is broken now and he may get blamed for it and asked to see/confess his wrongdoing.
In the same way the various Ananda-confessions at the 1st council could be understood, whereas the subtlety between confession of a wrongdoing in the Vinaya-sense and confession of a wrongdoing in the normal day-to-day sense may have been overlooked by the compilers/reciters of some versions of the texts.
Particularly in the context of Vinaya-literature (CV), it can easily happen that Vinaya terminiology (dukkaṭa āpatti) is applied to incidents that were originally not treated as Vinaya-offences.
In this sense we could say that the Pāli-version got it right, because it does not use the word āpatti in this context, even though it speaks of dukkaṭa āpattis in many other contexts. This may even point to a deliberate distinction being made on account of the compilers, in order to show that a dukkaṭa āpatti is not meant here.
I suspect kammavācā is relatively late, as is probably saṅghakamma. The earliest term that refers to the formal procedures of the Sangha seems to be simply kamma, as in pāc. 79. This use of kamma is also found in the suttas, e.g. at AN 2.49, AN 2.281 etc., AN 8.90, AN 10.37 to AN 10.40.
I think there are a number of possibilities, one being that the text is not very reliable. As you have pointed out yourself, it is rather strange the way the arahants at this first communal recitation treat Ven. Ānanda. And even if the thullaccayas, etc., did exist at this early point, it would still be strange that all these learned monks were not able to distinguish minor from major rules. It would hardly be surprising if this episode were not authentic.
Another possibility is that some of the sekhiya rules were already in existence. Sekhiyas are found in all the pātimokkhas, which could mean that at least some of them go back to the earliest period.
Yes, we know that the texts have evolved over time. It seems likely that a number of factors have contributed to this, including the sort of changes you mention here.
But the main point to me in all of this - just to bring the discussion back where we started - is that the sekhiya rules in the pātimokkha are specifically designed to be flexible, or so it seems to me. It follows from this that all the minor rules in the Vinaya are equally flexible in their application, with the possible exception of the thullaccayas. This makes the Vinaya quite a flexible instrument that can be interpreted in ways that makes it less obsolete in any given society.
With “flexible” you mean that every monastic should decide for himself a) whether he/she wants to follow it or not, and/or b) how one likes to interpret it?
Do you mean that the lawmaker (Buddha/compilers) intended the Sekhiyas to be applied flexibly, or do you think that monastics were meant to be bound by the Sekhiyas as they appear in their respective canons?
The Vibhaṅga to the sekhiyas specifically say that there is a dukkata offence only if you don’t keep them out of disrespect. I read this to mean that if you have a good reason not to keep them there is no problem.
Am I correct to assume we are talking about the term “asañcicca”, when you say “not out of discrespect”?
Taking not the Pātimokkha-rules themselves, but the non-offence section of the Vibhaṅga as a guideline, as you seem to suggest now (in contrast to our discussion on pāc 72), I noticed that the term “sañcicca” is not only found in the Sekhiyas, but also in saṅghādisesa 2 and a number of pācittiyas.
Does this mean that if there is “a good reason”to lustfully touch women (asādiyassa is a separate anāpatti) and it is not done out of disrespect, then there is no offence under SD 2?
I personally take sañcicca as “deliberately”, thereby following Aj. Brahm’s translation in his Vinaya notes. Aj. Thanissaro translates sañcicca as “intentionally”, which seems fine too. Both these translations fit well the various contexts of this anāpatti-factor, whereas for “disrespectfully” one would expect other Pāli terms than sañcicca.
PED “sañcicca”: (adv.) [ger. of saṃ +cinteti; ch. BSk. sañcintya Divy 494] discriminately, purposely, with intention Vin II.76; III.71, 112; IV.149, 290; D III.133; Kvu 593; Miln 380; PvA 103.
To understand asañcicca as “out of disrespect” would render pācittiya 61 as follows:
Should any bhikkhu respectfully deprive an animal of life, it is to be confessed."
(yo pana bhikkhu sañcicca pāṇaṁ jīvitā voropeyya, pācittiyaṁ)
I think it would be better to translate as: “Should any bhikkhu deliberately/intentionally deprive an animal of life, it is to be confessed.”
Long story short: Could you please explain which Pāli term you render as “out of disrespect” (without a good reason), from where we can see that the Sekhiyas should be interpreted flexibly, in contrast to the other rules of the pātimokkha (e.g. saṅghādisesa)?
I’m commenting but the real issue is if a woman wants to ordain in a lineage that is anti-bhikkhuni. I don’t know why when there are bhikkuni friendly lineages, why someone would want to do that. It is true the Bhikkuni’s maybe more committed to keeping the precepts perfectly and therefore the garudhamma maybe perceived more of an obstacle. But as Ven Brahmali suggests there seems to be a certain skill in making vinaya genuinely useful to one’s path to nibbana.
If the vinaya is for oneself and the community at large, then committing to the heart of it and interpreting it through those lenses seems meaningful, if the letter is ambiguous especially as times and circumstances have changed.
This is obviously still a very “hot topic”: we had 48 shares on our Facebook page and nearly 1000 external clicks in the last 10 days. I don’t think any topic on Discourse has ever reached that much.
I came to this blog, because “The validiy of bhikkhuni ordination by bhikkhus only” is in line with the writings of a famous Burmese Sayadaw, the Jetavan Sayadaw, who was teacher to the Ven. Mahasi Sayadaw. - So I thought this topic would be discussed here. Instead it says very little on “ordination by bhikkus only” as compared to dual ordination, instead it discusses the controversy between two learned Western Theravada monks (AT and VA), the eight garudhammas, rules within the patimokkha and outside it but within the canonical Vinayapitaka. ---- All very interesting topics, but my ears are ringing with too much talking. …
In a way we Western Buddhists getting heated up on the bhikkhuni issue miss an important point: … What do Asian Theravada nuns think about Bhikkhuni ordination? For them the issue is more relevant than it is for us… For them it is closely associated to SOCIAL ACCEPTABILITY in the societies in which they have to practice as Buddhist nuns.
The conservative opposition to Bhikkhuni ordination is still very strong in Theravada countries. My interest in this topic dates from 1965, when my lay meditation teacher became a monk, and I wanted to follow in his foot steps, quite unaware of the many obstacles.
In the mean time I have become a Pali scholar, recently I spent several years on a special study of the Pali Bhikkhuni Patimokkha - … and I noticed many small signs of historical development in the Pali Vinayapitaka. The eight garudhammas in the Pali version cannot be original Buddhaword - just compare them to the version translated from Chinese highlighted by Bhikkhu Analayo! … Yet it is advisable to observe them, in Theravada countries, just for the sake of social acceptance, because these rules have been around for over 2000 years (even if not since the time of Lord Buddha)… The much longer list of Patimokkha rules for bhikkhunis (313 instead of 227 rules, mostly in the Pacittiya class) can only have one reason: the Bhikkhu Patimokkha was regarded as finally closed much earlier than the Bhikkhuni Patimokkha. This is also borne out by the great differences in this class of rules between different Buddhist schools. - There may have been an intermediate stage, when bhikkhus and bhikkhunis had a similar umber of rules? … But here and now, my very own major obstacle is Sanghasisesa no. 3 for bhikkhunis. It is my personl reason not to attempt full ordination. … I do not want to be a bhikkhuni permanently stained by breaking a sanghadisesa rule, by travelling without a companion.
May you all be happy! — At the time of the first Sakyadhita conference inn Bodh Gaya (1987) I made a vow to attempt bhikkhuni ordination … however, I may not live long enough to see this wish fulfilled.
@SarathW1 is that really necessary? Everyone has their own goals in life, it’s not our place to be critical of them and bring them down.
@akincana - thanks for your post, I really appreciate it, as it speaks to what a lot of women feel about ordaining. [quote=“akincana, post:110, topic:5489”]
In the mean time I have become a Pali scholar, recently I spent several years on a special study of the Pali Bhikkhuni Patimokkha - … and I noticed many small signs of historical development in the Pali Vinayapitaka.
[/quote]
I hope you will share more on this with us in another post, it sounds extremely interesting.
