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“The Chapter on Going Forth” is the first of seventeen chapters in The Chapters on Monastic Discipline, a four-volume work that outlines the statutes and procedures that govern life in a Buddhist monastic community. This first chapter traces the development of the rite by which postulants were admitted into the monastic order, from the Buddha Śākyamuni’s informal invitation to “Come, monk,” to the more elaborate “Present Day Rite.” Along the way, the posts of preceptor and instructor are introduced, their responsibilities defined, and a dichotomy between elders and immature novices described. While the heart of the chapter is a transcript of the “Present Day Rite,” the text is interwoven with numerous narrative asides, depicting the spiritual ferment of the north Indian region of Magadha during the Buddha’s lifetime, the follies of untrained and unsupervised apprentices, and the need for a formal system of tutelage.
This translation was carried out from the Tibetan by Robert Miller with the guidance of Geshé Tséwang Nyima. Ven. Lhundup Damchö (Dr. Diana Finnegan) provided her draft translation of the extant Sanskrit portions of this chapter. Dr. Fumi Yao and Maurice Ozaine kindly identified numerous misspellings and mistakes in the glossaries. Both Ven. Damchö and Dr. Yao generously shared their extensive knowledge of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya and furnished invaluable assistance in researching the translation. Matthew Wuethrich served as style consultant and editor.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The generous sponsorship of Zhou Tian Yu, Chen Yi Qin, Irene Tillman, Archie Kao, and Zhou Xun, which helped make the work on this translation possible, is most gratefully acknowledged.
According to traditional accounts, after the Buddha had entered parinirvāṇa, the elder Kāśyapa proposed that the Blessed One’s teachings be recited for posterity. During the rains retreat at Rājagṛha that followed, Kāśyapa asked the venerable Upāli to recall the Buddha’s pronouncements on monastic discipline and the venerable Ānanda to recite the Buddha’s discourses. One hundred years later, a second council was convened at Vaiśālī to resolve disagreements that had arisen in relation to the code of monastic discipline, or vinaya.
Shortly after the Second Council, the monastic community split into two factions, “the Elders” (Skt. Sthavira) and “the Majority” (Skt. Mahāsāṃghika). In time, for reasons of discipline, doctrine, or geography, the two factions branched further into eighteen schools. Among these were the Mūlasarvāstivādins.
Although there is, as yet, no scholarly consensus on the exact origins of this school, we know the Mūlasarvāstivādins were well established in northwest India, between Mathura, Kashmir, and Gandhāra, during the Kuṣāṇa Kingdom’s zenith in the second and third centuries
The Mūlasarvāstivādins’ monastic code is comprised of several texts, which Tibetans, the foremost inheritors of this tradition, group into the “Four Scriptural Divisions of the Vinaya”: the Vinayavastu, Vinayavibhaṅga, Kṣudrakavastu, and Uttaragrantha. The Vinayavastu details the statutes and procedures that govern the institutions of monastic community life. The Vinayavibhaṅga narrates the circumstances that prompted the formulation of each of the monastic vows given in the Prātimokṣasūtra. The Kṣudrakavastu discusses miscellaneous minutiae of monastic life under eight headings. The Uttaragrantha, in its complete form, contains eleven texts including Upāli’s questions to the Buddha regarding monastic discipline, along with the Vinītaka, the Nidāna, and the Kathāvastu.
Though similar in general outline to most of the other extant monastic codes, the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya is more eclectic in content and character. It is no dry legal code or mere vade mecum for disciplinary measures. Instead it is a rich bricolage of stories, discourses, ritual handbooks, community guidelines, and catalogs of monastic discipline, with passages and texts from a diverse range of genres like sūtra, avadāna, and nidāna.
The first of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya’s four Scriptural Divisions is the Vinayavastu. A partial translation into Chinese, containing at least seven of the chapters, was made by the Chinese monk Yijing, in the late seventh to early eighth centuries
For centuries the Vinayavastu, and indeed much of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, was known only through these Tibetan and Chinese translations, or from thematic excerpts like the Divyāvadāna, and all Sanskrit manuscripts of the full text appeared to have disappeared without a trace. Then, in 1931, a cowherd from a small village near Gilgit dug up one of many mounds dotting his community’s pasturelands. He was looking for wood, which could sometimes be found at such sites, but instead stumbled upon a large chamber littered with coin-like clay tablets. Thinking he had disturbed a grave, he grew scared and fled. Word of his find spread quickly and before long a more intrepid local went in search of treasure. What he found was a wooden chest of Buddhist manuscripts dating from the fifth or sixth century
Although large portions of the Vinayavastu in Sanskrit were thus recovered in the Gilgit manuscripts, the ninth-century Tibetan translation remains the only complete version known today, and it is primarily on the basis of the Tibetan that the translations to be published here have been, and are being, made. The present translation is of the first chapter, and subsequent chapters will appear in due course.
The Vinayavastu is similar in its themes to the Theravādin Khandhaka (Skt. Skandhaka) still extant in Pali. Both detail the communal rites, formal procedures, and disciplinary measures that give order and coherence to the monastic community as well as the types of clothes, food, shelter, and medicine allowed community members. To appropriate Prebish’s useful explanation of the differences between the Skandhaka and Sūtravibhaṅga and apply it here by way of analogy, while the Vinayavibhaṅga describes the vows that govern individual behavior, the Vinayavastu spells out the rules that govern communal behavior. This communal emphasis is immediately apparent when one considers the contents of the Vinayavastu’s seventeen chapters:
1. The Pravrajyāvastu (The Chapter on Going Forth) details the development of the rite by which one goes forth and becomes a Buddhist monk.
2. The Poṣadhavastu (The Chapter on the Restoration Rite) describes the twice-monthly poṣadha ceremony.
3. The Pravāraṇavastu (The Chapter on Lifting Restrictions) describes the pravāraṇa ceremony in which restrictions adopted for the rains retreat are lifted, marking the end of the rains retreat.
4. The Varṣāvastu (The Chapter on the Rains) describes the timing and procedures for the annual rains retreat.
5. The Carmavastu (The Chapter on Leather) details the rules regarding the use of leather hides for clothing, footwear, bedding, and seating.
6. The Bhaiṣajyavastu (The Chapter on Medicines) discusses the medicines allowed monastics, such as ghee, sesame oil, honey, and molasses; what monastics should not consume, such as human flesh; and related subjects, such as how medicine should be stored, under what circumstances monastics are allowed to cook for themselves, and how to respond to a hostile doctor.
7. The Cīvaravastu (The Chapter on Robes) describes the types of material suitable to be turned into robes, such as silk, cotton, wool, linen, hemp, dugūla, koṭampa, and Aparāntin cloth, and presents specifications about the shape and form of those robes.
8. The Kaṭhinavastu (The Chapter on Turning Cloth into Robes) describes the rules regulating the acceptance of cloth and turning it into robes.
9. The Kauśāmbakavastu (The Chapter on the Monks of Kauśāmbī) outlines the procedures adopted to arbitrate disputes and allows for expulsion from the saṅgha community. These procedures were formulated in the wake of a major dispute that arose when the monks of Kauśāmbī expelled a group of monks from Vaiśālī.
10. The Karmavastu (The Chapter on Formal Acts of the Saṅgha) gives a short summary of the one hundred and one different official acts that require the saṅgha community’s sanction. These acts all fall into one of three categories depending on the procedure needed for ratification: acts of motion alone require only a motion; acts whose second member is a motion require a motion followed by the statement of the act; and acts whose fourth member is a motion require a motion followed by the statement of the act, repeated three times.
11. The Pāṇḍulohitakavastu (The Chapter on a Group of Troublesome Monks) details the five types of disciplinary acts that may be imposed on intransigent monastics, such as censure, chastening, expulsion, reconciliation, and suspension. Its name derives from the site of a dispute in which quarrelsome monks refused to admit to their guilt.
12. The Pudgalavastu (The Chapter on Types of Persons) details appropriate and inappropriate times for the confession of breaches in discipline.
13. The Pārivāsikavastu (The Chapter on Penitents) describes how to discipline, through the imposition of probations and penances, a monk who has incurred a saṅgha remnant offense. This chapter also allows for such a monk’s reinstatement as a full member of the community upon successful completion of a probation and penance.
14. The Poṣadhasthāpanavastu (The Chapter on the Suspension of the Restoration Rite) describes the circumstances in which the restoration rite may be suspended and details the restrictions on who is allowed to participate in the restoration.
15. The Śayanāsanavastu (The Chapter on Shelter) discusses the types of shelter suitable for monastics, such as temples, multi-story buildings, verandas, sheds, wooden huts, earthen and rock caves, grass huts, and so on.
16. The Adhikaraṇavastu (The Chapter on Disputes) discusses the seven means to resolve disputes that arise from disagreements over the Buddha’s teachings, reproaches regarding another monk’s conduct, offenses, or acts of saṅgha.
17. The Saṅghabhedavastu (The Chapter on Schism in the Saṅgha) narrates at length the Buddha’s youth, awakening, and ministry, as well as the schism prompted by Devadatta.
The above are but summaries of each chapter’s ostensible themes. In several cases, most notably the Bhaiṣajyavastu and the Saṅghabhedavastu, avadāna narratives and important events in the Buddha’s life figure far more prominently than any discussion of communal guidelines on medicine, schisms, or the like. Those interested in detailed summaries of each chapter can find them in Csoma de Körös’s Analysis of the Dulva, Banerjee’s Sarvāstivāda Literature, and Dutt’s introductions to his Gilgit Manuscripts. For now, suffice it to say that the Vinayavastu has the same eclectic make-up that scholars have come to associate with the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya in general, and that distinguishes it from the other extant monastic codes.
The first chapter of the Vinayavastu, translated here, is “The Chapter on Going Forth.” It describes how the rite of going forth, the formal rejection of household life and entry into the Buddhist order of renunciants, went from a simple and open invitation extended by the Buddha in person to an elaborate rite with admission criteria that could be performed by any monk with sufficient knowledge and reliability.
The chapter can be broadly divided into thirds. The first third of the text (“Śāriputra”) tells the story of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana’s spiritual search. It provides the historical background for the rise of the Buddhist order against a backdrop of other renunciant orders active in the eastern Gangetic basin in the fifth century
Throughout these three sections a number of important themes can be discerned: the opposition between śramaṇa ascetics and brāhmaṇa householders, the existence of a fecund religious scene at the time of the Buddha, the need for official procedures and positions as the Buddhist monastic community grew from an informal group of followers into a spiritual corporation, the importance of a monastic apprenticeship, and the recognition that some people are not suited to life as a Buddhist renunciant.
“The Chapter on Going Forth” begins in earnest with the story of how Upatiṣya and Kolita came to join the Buddhist order. These two, under the names Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, would go on to become the foremost of the Buddha’s disciples. But to begin with they are just young brahmins, well-schooled in Vedic learning and assured of bright futures. In time Upatiṣya proves himself to be a brilliant interpreter of the Vedas, while Kolita, a talented teacher in his own right, is expected to succeed his father as royal priest to the King of Rājagṛha. Though each hears of the other’s reputation from their young brahmin students, they do not meet until the feast of the nāga kings Giri and Valguka, where they recognize one another as kindred spirits. After securing their parents’ consent, they forego their given destinies and set off in search of a renunciant order to join.
At the time, Rājagṛha and its surroundings are teeming with renunciant orders, and the two spiritual seekers quickly secure audiences with six of the leading tīrthika teachers. The pair questions each teacher about his practice and philosophy, and each is found to teach a ruinous path and rejected. Eventually Upatiṣya and Kolita come across the teacher Sañjayin who, they are told, has “withdrawn into seclusion.” Duly impressed, they are won over and join his order upon hearing his philosophy—that “the Dharma is truth and nonviolence; the peaceful, ageless, immortal, and unwaning state is Brahman.” Before long, however, Sañjayin passes away and the two move on, bringing the first section to a conclusion.
On first encounter this section is disorienting. It begins by meandering through an account of the struggle between the kingdoms of Aṅga and Magadha, with a brief interlude describing the Buddha’s birth, before tracing the rise of two brahmins named Māṭhara and Tiṣya. Only after thirty pages of war and genealogy do we meet the two main protagonists. To appreciate the purpose of this long prologue, one must step back to view the Vinayavastu as a whole and understand that interwoven through the text’s seventeen chapters is one of the most extensive biographies of the Buddha available in any language. These first episodes, then, are more than mere diversion; they are the first installments of an epic tale that takes shape over the Vinayavastu’s 2,500 pages.
From a literary perspective, this first chapter exemplifies the Vinayavastu’s composite nature, where history sits embedded between parable and technical manual. While we know almost nothing about by whom, how, or why this text was compiled in this way, this synthesis is not likely to be ad hoc or random. Rather, diverse elements are drawn in and made to serve a range of purposes. The tale of the six tīrthika teachers, for example, fulfills narrative, partisan, and historical ends. Narratively, it explains how Upatiṣya and Kolita eventually came to the Buddha’s order. In its telling, it emphasizes their exacting standards so that their rejection of each teacher’s philosophy and eventual embrace of the Buddha’s implies the superiority of the Buddhist order.
Historically speaking, it surveys the spiritual landscape of Greater Magadha at the time of the Buddha. Though the text does not emphasize the connections, scholars have linked several of the tīrthika teachers to the major non-Vedic orders of the day: Jñātiputra is better known as Mahāvīra, leader of the Nirgrantha Jain order and the last Jain Tīrthankara; Gośālīputra was a prominent Ājīvika leader; Ajita may have been an important Cārvāka teacher; and Pūraṇa has been called the foremost of five hundred Ājīvikas, though the philosophy attributed to him here resembles neither Gośālīputra’s fatalism nor that of the Digambara Jains whom Buddhists sometimes referred to as Ājīvikas.
The second third of the text describes the way the admission rite changed as the Buddha’s renunciant order grew. A short interlude under the heading “Querying Upasena” then spells out the terms of a new monk’s apprenticeship to a more senior monk and provides criteria to determine when a monk is sufficiently established in his ordination to live as a teacher and act as a preceptor or instructor himself.
Those familiar with the modern-day ordination rite may be surprised by the original rite’s simplicity. Postulants, personified by Upatiṣya and Kolita in this chapter, would ask the Buddha for permission to join his order. With the words, “Come, monks. Live the holy life,” the Buddha admitted them into his order and ordained them monks. This simple invitation is known as the “ordination by saying, ‘Monk, come.’ ”
But as the Buddha’s fame grew, it became less practicable for the Buddha himself to accept and ordain every postulant. While the rite itself was simple enough, anyone wanting to go forth had to see the Buddha in person, which for some meant a long and arduous journey. When the Buddha heard that a postulant coming to see him had died on the way, he permitted the saṅgha to admit new members and ordain them.
The monks, not knowing how to admit and ordain postulants, asked the Blessed One about it, and he responded by prescribing a short but formalized rite now known as the “Early Rite.” The new rite required postulants to request the saṅgha three times, after which an officiant monk would move that the saṅgha act on the request. By remaining silent, the saṅgha signaled its assent, and the postulant was formally admitted to the order and ordained a monk.
Since the Early Rite permitted monks to accept new members but made no provisions for training them, the new rite solved a logistical problem but did nothing to address an equally, if not more, pressing problem: helping new members establish themselves in a new code of conduct and a new way of life. Consequently, some new monks had no sense of decorum and were poorly behaved. Local brahmins and householders even complained of being harassed by them. The new monks would come to town to beg alms, disheveled and improperly dressed, speaking shrilly in loud voices, behaving wildly, and demanding they be fed.
When a monk fell ill and died for lack of someone to nurse him, the elder monks felt obliged to take action. Such gross neglect of one’s fellow brahmacārin was too much and the saṅgha asked the Buddha to intervene. After some consideration, the Buddha created the positions of preceptor and instructor and charged the monks in those roles with the responsibility of ordaining and instructing new monks.
But again the monks found themselves in a quandary, not knowing how to admit and ordain postulants, and so again they asked the Buddha. This time, the Buddha prescribed a longer and more formal rite of admission and ordination, with stricter acceptance criteria and a novel division of the community into lay vow holders, novices, and monks. This rite pertains to the present day and is known in the tradition as the “Present Day Rite.”
The Present Day Rite codified a hierarchy in the Buddhist renunciant order, through which a postulant gains admission into the order, is inducted into the novitiate, and is ordained a monk. An outline of the ritual found in the text is given in the appendix, “An Outline of the Ordination Rite.”
The final third of the text goes back in time to examine the circumstances that prompted the introduction of a screening process for postulants. The exclusionary criteria, deemed “impediments to ordination,” are all explained by origin stories (Tib. gleng gzhi, Skt. nidāna), as exemplified by the chapter “Creatures.”
This chapter, by far the longest in the section, tells the story of Saṅgharakṣita, ostensibly to explain why creatures—specifically nāgas that can assume human form—are not allowed to join the Buddhist renunciant order. Several lesser origin stories, explaining, for instance, what a monk administrator can be expected to account for and why a monk should not teach without first being asked to do so, are enfolded into the greater story of Saṅgharakṣita and the nāga monk.
This section also contains several avadāna, most notably in the story of how a shape-shifting nāga gained the karma to become a monk. Avadāna are didactic stories (or “karmic histories”) that explain a given circumstance in light of the past act that brought it about. Other examples of avadāna from this section include what happens when monks fight over food, deface saṅgha property, and withhold food and drink from other monks.
The layering does not end there, either. A Vedic seer’s sarcastic remark about Buddhist monks’ propensity to preach at the slightest provocation becomes the pretext for Saṅgharakṣita’s teaching the Nagaropama Sūtra, while Saṅgharakṣita’s efforts to establish the Buddha’s teachings in the land of nāgas becomes a chance to discuss the Sūtra Piṭaka’s “Four Divisions of the Discourses.”
The intertwining of genres seen in Saṅgharakṣita’s story is probably the best example in the present chapter of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya’s bricolage composition and the way stories, sūtras, and catalogs of monastic discipline are woven into a narrative meant to both instruct and inspire.
In 1983, Helmut Eimer published a critical edition of the Tibetan, and a study in German, of “The Chapter on Going Forth” but did not attempt a translation.
Soon afterwards, in a series of four articles, Claus Vogel and Klaus Wille published a carefully revised edition of the Sanskrit fragments of the Pravrajyāvastu recovered in Gilgit. They scrupulously annotated the editorial process to produce an edition that, in contrast to earlier Sanskrit editions, is free of reconstructions and indicates clearly the uncertainties created by damage to, or missing portions of, the original manuscripts. They also incorporated further fragments of the manuscript that had not been definitively identified at the time previous Sanskrit editions were prepared. The fragments fall into two groups: those from the beginning of the chapter (Sanskrit folios 2–12), and those toward the end (folios 43–53). Together these Sanskrit fragments correspond to about one hundred of the 261 pages of the chapter in the Degé Kangyur. To place the fragments in their proper context, Vogel also translated relevant sections of the text, from the Tibetan for the portions corresponding to folios 2–12, and from the Sanskrit for the portions corresponding to folios 43–53.
In the present translation, the exact correlations between the Sanskrit and the Tibetan are noted in the form of folio references to Vogel and Wille’s edition (folio numbers preceded by S) as well as the usual folio references to the Tibetan of the Degé (preceded by F).
Andy Rotman has translated from Sanskrit many of the avadāna narratives to be found in the Divyāvadāna, a collection of such stories compiled in Nepal and dating probably to the seventeenth century. The individual stories in the Divyāvadāna very closely match equivalent passages in the Vinayavastu or, in some cases, other sections of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. In the present first chapter, the only parallels to the Divyāvadāna are the narratives of Saṅgharakṣita and the shape-shifting nāga, which can be found translated in Rotman’s second volume. There are several other translations of the same passage from the Divyāvadāna.
One of the difficulties in translating vinaya texts lies in finding appropriate English equivalents for the language of Buddhist monasticism. In several instances we have borrowed terms from Christianity such as “ordination” and “monk,” even though they may only bear a superficial similarity to their Buddhist analogs. Another difficulty lies in the historical fact that the language of Buddhist renunciation was adapted from a body of terms and ideas common among Greater Magadhan ascetic communities in the sixth and fifth centuries
First and foremost is the term pravrajyā, which in its widest application referred to the act of “going forth,” that is, renouncing the settled life of a householder to live as a wandering ascetic. In pre-Buddhist India, the act of going forth often took a ritual form and was made dramatically visible “by shaving off the hair and beard and laying aside the layman’s dress, to cover oneself with rags, with bark or hemp, or to wander in the nude.” In the present translation, we render pravrajyā (Tib. rab tu ’byung ba) as “to go forth” (or, in a small number of cases, “to join the renunciant order”) while one who goes forth (Tib. rab byung) is a “renunciant.”
In the Pravrajyāvastu, we meet several Vedic and non-Vedic ascetics who have undertaken pravrajyā. Some, such as Gośālīputra and the Lokāyata ascetic Dīrghanakha, are described as “wandering mendicants” or parivrājaka, but those who join the Buddha’s order are described as śramaṇa, translated here as “ascetic.” The term śramaṇa, from the verbal root śram meaning “to toil,” was used to describe non-Vedic ascetics, especially Buddhist and Jain ones. In our text, it is applied repeatedly to both the Buddha and his followers, as when an older man posing as a monk challenges the authenticity of the Buddha’s ordained status by asking, “Who is the śramaṇa Gautama’s preceptor?” and in the phrase “the śramaṇa sons of the Śākya.”
The Buddha’s followers accepted this as an appropriate designation, as when Śāriputra says to Buddharakṣita, “It is those who issue from people like you that become my śramaṇa attendants.” As the Buddha himself also frequently referred to his community as śramaṇa, it is not surprising that the term chosen to describe “novice” śramaṇa was śrāmaṇera , the diminutive form of śramaṇa.
Ascetic sons of the Śākya who ordained were called bhikṣu. This term, too, was used outside the Buddhist tradition. Gautama, the brahmin author of the Gautama Dharmasūtra, gives bhikṣu, meaning “mendicant,” as the third of four lifestyles open to followers of the Vedas. In this context, a mendicant was either an ascetic who relied on alms (partly or fully provided by relatives) or a hermit who had severed all ties with his former worldly life.
Another phrase that points to a shared language among ascetics is the term brahmacaryā, rendered here as “to live the holy life.” This phrase appears repeatedly in this chapter in stock passages, most significantly in the Buddha’s invitation, “Come, monk. Live the holy life,” and in the remark made by those who have attained arhatship: “My births have come to an end, I have lived the holy life, I have done what needed doing, I will know no lives after this one.”
The phrase also figures prominently in Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana’s questions for the six tīrthika teachers: “What is the result of living the holy life? What are its benefits?” Although the exact meaning of the phrase is never spelled out, the commentator Kalyāṇamitra glosses it as a life of “hardships” or “austerities.” Kalyāṇamitra’s interpretation is probably best understood as an explanation of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana’s assumptions about what it meant to “live the holy life.” For, as a Jain, Jñātiputra would certainly have equated “the holy life” with austerities, but it is not certain whether any of the other five would have. It does, however, seem likely that many of these teachers would have understood “the holy life” to entail celibacy; and that is how the term is now understood in the Buddhist tradition, where a lay vow holder who takes a vow of celibacy is described as a brahmacārin upāsaka (Tib. tshangs spyod dge bsnyen).
Among followers of the Vedas during the Buddha’s lifetime, brahmacaryā referred to a student’s apprenticeship to a teacher. It was expected that a student live “a holy life,” which implied celibacy.
The present translation is based on the Tibetan text in the Degé Kangyur, with reference to the text in other Kangyurs as detailed in the endnotes. Ven. Lhundup Damchö’s draft translation of the extant Sanskrit found in Nalinaksha Dutt’s Gilgit Manuscripts, together with Claus Vogel and Klaus Wille’s revised Sanskrit edition and translation, were used as guides to check for variations between the Tibetan and Sanskrit. Although there are numerous differences between the Tibetan and Sanskrit manuscripts, very few of them bear significantly on the overall understanding of the text. We have chosen to note only the most important divergences and, for the rest, would refer readers to Vogel and Wille’s works.
A great many of our translation choices are based on glosses given by the late eighth-century master Kalyāṇamitra in his Extensive Commentary on The Chapters of Discipline. On the whole, Kalyāṇamitra’s citations mirror the relevant passages from the root text. However, there is enough variation between the root text and his commentary—direct quotations purportedly from the root text which have no correlate in any of the Tibetan redactions, important passages of the root text not glossed in the commentary, differences in key terms—to suggest Kalyāṇamitra may have been working from a different edition of the Vinayavastu than that which was available to the Tibetan translators and their Indian informants. And although it does not bear directly on the present work, it should also be noted that the Tibetan translation of Kalyāṇamitra’s commentary appears to be incomplete. Presumably, Kalyāṇamitra commented on all seventeen chapters of the Vinayavastu, but the Degé, Coné, and Narthang editions of his commentary all end abruptly after the thirteenth fascicle, four pages into his comments on the Vinayavastu’s third chapter, the Pravāraṇāvastu.
The Vinayavastu contains a great deal of repetition. Such repetition ranges in length from short, stock phrases to an entire chapter in which the only change is in the gender of a single character (see “Matricide” and “Patricide”). Aiming to retain the original work’s style and flavor, which may point to its oral origins, in accordance with 84000’s editorial policies we have avoided the temptation to elide these repetitive passages. On the other hand, we have tried in places to help the reader by inserting proper names in places where the original provides only pronouns.
Though technically the present work is the first of the Vinayavastu’s seventeen chapters, we have chosen to break the “chapter” into parts based on the list of contents found in the prologue and those parts into chapters based on the indices found at the start of each section.
In the chapter on the ordination rite itself, the Tibetan text gives a short heading for each part of the ritual at the end of the relevant section. To assist the reader and conform to English typographical norms, we have placed the heading at the start of the relevant section.
In closing, we ask forbearance for whatever mistakes and omissions the translation contains.
While the Bodhisattva was dwelling in the Abode of Tuṣita, the King of Aṅga ruled over the lands of Aṅga. Under his rule, the kingdom prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people. Meanwhile, King Mahāpadma ruled over the lands of Magadha. Under his rule, the kingdom prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people. At times, the King of Aṅga and his armies were dominant. At other times, King Mahāpadma and his armies were dominant.
At a time when the King of Aṅga and his armies were dominant, he called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and laid waste to all of Magadha, save Rājagṛha, before returning.
At a time when King Mahāpadma and his armies were dominant, he too called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and laid waste to all of Aṅga, save Campā, before returning.
At yet another time when the King of Aṅga and his armies were dominant, he again called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and began again to lay waste to the land of Magadha, prompting the people of Magadha to send a message to King Mahāpadma, saying, “Your Majesty, the King of Aṅga has called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and is laying waste to the lands of Magadha.”
When King Mahāpadma heard this, he too called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and rode out to meet the King of Aṅga in battle.
The King of Aṅga captured King Mahāpadma’s entire elephant corps and proceeded to capture the whole of his cavalry, charioteer corps, and infantry. Defeated and frightened, destroyed and conquered, King Mahāpadma retreated. Entering Rājagṛha, he closed the gates and shut himself up within the walls of his fortress.
The King of Aṅga sent an envoy to King Mahāpadma with the message, “It would be good were you to come out. If you do not surrender, and instead take flight into the sky above, I will fell you with a volley of arrows. Tunnel beneath the earth and I will yank you up as if with a hook. Flee to the mountaintops, and even there you shall find no escape.”
King Mahāpadma was unsettled by the message he heard. Head in hands, he sat and sat, absorbed in thought. Then he said to his ministers, “Gentlemen, this King of Aṅga is belligerent, ruthless, and his military might is great. If he gives an order, how can we not obey?”
They spoke in verse:
They then implored him, “Your Majesty, any way you look at it, you must go out!”
King Mahāpadma hung his sword from his neck in surrender and went out, where the King of Aṅga imposed an annual tribute and tax upon him.
While the blessed Bodhisattva was dwelling in the Abode of Tuṣita, he saw five sights and thrice gave notice to the six classes of gods who revel in the desire realm. Assuming an elephant’s appearance, he entered his mother’s womb as the earth shook and this world and all others too were bathed in a vast light more luminous than the glow of the gods of the Thirty-Three. So great was this miraculous manifestation, it was as if the sun and moon shone in the gulf between worlds. So great was its strength that darkness everywhere, even the pitch-black darkness of dark places dark from never knowing the light of the sun and moon, was filled with a vast light. Beings born in those places had never even seen so far as their outstretched hands, yet by this light these beings saw one another and exclaimed, “You there! There are others who have been born here! There are others who have been born here!”
At the same time as the blessed Bodhisattva was born, sons were also born to four great kings in four great city-states. In Rājagṛha the son of King Mahāpadma was born. In Śrāvastī the son of King Arāḍa Brahmadatta was born. In Ujjayinī the son of King Anantanemi was born. In Kauśāmbī the son of King Śatānīka was born.
When the blessed Bodhisattva was born, the entire universe was bathed in a vast light more luminous than the glow of the gods of the Thirty-Three. So great was this miraculous manifestation, it was as if the sun and moon shone in the gulf between worlds. So great was its strength that darkness everywhere, even the pitch-black darkness of dark places dark from never knowing the light of the sun and moon, was filled with a vast light. Beings born in those places had never even seen so far as their outstretched hands, yet by this light these beings saw one another and exclaimed, “You there! There are others who have been born here! There are others who have been born here!”
King Mahāpadma thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit as if by the gold of the rising sun. And as he is the son of Queen Bimbī (Goldie), I shall name this prince Bimbisāra (Essence of Gold).” And so the boy was named Bimbisāra.
King Arāḍa Brahmadatta thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit as if by the light of lights, so I shall name this prince Prasenajit (Supreme Light).” And so the boy was named Prasenajit.
King Śatānīka thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit as if by the rising sun, so I shall name this prince Udayana (Rising).” And so the boy was named Udayana.
King Anantanemi thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit by a brilliant light, so I shall name this prince Pradyota (Brilliant Light).” And so the boy was named Pradyota.
And so each king attributed the light to the birth of his own son. Though each attributed it to his own son, it was not so. For all that occurred, occurred because of the Bodhisattva.
On the very same day that Prince Bimbisāra was born, five hundred sons of five hundred ministers were also born and were given names appropriate to their patrilineage. [S.2.a]
Prince Bimbisāra was entrusted to eight nursemaids: two to cuddle him, two to breastfeed him, two to change his diapers, and two to play with him. Fortified with milk, curd, butter, ghee, cream, and other nourishing foods, he grew quickly, shooting up like a lotus in a pond. When he was old enough, he was introduced to letters, number names, calculation, counting by hand, expenditures, revenues, and deposits. After he finished letters, he became skilled in exegesis, recitation, knowledge, proper conduct, and the way to assess gems, sites, fabrics, woods, elephants, horses, women, and men.
He trained in and mastered the different fields of arts and skills of anointed kṣatriya kings, or a ruler of the realm endowed with the might and vigor to conquer the wide face of the earth, such as riding on the neck of an elephant, riding horseback, charioteering, swordsmanship, archery, advancing, yielding, wielding a hook, throwing a lasso, casting a spear, and how to hold a weapon, march, tie a topknot, slash, quarter, pierce, and strike in five ways—striking from a distance, striking a target using acoustic location, striking a fatal blow, striking without hesitation, and striking forcefully.
These arts and skills were also mastered by the five hundred sons of the five hundred ministers.
Bimbisāra’s father enrolled him in the eighteen guilds, due to which he was named and became known as Bimbisāra of the Guilds.
Later Prince Bimbisāra set out astride an elephant where he saw the King of Aṅga’s officers collecting tributes and taxes, prompting him to inquire of his men, “Gentlemen, for whom are these tributes and taxes being collected?”
“Your Majesty! For the King of Aṅga.”
“What? Will we be offered tribute?”
“No, Your Majesty, we are the ones to offer the tribute.”
“Gentlemen, summon those officers.”
When the officers were summoned, he said, “Gentlemen, the King of Aṅga is crowned and an anointed kṣatriya king. If I too am crowned and an anointed a kṣatriya king, why is it you are collecting tributes and taxes here? I forbid you to collect tributes and taxes from this day forth.”
“The prince fails to appreciate the situation,” they thought. “Let us go submit the matter to King Mahāpadma.”
They went to King Mahāpadma and said, “Your Majesty, when we officers of the King of Aṅga were collecting tributes and taxes, Prince Bimbisāra stopped us from doing so. Shall we collect them or not?”
“Gentlemen, the prince doesn’t understand the situation. Continue to collect tributes and taxes as you have done before.”
They had begun their collection again when Prince Bimbisāra spotted them on their way back and said, “Gentlemen, have I not already prohibited you from collecting tributes and taxes? Why are you collecting them again? You are to desist. Fail to desist and I shall close the borders.”
Frightened, they thought, “The prince is dangerous and ruthless. In time he may pose a serious risk to us. We must go warn the King of Aṅga.”
They went before the King of Aṅga and said, “Your Majesty, as officers of the court, we were collecting tributes and taxes on your behalf when King Mahāpadma’s son, Prince Bimbisāra, stopped us. If Your Majesty [S.2.b] ignores the prince’s actions, he may, in time, pose a serious risk to us.”
Then they spoke in verse:
The King of Aṅga sent a letter to King Mahāpadma: “Send Prince Bimbisāra with his sword hung from his neck—or prepare your pyre and shroud, for I myself will come!”
King Mahāpadma heard this letter read and was troubled. Head in hands, he sat and sat, absorbed in thought. Then he summoned Prince Bimbisāra and said, “Son, why did you stop the King of Aṅga’s officers from collecting tributes and taxes? They have sent me a letter expressing their anger.”
“Your Majesty, why do we pay tribute and taxes to him?”
“Son, we are tributaries.”
“If the King of Aṅga is an anointed a kṣatriya king and we too are anointed kṣatriya kings, why do we offer tribute and taxes to him? Give me an army of just four divisions, Your Majesty, and I will meet the King of Aṅga in battle.”
King Mahāpadma then sent a message to the King of Aṅga, saying, “You had best hope all the power, forces, will, and authority you possess do not fail you!”
The King of Aṅga found this message intolerable and commanded his ministers, “Gentlemen, lay waste to those lands! Call up the four branches of the armed forces.”
Having called up the four branches of the armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—they began to lay waste to the land of Magadha. The people of Magadha sent a message to King Mahāpadma, saying, “Your Majesty, the King of Aṅga has called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and is laying waste to the lands of Magadha.”
King Mahāpadma was troubled by this news and, head in hands, sat and sat, absorbed in thought. He summoned Prince Bimbisāra and gave him charge over the four branches of the armed forces. Prince Bimbisāra gathered the five hundred ministers’ sons and said, “Gentlemen, what if I were to meet the King of Aṅga in battle? What would you do?”
“Prince, your struggle shall be our struggle!” they responded.
Then they said in verse:
Prince Bimbisāra said, “Now you must do all you can to protect me.”
“Whatever Your Majesty’s plight may be, that too shall be ours. Wherever Your Majesty’s foot may fall, there shall we bow our heads.”
The four branches of the armed forces were then called up and they set out from Rājagṛha. When King Mahāpadma, who sat shut up in his upper citadel surrounded by his council, saw them depart, he asked his ministers, “Gentlemen, whose army is this?”
“Your Majesty, it is Prince Bimbisāra’s.”
“Gentlemen! It is awesome to behold!”
Hence, the prince was named and became known as Bimbisāra of the Army. Some knew him as Bimbisāra of the Guilds while some knew him as Bimbisāra of the Army.
Prince Bimbisāra said to the five hundred sons of the ministers, “Gentlemen, this King of Aṅga is belligerent, ruthless, and his military might is great so we cannot meet him in battle. Therefore, we will sneak in, overrun his exposed camp, and kill him while their guard is down and their armor off.”
They overran the King of Aṅga’s exposed camp while their guard was down and their armor off, sneaking up and killing him. The four branches of the King of Aṅga’s armed forces scattered to the four directions. Prince Bimbisāra sent mounted emissaries in the four directions with the message, [S.3.a] “Gentlemen, you are anointed kṣatriya kings, and I too am an anointed kṣatriya king, so return! Gentlemen, I will support you!”
He whom the King of Aṅga left to defend the city of Campā heard how the King of Aṅga had been killed, prompting him to close the gates and take cover within the walls of the fortress. When at last Prince Bimbisāra reached Campā, the prince fixed the King of Aṅga’s head onto a long pole and displayed it, saying, “It is I who has brought your lord to this state. Come out immediately and I shall look favorably upon you. Fail to appear and you too will soon find yourself in this state.”
It distressed the steward of Campā to hear this, and he thought of this verse:
With that thought he hung his sword from his neck in surrender and came out.
With the King of Aṅga slain, Campā fell into Prince Bimbisāra’s hands, at which point he sent a message to King Mahāpadma, saying, “Your Majesty, I have slain the King of Aṅga and Campā is now in my hands. Your Majesty, tell me what else needs to be done and I shall see to it.”
Pleased, King Mahāpadma sent Prince Bimbisāra a parasol, a turban, and a coronet with the message, “Son, you must take the reins of power there. I, for my part, will assume the reins of power here.”
And so Prince Bimbisāra assumed the reins of power. Under him, the kingdom prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people.
Once King Mahāpadma’s time had come, the ministers of Rājagṛha sent a message to King Bimbisāra, saying, “Your Majesty, your father’s time has come.” In a great coronation ceremony, the ministers of Rājagṛha and Magadha granted him sovereignty over the lands of Aṅga and Magadha.
Under King Bimbisāra’s rule, the kingdoms of Aṅga and Magadha prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people. He completely pacified conflict, aggressors, and enemies from without as well as disturbances from within. He rid the land of brigands, thieves, famine, and illness, and brought a wealth of rice, sugar cane, cattle, and buffalo; thus the just Dharma king established a just kingdom.
There was a young brahmin who, desiring and in search of esoteric instruction, left the Middle Country and went to the South, where there was a brahmin to whom the Vedas and the limbs of the Vedas had been entrusted, who had been a teacher to brahmins living in a country to the south.
The young brahmin went to see this teacher of brahmins. Serene, the young brahmin bowed his head calmly and sat off to one side. The brahmin teacher warmly greeted him with words of welcome, and asked, “Young brahmin, where have you come from and what do you desire?”
“I hail from the Middle Country and I seek to serve at the feet of a preceptor.”
“Why?”
“So that I may study the Vedas.”
“Excellent, my son. You should do just that, for that is a brahmin’s duty.”
And so, the young brahmin began to study the Vedas with the teacher of brahmins.
The brahmins’ students were in the habit, when not occupied with their studies, of going to the riverbank to bathe, visiting the city, or collecting wood for use in fire pūjas.
Once, when not occupied with their studies, they went to collect wood for fire pūjas. On the way they had the following conversation. “Sons of Kutsa, sons of Vātsa, sons of Śāṇḍili, sons of Bhāradvāja, sons of the Five, sons of the Further Five. To begin with, let us share where we come from, from which land we hail.”
“I am from the East,” one young brahmin responded.
“I am from the South,” said another.
“I am from the West.”
“I am from the North.”
The young brahmin then said, “I am from the Middle Country.”
To him they said, [S.3.b] “Sir! We have seen and heard of all those other countries, but have neither seen nor heard of the Middle Country.”
And then they added this verse:
“Young brahmin,” they asked, “what is the Middle Country like?”
“Gentlemen, the Middle Country is the best of all lands, abounding in rice, sugar cane, cattle, and buffalo, thronging with hundreds of honest women and filled with upstanding men, devoid of foreign savages, and guided by learned men. The river Gaṅgā, bountiful, meritorious, auspicious, and clean, flows through this famed land, irrigating both shores. At one point, where sages are known to gather, the river flows through eighteen bends. There, sages seek to bodily rise to the heavens through their practice of austerities.”
“Young brahmin, having met you, we have another question. Do you have men counted as learned in the Middle Country?”
“Gentlemen, from the first did I not say, ‘Gentlemen, the Middle Country is filled with upstanding men, devoid of foreign savages, and guided by learned men’?”
“Young brahmin, you did say that. Young brahmin, are there any in the Middle Country like our preceptor, a bull among teachers?”
“Gentlemen, in the Middle Country, the teachers are such that our teacher could not even look them in the face, so eloquently do they speak, so wise are they.”
On hearing the young brahmin speak so highly of the Middle Country, they were moved by the desire to visit it. The young brahmins then went off to collect wood for use in fire pūjas. Bearing their loads of wood, they came to the house in which the teacher of brahmins lived. On arriving, they set their loads of wood off to one side, went to him, and said, “Preceptor, please listen. The young brahmin from the Middle Country speaks so highly of it that we are moved by the desire to visit.”
The brahmin said, “Boys, would you visit every place of which you hear? Since you seem to derive so much pleasure from hearing of other countries, I would suggest you not visit those places you hear about.”
“Preceptor, according to this young brahmin, in the Middle Country the teachers are such that you, our teacher, could not even look them in the face, so eloquently do they speak, so wise are they.”
“My sons, do I say I am the one and only teacher on this earth, that there are no other teachers? After all, since the earth contains many gems, its surface is covered with one beauty after another.”
“We will see that country yet, Preceptor, if only for a short while. We will bathe on the banks of the river, we will serve the bull among teachers, we will defeat opponents, we will make a name for ourselves and find our fortune, too. We will go to the Middle Country.”
As the brahmin was attached to his students and his circle of students was small, he said to the young brahmins, “In that case, my sons, let us gather our hides, bast robes, staffs, water jugs, ladles, and bowls and go to the Middle Country.”
Having collected their things, the brahmin set off with the young brahmins for the Middle Country. Along the way, he defeated an opponent in debate, and then bound him to his chariot. He poured ashes from a pot on another’s head. Another steered clear of him like a crow does an archery range. Another received him with parasols, victory banners, and standards. Another made a pledge to become his student. As he went, he vanquished one opponent after another in villages, cities, towns, marketplaces, and hamlets until he reached Rājagṛha. [S.4.a]
The brahmin thought, “Why bother pulling off the branches, petals, and leaves while leaving the root? Since all worthy opponents and anyone counted as learned will be close to the king, it is the king I shall see.”
With that, the brahmin went to see King Bimbisāra. On arriving, he wished King Bimbisāra success and long life, took a place off to one side, and addressed him: “Your Majesty, from my guru I have received a few teachings. And so I seek to settle a matter in debate with an opponent in Your Majesty’s presence.”
The king asked his ministers, “Gentlemen, are there any opponents in my kingdom capable of settling a matter in debate with this brahmin?”
“Your Majesty, in the village of Nālada there is a brahmin known as Māṭhara who has been entrusted with the Vedas and the limbs of the Vedas. With blazing intelligence, this capable man illuminates his own assertions and smashes those of others. He has put together a work known as Māṭhara’s Treatise.”
“Summon Master Māṭhara.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
Māṭhara received the summons and went to see King Bimbisāra. On arrival, he wished King Bimbisāra success and long life then took a place off to one side.
The ministers said, “This is the preceptor, Your Majesty.”
The king greeted him with words of welcome and asked, “Preceptor, can you settle a matter in debate in my presence with this brahmin?”
“I, as a capable man, shall do as the king pleases,” replied Māṭhara.
The king ordered the ministers, “Gentlemen, prepare the debate arena and assign the disputants their roles.”
The ministers prepared the debate arena and assigned the disputants their roles. The ministers then prostrated at the king’s feet and asked, “Your Majesty, who would you have defend a position first?”
“This brahmin is a visitor so have him defend a position first.”
Having been assigned to defend a position first, the brahmin proceeded to recite five hundred lines. Māṭhara repeated them and then said, “This position of yours is devoid of logic. It is inconsistent and incoherent.” The brahmin remained silent as Māṭhara pointed out the position’s flaws.
That the brahmin had no confidence to respond was damning and among the reasons he was vanquished. The king asked the ministers, “Gentlemen, who won?”
“Māṭhara, Your Majesty.”
This pleased the king, who straightened up, extended his right arm, and declared, “It is a fine discovery for me to find this bull among teachers in my kingdom!”
He saluted Māṭhara and asked, “Preceptor, where do you live?”
“Your Majesty, in Nālada.”
“Go, and let that village be your victor’s prize.”
Māṭhara was thrilled, delighted, and overjoyed. Surrounded by learned men, he returned to his village. And since the world desires success and distrusts failure, several brahmins pressed their daughters on him in marriage. Māṭhara then took a wife of equal caste and together they played with, took pleasure in, and amused one another. The wife with whom he had played, taken pleasure, and amused himself gave birth to a son with an extraordinarily long torso. Three weeks or twenty-one days after the birth, relatives came and gathered to celebrate his birth in grand style, during which time they chose a name for the boy. The relatives said, “Since this boy has an extraordinarily long torso, he should be named Koṣṭhila (Long Torso).”
The young brahmin was entrusted to eight nursemaids: two to cuddle him, two to breastfeed him, two to change his diapers, and two to play with him. Fortified with milk, curd, butter, ghee, cream, and other nourishing foods, he grew quickly, shooting up like a lotus in a pond. When he was old enough, he was introduced to letters, number names, calculation, counting by hand, how to exclude, to add, and to leave, and to parse until he had mastered reciting. Then, he was instructed in the ways of brahmins: their conduct, ritual purity, and observances; the handling of ashes, the handling of ritual vases, and the handling of sites; hand gestures, turbans, offering praise, and salutations; the Ṛgveda, the Yajurveda, the Sāmaveda, and the Atharvaveda; and a brahmin’s six duties—making fire sacrifices, officiating over fire sacrifices, studying, teaching, giving, and receiving. The Vedas the limbs of the Vedas were entrusted to him, and with his blazing intelligence he could illuminate his own assertions and vanquish those of others.
The wife with whom Māṭhara had played, taken pleasure, and amused himself again gave birth, this time to a girl with eyes like a śārī bird. Three weeks or twenty-one days after the birth, relatives came and gathered to celebrate her birth in grand style, during which time they chose a name for the girl. The relatives said, “Since this girl has eyes like a śārī, this girl should be given the name Śārikā.” [S.4.b] The girl Śārikā was nurtured and grew. Her father taught her how to combine letters into words so she became proficient in reciting.
Later, when the young brahmin Koṣṭhila was debating Śārikā, Śārikā vanquished him and their father said to Koṣṭhila, “Son, if you are a male, how has a female vanquished you? Once I’m gone, the spoils I’ve won in debate will be taken away.”
At that the young brahmin Koṣṭhila, desiring and in search of esoteric instruction, set off from the Middle Country for the South.
There, in a country not his own, lived a brahmin named Tiṣya who was learned in Lokāyata philosophy, a teacher of brahmins to whom the Vedas and the limbs of the Vedas were entrusted.
Koṣṭhila went to see the brahmin Tiṣya. Serene, the young brahmin Koṣṭhila bowed at Tiṣya’s feet and sat off to one side.
Tiṣya warmly greeted Koṣṭhila with words of welcome, asking, “Young brahmin, where have you come from and what do you desire?”
“I hail from the Middle Country and I seek to serve at the feet of the preceptor.”
“The Chapter on Going Forth” is the first of seventeen chapters in The Chapters on Monastic Discipline, a four-volume work that outlines the statutes and procedures that govern life in a Buddhist monastic community. This first chapter traces the development of the rite by which postulants were admitted into the monastic order, from the Buddha Śākyamuni’s informal invitation to “Come, monk,” to the more elaborate “Present Day Rite.” Along the way, the posts of preceptor and instructor are introduced, their responsibilities defined, and a dichotomy between elders and immature novices described. While the heart of the chapter is a transcript of the “Present Day Rite,” the text is interwoven with numerous narrative asides, depicting the spiritual ferment of the north Indian region of Magadha during the Buddha’s lifetime, the follies of untrained and unsupervised apprentices, and the need for a formal system of tutelage.
This translation was carried out from the Tibetan by Robert Miller with the guidance of Geshé Tséwang Nyima. Ven. Lhundup Damchö (Dr. Diana Finnegan) provided her draft translation of the extant Sanskrit portions of this chapter. Dr. Fumi Yao and Maurice Ozaine kindly identified numerous misspellings and mistakes in the glossaries. Both Ven. Damchö and Dr. Yao generously shared their extensive knowledge of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya and furnished invaluable assistance in researching the translation. Matthew Wuethrich served as style consultant and editor.
The translation was completed under the patronage and supervision of 84000: Translating the Words of the Buddha.
The generous sponsorship of Zhou Tian Yu, Chen Yi Qin, Irene Tillman, Archie Kao, and Zhou Xun, which helped make the work on this translation possible, is most gratefully acknowledged.
According to traditional accounts, after the Buddha had entered parinirvāṇa, the elder Kāśyapa proposed that the Blessed One’s teachings be recited for posterity. During the rains retreat at Rājagṛha that followed, Kāśyapa asked the venerable Upāli to recall the Buddha’s pronouncements on monastic discipline and the venerable Ānanda to recite the Buddha’s discourses. One hundred years later, a second council was convened at Vaiśālī to resolve disagreements that had arisen in relation to the code of monastic discipline, or vinaya.
Shortly after the Second Council, the monastic community split into two factions, “the Elders” (Skt. Sthavira) and “the Majority” (Skt. Mahāsāṃghika). In time, for reasons of discipline, doctrine, or geography, the two factions branched further into eighteen schools. Among these were the Mūlasarvāstivādins.
Although there is, as yet, no scholarly consensus on the exact origins of this school, we know the Mūlasarvāstivādins were well established in northwest India, between Mathura, Kashmir, and Gandhāra, during the Kuṣāṇa Kingdom’s zenith in the second and third centuries
The Mūlasarvāstivādins’ monastic code is comprised of several texts, which Tibetans, the foremost inheritors of this tradition, group into the “Four Scriptural Divisions of the Vinaya”: the Vinayavastu, Vinayavibhaṅga, Kṣudrakavastu, and Uttaragrantha. The Vinayavastu details the statutes and procedures that govern the institutions of monastic community life. The Vinayavibhaṅga narrates the circumstances that prompted the formulation of each of the monastic vows given in the Prātimokṣasūtra. The Kṣudrakavastu discusses miscellaneous minutiae of monastic life under eight headings. The Uttaragrantha, in its complete form, contains eleven texts including Upāli’s questions to the Buddha regarding monastic discipline, along with the Vinītaka, the Nidāna, and the Kathāvastu.
Though similar in general outline to most of the other extant monastic codes, the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya is more eclectic in content and character. It is no dry legal code or mere vade mecum for disciplinary measures. Instead it is a rich bricolage of stories, discourses, ritual handbooks, community guidelines, and catalogs of monastic discipline, with passages and texts from a diverse range of genres like sūtra, avadāna, and nidāna.
The first of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya’s four Scriptural Divisions is the Vinayavastu. A partial translation into Chinese, containing at least seven of the chapters, was made by the Chinese monk Yijing, in the late seventh to early eighth centuries
For centuries the Vinayavastu, and indeed much of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, was known only through these Tibetan and Chinese translations, or from thematic excerpts like the Divyāvadāna, and all Sanskrit manuscripts of the full text appeared to have disappeared without a trace. Then, in 1931, a cowherd from a small village near Gilgit dug up one of many mounds dotting his community’s pasturelands. He was looking for wood, which could sometimes be found at such sites, but instead stumbled upon a large chamber littered with coin-like clay tablets. Thinking he had disturbed a grave, he grew scared and fled. Word of his find spread quickly and before long a more intrepid local went in search of treasure. What he found was a wooden chest of Buddhist manuscripts dating from the fifth or sixth century
Although large portions of the Vinayavastu in Sanskrit were thus recovered in the Gilgit manuscripts, the ninth-century Tibetan translation remains the only complete version known today, and it is primarily on the basis of the Tibetan that the translations to be published here have been, and are being, made. The present translation is of the first chapter, and subsequent chapters will appear in due course.
The Vinayavastu is similar in its themes to the Theravādin Khandhaka (Skt. Skandhaka) still extant in Pali. Both detail the communal rites, formal procedures, and disciplinary measures that give order and coherence to the monastic community as well as the types of clothes, food, shelter, and medicine allowed community members. To appropriate Prebish’s useful explanation of the differences between the Skandhaka and Sūtravibhaṅga and apply it here by way of analogy, while the Vinayavibhaṅga describes the vows that govern individual behavior, the Vinayavastu spells out the rules that govern communal behavior. This communal emphasis is immediately apparent when one considers the contents of the Vinayavastu’s seventeen chapters:
1. The Pravrajyāvastu (The Chapter on Going Forth) details the development of the rite by which one goes forth and becomes a Buddhist monk.
2. The Poṣadhavastu (The Chapter on the Restoration Rite) describes the twice-monthly poṣadha ceremony.
3. The Pravāraṇavastu (The Chapter on Lifting Restrictions) describes the pravāraṇa ceremony in which restrictions adopted for the rains retreat are lifted, marking the end of the rains retreat.
4. The Varṣāvastu (The Chapter on the Rains) describes the timing and procedures for the annual rains retreat.
5. The Carmavastu (The Chapter on Leather) details the rules regarding the use of leather hides for clothing, footwear, bedding, and seating.
6. The Bhaiṣajyavastu (The Chapter on Medicines) discusses the medicines allowed monastics, such as ghee, sesame oil, honey, and molasses; what monastics should not consume, such as human flesh; and related subjects, such as how medicine should be stored, under what circumstances monastics are allowed to cook for themselves, and how to respond to a hostile doctor.
7. The Cīvaravastu (The Chapter on Robes) describes the types of material suitable to be turned into robes, such as silk, cotton, wool, linen, hemp, dugūla, koṭampa, and Aparāntin cloth, and presents specifications about the shape and form of those robes.
8. The Kaṭhinavastu (The Chapter on Turning Cloth into Robes) describes the rules regulating the acceptance of cloth and turning it into robes.
9. The Kauśāmbakavastu (The Chapter on the Monks of Kauśāmbī) outlines the procedures adopted to arbitrate disputes and allows for expulsion from the saṅgha community. These procedures were formulated in the wake of a major dispute that arose when the monks of Kauśāmbī expelled a group of monks from Vaiśālī.
10. The Karmavastu (The Chapter on Formal Acts of the Saṅgha) gives a short summary of the one hundred and one different official acts that require the saṅgha community’s sanction. These acts all fall into one of three categories depending on the procedure needed for ratification: acts of motion alone require only a motion; acts whose second member is a motion require a motion followed by the statement of the act; and acts whose fourth member is a motion require a motion followed by the statement of the act, repeated three times.
11. The Pāṇḍulohitakavastu (The Chapter on a Group of Troublesome Monks) details the five types of disciplinary acts that may be imposed on intransigent monastics, such as censure, chastening, expulsion, reconciliation, and suspension. Its name derives from the site of a dispute in which quarrelsome monks refused to admit to their guilt.
12. The Pudgalavastu (The Chapter on Types of Persons) details appropriate and inappropriate times for the confession of breaches in discipline.
13. The Pārivāsikavastu (The Chapter on Penitents) describes how to discipline, through the imposition of probations and penances, a monk who has incurred a saṅgha remnant offense. This chapter also allows for such a monk’s reinstatement as a full member of the community upon successful completion of a probation and penance.
14. The Poṣadhasthāpanavastu (The Chapter on the Suspension of the Restoration Rite) describes the circumstances in which the restoration rite may be suspended and details the restrictions on who is allowed to participate in the restoration.
15. The Śayanāsanavastu (The Chapter on Shelter) discusses the types of shelter suitable for monastics, such as temples, multi-story buildings, verandas, sheds, wooden huts, earthen and rock caves, grass huts, and so on.
16. The Adhikaraṇavastu (The Chapter on Disputes) discusses the seven means to resolve disputes that arise from disagreements over the Buddha’s teachings, reproaches regarding another monk’s conduct, offenses, or acts of saṅgha.
17. The Saṅghabhedavastu (The Chapter on Schism in the Saṅgha) narrates at length the Buddha’s youth, awakening, and ministry, as well as the schism prompted by Devadatta.
The above are but summaries of each chapter’s ostensible themes. In several cases, most notably the Bhaiṣajyavastu and the Saṅghabhedavastu, avadāna narratives and important events in the Buddha’s life figure far more prominently than any discussion of communal guidelines on medicine, schisms, or the like. Those interested in detailed summaries of each chapter can find them in Csoma de Körös’s Analysis of the Dulva, Banerjee’s Sarvāstivāda Literature, and Dutt’s introductions to his Gilgit Manuscripts. For now, suffice it to say that the Vinayavastu has the same eclectic make-up that scholars have come to associate with the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya in general, and that distinguishes it from the other extant monastic codes.
The first chapter of the Vinayavastu, translated here, is “The Chapter on Going Forth.” It describes how the rite of going forth, the formal rejection of household life and entry into the Buddhist order of renunciants, went from a simple and open invitation extended by the Buddha in person to an elaborate rite with admission criteria that could be performed by any monk with sufficient knowledge and reliability.
The chapter can be broadly divided into thirds. The first third of the text (“Śāriputra”) tells the story of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana’s spiritual search. It provides the historical background for the rise of the Buddhist order against a backdrop of other renunciant orders active in the eastern Gangetic basin in the fifth century
Throughout these three sections a number of important themes can be discerned: the opposition between śramaṇa ascetics and brāhmaṇa householders, the existence of a fecund religious scene at the time of the Buddha, the need for official procedures and positions as the Buddhist monastic community grew from an informal group of followers into a spiritual corporation, the importance of a monastic apprenticeship, and the recognition that some people are not suited to life as a Buddhist renunciant.
“The Chapter on Going Forth” begins in earnest with the story of how Upatiṣya and Kolita came to join the Buddhist order. These two, under the names Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana, would go on to become the foremost of the Buddha’s disciples. But to begin with they are just young brahmins, well-schooled in Vedic learning and assured of bright futures. In time Upatiṣya proves himself to be a brilliant interpreter of the Vedas, while Kolita, a talented teacher in his own right, is expected to succeed his father as royal priest to the King of Rājagṛha. Though each hears of the other’s reputation from their young brahmin students, they do not meet until the feast of the nāga kings Giri and Valguka, where they recognize one another as kindred spirits. After securing their parents’ consent, they forego their given destinies and set off in search of a renunciant order to join.
At the time, Rājagṛha and its surroundings are teeming with renunciant orders, and the two spiritual seekers quickly secure audiences with six of the leading tīrthika teachers. The pair questions each teacher about his practice and philosophy, and each is found to teach a ruinous path and rejected. Eventually Upatiṣya and Kolita come across the teacher Sañjayin who, they are told, has “withdrawn into seclusion.” Duly impressed, they are won over and join his order upon hearing his philosophy—that “the Dharma is truth and nonviolence; the peaceful, ageless, immortal, and unwaning state is Brahman.” Before long, however, Sañjayin passes away and the two move on, bringing the first section to a conclusion.
On first encounter this section is disorienting. It begins by meandering through an account of the struggle between the kingdoms of Aṅga and Magadha, with a brief interlude describing the Buddha’s birth, before tracing the rise of two brahmins named Māṭhara and Tiṣya. Only after thirty pages of war and genealogy do we meet the two main protagonists. To appreciate the purpose of this long prologue, one must step back to view the Vinayavastu as a whole and understand that interwoven through the text’s seventeen chapters is one of the most extensive biographies of the Buddha available in any language. These first episodes, then, are more than mere diversion; they are the first installments of an epic tale that takes shape over the Vinayavastu’s 2,500 pages.
From a literary perspective, this first chapter exemplifies the Vinayavastu’s composite nature, where history sits embedded between parable and technical manual. While we know almost nothing about by whom, how, or why this text was compiled in this way, this synthesis is not likely to be ad hoc or random. Rather, diverse elements are drawn in and made to serve a range of purposes. The tale of the six tīrthika teachers, for example, fulfills narrative, partisan, and historical ends. Narratively, it explains how Upatiṣya and Kolita eventually came to the Buddha’s order. In its telling, it emphasizes their exacting standards so that their rejection of each teacher’s philosophy and eventual embrace of the Buddha’s implies the superiority of the Buddhist order.
Historically speaking, it surveys the spiritual landscape of Greater Magadha at the time of the Buddha. Though the text does not emphasize the connections, scholars have linked several of the tīrthika teachers to the major non-Vedic orders of the day: Jñātiputra is better known as Mahāvīra, leader of the Nirgrantha Jain order and the last Jain Tīrthankara; Gośālīputra was a prominent Ājīvika leader; Ajita may have been an important Cārvāka teacher; and Pūraṇa has been called the foremost of five hundred Ājīvikas, though the philosophy attributed to him here resembles neither Gośālīputra’s fatalism nor that of the Digambara Jains whom Buddhists sometimes referred to as Ājīvikas.
The second third of the text describes the way the admission rite changed as the Buddha’s renunciant order grew. A short interlude under the heading “Querying Upasena” then spells out the terms of a new monk’s apprenticeship to a more senior monk and provides criteria to determine when a monk is sufficiently established in his ordination to live as a teacher and act as a preceptor or instructor himself.
Those familiar with the modern-day ordination rite may be surprised by the original rite’s simplicity. Postulants, personified by Upatiṣya and Kolita in this chapter, would ask the Buddha for permission to join his order. With the words, “Come, monks. Live the holy life,” the Buddha admitted them into his order and ordained them monks. This simple invitation is known as the “ordination by saying, ‘Monk, come.’ ”
But as the Buddha’s fame grew, it became less practicable for the Buddha himself to accept and ordain every postulant. While the rite itself was simple enough, anyone wanting to go forth had to see the Buddha in person, which for some meant a long and arduous journey. When the Buddha heard that a postulant coming to see him had died on the way, he permitted the saṅgha to admit new members and ordain them.
The monks, not knowing how to admit and ordain postulants, asked the Blessed One about it, and he responded by prescribing a short but formalized rite now known as the “Early Rite.” The new rite required postulants to request the saṅgha three times, after which an officiant monk would move that the saṅgha act on the request. By remaining silent, the saṅgha signaled its assent, and the postulant was formally admitted to the order and ordained a monk.
Since the Early Rite permitted monks to accept new members but made no provisions for training them, the new rite solved a logistical problem but did nothing to address an equally, if not more, pressing problem: helping new members establish themselves in a new code of conduct and a new way of life. Consequently, some new monks had no sense of decorum and were poorly behaved. Local brahmins and householders even complained of being harassed by them. The new monks would come to town to beg alms, disheveled and improperly dressed, speaking shrilly in loud voices, behaving wildly, and demanding they be fed.
When a monk fell ill and died for lack of someone to nurse him, the elder monks felt obliged to take action. Such gross neglect of one’s fellow brahmacārin was too much and the saṅgha asked the Buddha to intervene. After some consideration, the Buddha created the positions of preceptor and instructor and charged the monks in those roles with the responsibility of ordaining and instructing new monks.
But again the monks found themselves in a quandary, not knowing how to admit and ordain postulants, and so again they asked the Buddha. This time, the Buddha prescribed a longer and more formal rite of admission and ordination, with stricter acceptance criteria and a novel division of the community into lay vow holders, novices, and monks. This rite pertains to the present day and is known in the tradition as the “Present Day Rite.”
The Present Day Rite codified a hierarchy in the Buddhist renunciant order, through which a postulant gains admission into the order, is inducted into the novitiate, and is ordained a monk. An outline of the ritual found in the text is given in the appendix, “An Outline of the Ordination Rite.”
The final third of the text goes back in time to examine the circumstances that prompted the introduction of a screening process for postulants. The exclusionary criteria, deemed “impediments to ordination,” are all explained by origin stories (Tib. gleng gzhi, Skt. nidāna), as exemplified by the chapter “Creatures.”
This chapter, by far the longest in the section, tells the story of Saṅgharakṣita, ostensibly to explain why creatures—specifically nāgas that can assume human form—are not allowed to join the Buddhist renunciant order. Several lesser origin stories, explaining, for instance, what a monk administrator can be expected to account for and why a monk should not teach without first being asked to do so, are enfolded into the greater story of Saṅgharakṣita and the nāga monk.
This section also contains several avadāna, most notably in the story of how a shape-shifting nāga gained the karma to become a monk. Avadāna are didactic stories (or “karmic histories”) that explain a given circumstance in light of the past act that brought it about. Other examples of avadāna from this section include what happens when monks fight over food, deface saṅgha property, and withhold food and drink from other monks.
The layering does not end there, either. A Vedic seer’s sarcastic remark about Buddhist monks’ propensity to preach at the slightest provocation becomes the pretext for Saṅgharakṣita’s teaching the Nagaropama Sūtra, while Saṅgharakṣita’s efforts to establish the Buddha’s teachings in the land of nāgas becomes a chance to discuss the Sūtra Piṭaka’s “Four Divisions of the Discourses.”
The intertwining of genres seen in Saṅgharakṣita’s story is probably the best example in the present chapter of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya’s bricolage composition and the way stories, sūtras, and catalogs of monastic discipline are woven into a narrative meant to both instruct and inspire.
In 1983, Helmut Eimer published a critical edition of the Tibetan, and a study in German, of “The Chapter on Going Forth” but did not attempt a translation.
Soon afterwards, in a series of four articles, Claus Vogel and Klaus Wille published a carefully revised edition of the Sanskrit fragments of the Pravrajyāvastu recovered in Gilgit. They scrupulously annotated the editorial process to produce an edition that, in contrast to earlier Sanskrit editions, is free of reconstructions and indicates clearly the uncertainties created by damage to, or missing portions of, the original manuscripts. They also incorporated further fragments of the manuscript that had not been definitively identified at the time previous Sanskrit editions were prepared. The fragments fall into two groups: those from the beginning of the chapter (Sanskrit folios 2–12), and those toward the end (folios 43–53). Together these Sanskrit fragments correspond to about one hundred of the 261 pages of the chapter in the Degé Kangyur. To place the fragments in their proper context, Vogel also translated relevant sections of the text, from the Tibetan for the portions corresponding to folios 2–12, and from the Sanskrit for the portions corresponding to folios 43–53.
In the present translation, the exact correlations between the Sanskrit and the Tibetan are noted in the form of folio references to Vogel and Wille’s edition (folio numbers preceded by S) as well as the usual folio references to the Tibetan of the Degé (preceded by F).
Andy Rotman has translated from Sanskrit many of the avadāna narratives to be found in the Divyāvadāna, a collection of such stories compiled in Nepal and dating probably to the seventeenth century. The individual stories in the Divyāvadāna very closely match equivalent passages in the Vinayavastu or, in some cases, other sections of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. In the present first chapter, the only parallels to the Divyāvadāna are the narratives of Saṅgharakṣita and the shape-shifting nāga, which can be found translated in Rotman’s second volume. There are several other translations of the same passage from the Divyāvadāna.
One of the difficulties in translating vinaya texts lies in finding appropriate English equivalents for the language of Buddhist monasticism. In several instances we have borrowed terms from Christianity such as “ordination” and “monk,” even though they may only bear a superficial similarity to their Buddhist analogs. Another difficulty lies in the historical fact that the language of Buddhist renunciation was adapted from a body of terms and ideas common among Greater Magadhan ascetic communities in the sixth and fifth centuries
First and foremost is the term pravrajyā, which in its widest application referred to the act of “going forth,” that is, renouncing the settled life of a householder to live as a wandering ascetic. In pre-Buddhist India, the act of going forth often took a ritual form and was made dramatically visible “by shaving off the hair and beard and laying aside the layman’s dress, to cover oneself with rags, with bark or hemp, or to wander in the nude.” In the present translation, we render pravrajyā (Tib. rab tu ’byung ba) as “to go forth” (or, in a small number of cases, “to join the renunciant order”) while one who goes forth (Tib. rab byung) is a “renunciant.”
In the Pravrajyāvastu, we meet several Vedic and non-Vedic ascetics who have undertaken pravrajyā. Some, such as Gośālīputra and the Lokāyata ascetic Dīrghanakha, are described as “wandering mendicants” or parivrājaka, but those who join the Buddha’s order are described as śramaṇa, translated here as “ascetic.” The term śramaṇa, from the verbal root śram meaning “to toil,” was used to describe non-Vedic ascetics, especially Buddhist and Jain ones. In our text, it is applied repeatedly to both the Buddha and his followers, as when an older man posing as a monk challenges the authenticity of the Buddha’s ordained status by asking, “Who is the śramaṇa Gautama’s preceptor?” and in the phrase “the śramaṇa sons of the Śākya.”
The Buddha’s followers accepted this as an appropriate designation, as when Śāriputra says to Buddharakṣita, “It is those who issue from people like you that become my śramaṇa attendants.” As the Buddha himself also frequently referred to his community as śramaṇa, it is not surprising that the term chosen to describe “novice” śramaṇa was śrāmaṇera , the diminutive form of śramaṇa.
Ascetic sons of the Śākya who ordained were called bhikṣu. This term, too, was used outside the Buddhist tradition. Gautama, the brahmin author of the Gautama Dharmasūtra, gives bhikṣu, meaning “mendicant,” as the third of four lifestyles open to followers of the Vedas. In this context, a mendicant was either an ascetic who relied on alms (partly or fully provided by relatives) or a hermit who had severed all ties with his former worldly life.
Another phrase that points to a shared language among ascetics is the term brahmacaryā, rendered here as “to live the holy life.” This phrase appears repeatedly in this chapter in stock passages, most significantly in the Buddha’s invitation, “Come, monk. Live the holy life,” and in the remark made by those who have attained arhatship: “My births have come to an end, I have lived the holy life, I have done what needed doing, I will know no lives after this one.”
The phrase also figures prominently in Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana’s questions for the six tīrthika teachers: “What is the result of living the holy life? What are its benefits?” Although the exact meaning of the phrase is never spelled out, the commentator Kalyāṇamitra glosses it as a life of “hardships” or “austerities.” Kalyāṇamitra’s interpretation is probably best understood as an explanation of Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana’s assumptions about what it meant to “live the holy life.” For, as a Jain, Jñātiputra would certainly have equated “the holy life” with austerities, but it is not certain whether any of the other five would have. It does, however, seem likely that many of these teachers would have understood “the holy life” to entail celibacy; and that is how the term is now understood in the Buddhist tradition, where a lay vow holder who takes a vow of celibacy is described as a brahmacārin upāsaka (Tib. tshangs spyod dge bsnyen).
Among followers of the Vedas during the Buddha’s lifetime, brahmacaryā referred to a student’s apprenticeship to a teacher. It was expected that a student live “a holy life,” which implied celibacy.
The present translation is based on the Tibetan text in the Degé Kangyur, with reference to the text in other Kangyurs as detailed in the endnotes. Ven. Lhundup Damchö’s draft translation of the extant Sanskrit found in Nalinaksha Dutt’s Gilgit Manuscripts, together with Claus Vogel and Klaus Wille’s revised Sanskrit edition and translation, were used as guides to check for variations between the Tibetan and Sanskrit. Although there are numerous differences between the Tibetan and Sanskrit manuscripts, very few of them bear significantly on the overall understanding of the text. We have chosen to note only the most important divergences and, for the rest, would refer readers to Vogel and Wille’s works.
A great many of our translation choices are based on glosses given by the late eighth-century master Kalyāṇamitra in his Extensive Commentary on The Chapters of Discipline. On the whole, Kalyāṇamitra’s citations mirror the relevant passages from the root text. However, there is enough variation between the root text and his commentary—direct quotations purportedly from the root text which have no correlate in any of the Tibetan redactions, important passages of the root text not glossed in the commentary, differences in key terms—to suggest Kalyāṇamitra may have been working from a different edition of the Vinayavastu than that which was available to the Tibetan translators and their Indian informants. And although it does not bear directly on the present work, it should also be noted that the Tibetan translation of Kalyāṇamitra’s commentary appears to be incomplete. Presumably, Kalyāṇamitra commented on all seventeen chapters of the Vinayavastu, but the Degé, Coné, and Narthang editions of his commentary all end abruptly after the thirteenth fascicle, four pages into his comments on the Vinayavastu’s third chapter, the Pravāraṇāvastu.
The Vinayavastu contains a great deal of repetition. Such repetition ranges in length from short, stock phrases to an entire chapter in which the only change is in the gender of a single character (see “Matricide” and “Patricide”). Aiming to retain the original work’s style and flavor, which may point to its oral origins, in accordance with 84000’s editorial policies we have avoided the temptation to elide these repetitive passages. On the other hand, we have tried in places to help the reader by inserting proper names in places where the original provides only pronouns.
Though technically the present work is the first of the Vinayavastu’s seventeen chapters, we have chosen to break the “chapter” into parts based on the list of contents found in the prologue and those parts into chapters based on the indices found at the start of each section.
In the chapter on the ordination rite itself, the Tibetan text gives a short heading for each part of the ritual at the end of the relevant section. To assist the reader and conform to English typographical norms, we have placed the heading at the start of the relevant section.
In closing, we ask forbearance for whatever mistakes and omissions the translation contains.
While the Bodhisattva was dwelling in the Abode of Tuṣita, the King of Aṅga ruled over the lands of Aṅga. Under his rule, the kingdom prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people. Meanwhile, King Mahāpadma ruled over the lands of Magadha. Under his rule, the kingdom prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people. At times, the King of Aṅga and his armies were dominant. At other times, King Mahāpadma and his armies were dominant.
At a time when the King of Aṅga and his armies were dominant, he called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and laid waste to all of Magadha, save Rājagṛha, before returning.
At a time when King Mahāpadma and his armies were dominant, he too called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and laid waste to all of Aṅga, save Campā, before returning.
At yet another time when the King of Aṅga and his armies were dominant, he again called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and began again to lay waste to the land of Magadha, prompting the people of Magadha to send a message to King Mahāpadma, saying, “Your Majesty, the King of Aṅga has called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and is laying waste to the lands of Magadha.”
When King Mahāpadma heard this, he too called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and rode out to meet the King of Aṅga in battle.
The King of Aṅga captured King Mahāpadma’s entire elephant corps and proceeded to capture the whole of his cavalry, charioteer corps, and infantry. Defeated and frightened, destroyed and conquered, King Mahāpadma retreated. Entering Rājagṛha, he closed the gates and shut himself up within the walls of his fortress.
The King of Aṅga sent an envoy to King Mahāpadma with the message, “It would be good were you to come out. If you do not surrender, and instead take flight into the sky above, I will fell you with a volley of arrows. Tunnel beneath the earth and I will yank you up as if with a hook. Flee to the mountaintops, and even there you shall find no escape.”
King Mahāpadma was unsettled by the message he heard. Head in hands, he sat and sat, absorbed in thought. Then he said to his ministers, “Gentlemen, this King of Aṅga is belligerent, ruthless, and his military might is great. If he gives an order, how can we not obey?”
They spoke in verse:
They then implored him, “Your Majesty, any way you look at it, you must go out!”
King Mahāpadma hung his sword from his neck in surrender and went out, where the King of Aṅga imposed an annual tribute and tax upon him.
While the blessed Bodhisattva was dwelling in the Abode of Tuṣita, he saw five sights and thrice gave notice to the six classes of gods who revel in the desire realm. Assuming an elephant’s appearance, he entered his mother’s womb as the earth shook and this world and all others too were bathed in a vast light more luminous than the glow of the gods of the Thirty-Three. So great was this miraculous manifestation, it was as if the sun and moon shone in the gulf between worlds. So great was its strength that darkness everywhere, even the pitch-black darkness of dark places dark from never knowing the light of the sun and moon, was filled with a vast light. Beings born in those places had never even seen so far as their outstretched hands, yet by this light these beings saw one another and exclaimed, “You there! There are others who have been born here! There are others who have been born here!”
At the same time as the blessed Bodhisattva was born, sons were also born to four great kings in four great city-states. In Rājagṛha the son of King Mahāpadma was born. In Śrāvastī the son of King Arāḍa Brahmadatta was born. In Ujjayinī the son of King Anantanemi was born. In Kauśāmbī the son of King Śatānīka was born.
When the blessed Bodhisattva was born, the entire universe was bathed in a vast light more luminous than the glow of the gods of the Thirty-Three. So great was this miraculous manifestation, it was as if the sun and moon shone in the gulf between worlds. So great was its strength that darkness everywhere, even the pitch-black darkness of dark places dark from never knowing the light of the sun and moon, was filled with a vast light. Beings born in those places had never even seen so far as their outstretched hands, yet by this light these beings saw one another and exclaimed, “You there! There are others who have been born here! There are others who have been born here!”
King Mahāpadma thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit as if by the gold of the rising sun. And as he is the son of Queen Bimbī (Goldie), I shall name this prince Bimbisāra (Essence of Gold).” And so the boy was named Bimbisāra.
King Arāḍa Brahmadatta thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit as if by the light of lights, so I shall name this prince Prasenajit (Supreme Light).” And so the boy was named Prasenajit.
King Śatānīka thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit as if by the rising sun, so I shall name this prince Udayana (Rising).” And so the boy was named Udayana.
King Anantanemi thought, “When my son was born, the world was lit by a brilliant light, so I shall name this prince Pradyota (Brilliant Light).” And so the boy was named Pradyota.
And so each king attributed the light to the birth of his own son. Though each attributed it to his own son, it was not so. For all that occurred, occurred because of the Bodhisattva.
On the very same day that Prince Bimbisāra was born, five hundred sons of five hundred ministers were also born and were given names appropriate to their patrilineage. [S.2.a]
Prince Bimbisāra was entrusted to eight nursemaids: two to cuddle him, two to breastfeed him, two to change his diapers, and two to play with him. Fortified with milk, curd, butter, ghee, cream, and other nourishing foods, he grew quickly, shooting up like a lotus in a pond. When he was old enough, he was introduced to letters, number names, calculation, counting by hand, expenditures, revenues, and deposits. After he finished letters, he became skilled in exegesis, recitation, knowledge, proper conduct, and the way to assess gems, sites, fabrics, woods, elephants, horses, women, and men.
He trained in and mastered the different fields of arts and skills of anointed kṣatriya kings, or a ruler of the realm endowed with the might and vigor to conquer the wide face of the earth, such as riding on the neck of an elephant, riding horseback, charioteering, swordsmanship, archery, advancing, yielding, wielding a hook, throwing a lasso, casting a spear, and how to hold a weapon, march, tie a topknot, slash, quarter, pierce, and strike in five ways—striking from a distance, striking a target using acoustic location, striking a fatal blow, striking without hesitation, and striking forcefully.
These arts and skills were also mastered by the five hundred sons of the five hundred ministers.
Bimbisāra’s father enrolled him in the eighteen guilds, due to which he was named and became known as Bimbisāra of the Guilds.
Later Prince Bimbisāra set out astride an elephant where he saw the King of Aṅga’s officers collecting tributes and taxes, prompting him to inquire of his men, “Gentlemen, for whom are these tributes and taxes being collected?”
“Your Majesty! For the King of Aṅga.”
“What? Will we be offered tribute?”
“No, Your Majesty, we are the ones to offer the tribute.”
“Gentlemen, summon those officers.”
When the officers were summoned, he said, “Gentlemen, the King of Aṅga is crowned and an anointed kṣatriya king. If I too am crowned and an anointed a kṣatriya king, why is it you are collecting tributes and taxes here? I forbid you to collect tributes and taxes from this day forth.”
“The prince fails to appreciate the situation,” they thought. “Let us go submit the matter to King Mahāpadma.”
They went to King Mahāpadma and said, “Your Majesty, when we officers of the King of Aṅga were collecting tributes and taxes, Prince Bimbisāra stopped us from doing so. Shall we collect them or not?”
“Gentlemen, the prince doesn’t understand the situation. Continue to collect tributes and taxes as you have done before.”
They had begun their collection again when Prince Bimbisāra spotted them on their way back and said, “Gentlemen, have I not already prohibited you from collecting tributes and taxes? Why are you collecting them again? You are to desist. Fail to desist and I shall close the borders.”
Frightened, they thought, “The prince is dangerous and ruthless. In time he may pose a serious risk to us. We must go warn the King of Aṅga.”
They went before the King of Aṅga and said, “Your Majesty, as officers of the court, we were collecting tributes and taxes on your behalf when King Mahāpadma’s son, Prince Bimbisāra, stopped us. If Your Majesty [S.2.b] ignores the prince’s actions, he may, in time, pose a serious risk to us.”
Then they spoke in verse:
The King of Aṅga sent a letter to King Mahāpadma: “Send Prince Bimbisāra with his sword hung from his neck—or prepare your pyre and shroud, for I myself will come!”
King Mahāpadma heard this letter read and was troubled. Head in hands, he sat and sat, absorbed in thought. Then he summoned Prince Bimbisāra and said, “Son, why did you stop the King of Aṅga’s officers from collecting tributes and taxes? They have sent me a letter expressing their anger.”
“Your Majesty, why do we pay tribute and taxes to him?”
“Son, we are tributaries.”
“If the King of Aṅga is an anointed a kṣatriya king and we too are anointed kṣatriya kings, why do we offer tribute and taxes to him? Give me an army of just four divisions, Your Majesty, and I will meet the King of Aṅga in battle.”
King Mahāpadma then sent a message to the King of Aṅga, saying, “You had best hope all the power, forces, will, and authority you possess do not fail you!”
The King of Aṅga found this message intolerable and commanded his ministers, “Gentlemen, lay waste to those lands! Call up the four branches of the armed forces.”
Having called up the four branches of the armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—they began to lay waste to the land of Magadha. The people of Magadha sent a message to King Mahāpadma, saying, “Your Majesty, the King of Aṅga has called up the four branches of his armed forces—the elephant corps, the cavalry, the charioteer corps, and the infantry—and is laying waste to the lands of Magadha.”
King Mahāpadma was troubled by this news and, head in hands, sat and sat, absorbed in thought. He summoned Prince Bimbisāra and gave him charge over the four branches of the armed forces. Prince Bimbisāra gathered the five hundred ministers’ sons and said, “Gentlemen, what if I were to meet the King of Aṅga in battle? What would you do?”
“Prince, your struggle shall be our struggle!” they responded.
Then they said in verse:
Prince Bimbisāra said, “Now you must do all you can to protect me.”
“Whatever Your Majesty’s plight may be, that too shall be ours. Wherever Your Majesty’s foot may fall, there shall we bow our heads.”
The four branches of the armed forces were then called up and they set out from Rājagṛha. When King Mahāpadma, who sat shut up in his upper citadel surrounded by his council, saw them depart, he asked his ministers, “Gentlemen, whose army is this?”
“Your Majesty, it is Prince Bimbisāra’s.”
“Gentlemen! It is awesome to behold!”
Hence, the prince was named and became known as Bimbisāra of the Army. Some knew him as Bimbisāra of the Guilds while some knew him as Bimbisāra of the Army.
Prince Bimbisāra said to the five hundred sons of the ministers, “Gentlemen, this King of Aṅga is belligerent, ruthless, and his military might is great so we cannot meet him in battle. Therefore, we will sneak in, overrun his exposed camp, and kill him while their guard is down and their armor off.”
They overran the King of Aṅga’s exposed camp while their guard was down and their armor off, sneaking up and killing him. The four branches of the King of Aṅga’s armed forces scattered to the four directions. Prince Bimbisāra sent mounted emissaries in the four directions with the message, [S.3.a] “Gentlemen, you are anointed kṣatriya kings, and I too am an anointed kṣatriya king, so return! Gentlemen, I will support you!”
He whom the King of Aṅga left to defend the city of Campā heard how the King of Aṅga had been killed, prompting him to close the gates and take cover within the walls of the fortress. When at last Prince Bimbisāra reached Campā, the prince fixed the King of Aṅga’s head onto a long pole and displayed it, saying, “It is I who has brought your lord to this state. Come out immediately and I shall look favorably upon you. Fail to appear and you too will soon find yourself in this state.”
It distressed the steward of Campā to hear this, and he thought of this verse:
With that thought he hung his sword from his neck in surrender and came out.
With the King of Aṅga slain, Campā fell into Prince Bimbisāra’s hands, at which point he sent a message to King Mahāpadma, saying, “Your Majesty, I have slain the King of Aṅga and Campā is now in my hands. Your Majesty, tell me what else needs to be done and I shall see to it.”
Pleased, King Mahāpadma sent Prince Bimbisāra a parasol, a turban, and a coronet with the message, “Son, you must take the reins of power there. I, for my part, will assume the reins of power here.”
And so Prince Bimbisāra assumed the reins of power. Under him, the kingdom prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people.
Once King Mahāpadma’s time had come, the ministers of Rājagṛha sent a message to King Bimbisāra, saying, “Your Majesty, your father’s time has come.” In a great coronation ceremony, the ministers of Rājagṛha and Magadha granted him sovereignty over the lands of Aṅga and Magadha.
Under King Bimbisāra’s rule, the kingdoms of Aṅga and Magadha prospered and thrived, crops were bountiful and the land teemed with animals and people. He completely pacified conflict, aggressors, and enemies from without as well as disturbances from within. He rid the land of brigands, thieves, famine, and illness, and brought a wealth of rice, sugar cane, cattle, and buffalo; thus the just Dharma king established a just kingdom.
There was a young brahmin who, desiring and in search of esoteric instruction, left the Middle Country and went to the South, where there was a brahmin to whom the Vedas and the limbs of the Vedas had been entrusted, who had been a teacher to brahmins living in a country to the south.
The young brahmin went to see this teacher of brahmins. Serene, the young brahmin bowed his head calmly and sat off to one side. The brahmin teacher warmly greeted him with words of welcome, and asked, “Young brahmin, where have you come from and what do you desire?”
“I hail from the Middle Country and I seek to serve at the feet of a preceptor.”
“Why?”
“So that I may study the Vedas.”
“Excellent, my son. You should do just that, for that is a brahmin’s duty.”
And so, the young brahmin began to study the Vedas with the teacher of brahmins.
The brahmins’ students were in the habit, when not occupied with their studies, of going to the riverbank to bathe, visiting the city, or collecting wood for use in fire pūjas.
Once, when not occupied with their studies, they went to collect wood for fire pūjas. On the way they had the following conversation. “Sons of Kutsa, sons of Vātsa, sons of Śāṇḍili, sons of Bhāradvāja, sons of the Five, sons of the Further Five. To begin with, let us share where we come from, from which land we hail.”
“I am from the East,” one young brahmin responded.
“I am from the South,” said another.
“I am from the West.”
“I am from the North.”
The young brahmin then said, “I am from the Middle Country.”
To him they said, [S.3.b] “Sir! We have seen and heard of all those other countries, but have neither seen nor heard of the Middle Country.”
And then they added this verse:
“Young brahmin,” they asked, “what is the Middle Country like?”
“Gentlemen, the Middle Country is the best of all lands, abounding in rice, sugar cane, cattle, and buffalo, thronging with hundreds of honest women and filled with upstanding men, devoid of foreign savages, and guided by learned men. The river Gaṅgā, bountiful, meritorious, auspicious, and clean, flows through this famed land, irrigating both shores. At one point, where sages are known to gather, the river flows through eighteen bends. There, sages seek to bodily rise to the heavens through their practice of austerities.”
“Young brahmin, having met you, we have another question. Do you have men counted as learned in the Middle Country?”
“Gentlemen, from the first did I not say, ‘Gentlemen, the Middle Country is filled with upstanding men, devoid of foreign savages, and guided by learned men’?”
“Young brahmin, you did say that. Young brahmin, are there any in the Middle Country like our preceptor, a bull among teachers?”
“Gentlemen, in the Middle Country, the teachers are such that our teacher could not even look them in the face, so eloquently do they speak, so wise are they.”
On hearing the young brahmin speak so highly of the Middle Country, they were moved by the desire to visit it. The young brahmins then went off to collect wood for use in fire pūjas. Bearing their loads of wood, they came to the house in which the teacher of brahmins lived. On arriving, they set their loads of wood off to one side, went to him, and said, “Preceptor, please listen. The young brahmin from the Middle Country speaks so highly of it that we are moved by the desire to visit.”
The brahmin said, “Boys, would you visit every place of which you hear? Since you seem to derive so much pleasure from hearing of other countries, I would suggest you not visit those places you hear about.”
“Preceptor, according to this young brahmin, in the Middle Country the teachers are such that you, our teacher, could not even look them in the face, so eloquently do they speak, so wise are they.”
“My sons, do I say I am the one and only teacher on this earth, that there are no other teachers? After all, since the earth contains many gems, its surface is covered with one beauty after another.”
“We will see that country yet, Preceptor, if only for a short while. We will bathe on the banks of the river, we will serve the bull among teachers, we will defeat opponents, we will make a name for ourselves and find our fortune, too. We will go to the Middle Country.”
As the brahmin was attached to his students and his circle of students was small, he said to the young brahmins, “In that case, my sons, let us gather our hides, bast robes, staffs, water jugs, ladles, and bowls and go to the Middle Country.”
Having collected their things, the brahmin set off with the young brahmins for the Middle Country. Along the way, he defeated an opponent in debate, and then bound him to his chariot. He poured ashes from a pot on another’s head. Another steered clear of him like a crow does an archery range. Another received him with parasols, victory banners, and standards. Another made a pledge to become his student. As he went, he vanquished one opponent after another in villages, cities, towns, marketplaces, and hamlets until he reached Rājagṛha. [S.4.a]
The brahmin thought, “Why bother pulling off the branches, petals, and leaves while leaving the root? Since all worthy opponents and anyone counted as learned will be close to the king, it is the king I shall see.”
With that, the brahmin went to see King Bimbisāra. On arriving, he wished King Bimbisāra success and long life, took a place off to one side, and addressed him: “Your Majesty, from my guru I have received a few teachings. And so I seek to settle a matter in debate with an opponent in Your Majesty’s presence.”
The king asked his ministers, “Gentlemen, are there any opponents in my kingdom capable of settling a matter in debate with this brahmin?”
“Your Majesty, in the village of Nālada there is a brahmin known as Māṭhara who has been entrusted with the Vedas and the limbs of the Vedas. With blazing intelligence, this capable man illuminates his own assertions and smashes those of others. He has put together a work known as Māṭhara’s Treatise.”
“Summon Master Māṭhara.”
“As you wish, Your Majesty.”
Māṭhara received the summons and went to see King Bimbisāra. On arrival, he wished King Bimbisāra success and long life then took a place off to one side.
The ministers said, “This is the preceptor, Your Majesty.”
The king greeted him with words of welcome and asked, “Preceptor, can you settle a matter in debate in my presence with this brahmin?”
“I, as a capable man, shall do as the king pleases,” replied Māṭhara.
The king ordered the ministers, “Gentlemen, prepare the debate arena and assign the disputants their roles.”
The ministers prepared the debate arena and assigned the disputants their roles. The ministers then prostrated at the king’s feet and asked, “Your Majesty, who would you have defend a position first?”
“This brahmin is a visitor so have him defend a position first.”
Having been assigned to defend a position first, the brahmin proceeded to recite five hundred lines. Māṭhara repeated them and then said, “This position of yours is devoid of logic. It is inconsistent and incoherent.” The brahmin remained silent as Māṭhara pointed out the position’s flaws.
That the brahmin had no confidence to respond was damning and among the reasons he was vanquished. The king asked the ministers, “Gentlemen, who won?”
“Māṭhara, Your Majesty.”
This pleased the king, who straightened up, extended his right arm, and declared, “It is a fine discovery for me to find this bull among teachers in my kingdom!”
He saluted Māṭhara and asked, “Preceptor, where do you live?”
“Your Majesty, in Nālada.”
“Go, and let that village be your victor’s prize.”
Māṭhara was thrilled, delighted, and overjoyed. Surrounded by learned men, he returned to his village. And since the world desires success and distrusts failure, several brahmins pressed their daughters on him in marriage. Māṭhara then took a wife of equal caste and together they played with, took pleasure in, and amused one another. The wife with whom he had played, taken pleasure, and amused himself gave birth to a son with an extraordinarily long torso. Three weeks or twenty-one days after the birth, relatives came and gathered to celebrate his birth in grand style, during which time they chose a name for the boy. The relatives said, “Since this boy has an extraordinarily long torso, he should be named Koṣṭhila (Long Torso).”
The young brahmin was entrusted to eight nursemaids: two to cuddle him, two to breastfeed him, two to change his diapers, and two to play with him. Fortified with milk, curd, butter, ghee, cream, and other nourishing foods, he grew quickly, shooting up like a lotus in a pond. When he was old enough, he was introduced to letters, number names, calculation, counting by hand, how to exclude, to add, and to leave, and to parse until he had mastered reciting. Then, he was instructed in the ways of brahmins: their conduct, ritual purity, and observances; the handling of ashes, the handling of ritual vases, and the handling of sites; hand gestures, turbans, offering praise, and salutations; the Ṛgveda, the Yajurveda, the Sāmaveda, and the Atharvaveda; and a brahmin’s six duties—making fire sacrifices, officiating over fire sacrifices, studying, teaching, giving, and receiving. The Vedas the limbs of the Vedas were entrusted to him, and with his blazing intelligence he could illuminate his own assertions and vanquish those of others.
The wife with whom Māṭhara had played, taken pleasure, and amused himself again gave birth, this time to a girl with eyes like a śārī bird. Three weeks or twenty-one days after the birth, relatives came and gathered to celebrate her birth in grand style, during which time they chose a name for the girl. The relatives said, “Since this girl has eyes like a śārī, this girl should be given the name Śārikā.” [S.4.b] The girl Śārikā was nurtured and grew. Her father taught her how to combine letters into words so she became proficient in reciting.
Later, when the young brahmin Koṣṭhila was debating Śārikā, Śārikā vanquished him and their father said to Koṣṭhila, “Son, if you are a male, how has a female vanquished you? Once I’m gone, the spoils I’ve won in debate will be taken away.”
At that the young brahmin Koṣṭhila, desiring and in search of esoteric instruction, set off from the Middle Country for the South.
There, in a country not his own, lived a brahmin named Tiṣya who was learned in Lokāyata philosophy, a teacher of brahmins to whom the Vedas and the limbs of the Vedas were entrusted.
Koṣṭhila went to see the brahmin Tiṣya. Serene, the young brahmin Koṣṭhila bowed at Tiṣya’s feet and sat off to one side.
Tiṣya warmly greeted Koṣṭhila with words of welcome, asking, “Young brahmin, where have you come from and what do you desire?”
“I hail from the Middle Country and I seek to serve at the feet of the preceptor.”
For a summary in English of the First and Second Councils and the subsequent schism in the saṅgha as recounted in The Chapters on Monastic Discipline, see Rockhill (1907, 148–80). For modern scholarship on the councils and the compiling of the Buddhist canon, see Prebish (1974) and Skilling (2009).
See Nattier and Prebish (1977) on the rise of the different schools, with references to both traditional sources and modern scholarship.
On the history, dating, and geographical distribution of the Mūlasarvāstivādins and their relation to other schools (especially the Sarvāstivādins), see Frauwallner (1956), Nattier and Prebish (1977), Enomoto (1994), Rosenfeld (2006), Salomon (2006), and Clarke (2004a and forthcoming). The six complete extant codes are the Sarvāstivādin’s Ten Recitations in Chinese with fragmentary Sanskrit; the Mūlasarvāstivādin’s Collection of Four Scriptures in Tibetan and partial Sanskrit and Chinese; the Theravādin’s canonical Suttavibhaṅga, Khandhaka, and Appendices (Parivāra) and paracanonical Pātimokkha and Kammavācanā in Pali; the Dharmaguptaka’s Four Part Vinaya in Chinese and partial Sanskrit; the Mahīśāsaka’s Five Part Vinaya in Chinese; and the Mahāsāṃghika’s Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya in Chinese. See Clarke (2004a, 77–78) and Prebish (2003).
The Vinayavastu (Toh 1), the Prātimokṣasūtra (Toh 2), the Vinayavibhaṅga (Toh 3), the Bhikṣuṇī Prātimokṣasūtra (Toh 4), the Bhikṣuṇī Vinayavibhaṅga (Toh 5), the Kṣudrakavastu (Toh 6), and two versions of the Uttaragrantha—the incomplete ’dul ba gzhung bla ma (Toh 7) and the complete ’dul ba gzhung dam pa (Toh 7a). For more on the Uttaragrantha (’dul ba gzhung dam pa and ’dul ba gzhung bla ma), see Kishino (2007, 1221, and 2013) and Clarke (2012).
The Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya differs significantly in its structure from the other extant vinayas. See Frauwallner (1956) and Clarke (2004a).
See Finnegan (2009, 10–28), for an overview of the history, language, and role of narrative in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. For readers of German, see Panglung (1981). In English, see also Schopen (2000, 94–99) and, for reference to the inclusion of narrative and sūtra in the Pali vinaya, see von Hinüber (1996).
See Rotman (2008, 15–30) for a discussion of the Divyāvadāna and the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, and Rotman (2008) and (2017) for English translations of portions of the text.
From the vinayapiṭaka, fragments of the Prātimokṣasūtra and Karmavācana were also recovered. See Clarke (2014) for an introduction to the Vinaya manuscripts in Sanskrit found at Gilgit, along with a bibliographical survey and concordances with the Tibetan and Chinese translations; and von Hinüber (2014).
“The Skandhaka represents to the saṅgha what the Sūtravibhaṅga represents to the individual monk or nun” (Prebish, 1994, 22).
For a study, critical edition, and translation of this chapter into German, see Hu-von Hinüber (1994).
For a study, critical edition, and translation of this chapter into German, see Chung (1998).
For a translation of portions of this chapter into English, see Wu (2014). For a study and translation of the entire chapter into French, see Sobhita (1967).
For an older study and translation of this chapter into English, see Chang (1957) and for a more recent introduction to this chapter in English, see Matsumura (1996). For a lexical study of its terms, see Matsumura (2007).
For a study and translation of the first half of this chapter into English, see Schopen (2000).
The rites for accepting women into the Buddhist order and inducting them into the novitiate are patterned on the formulas given in the present text, which is explicitly addressed to male candidates. In the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, the procedures for the ordination of nuns are found in the Kṣudrakavastu. See Jyväsjärvi (2011, 513–19) for a translation of Guṇaprabha’s explanation of how to adapt the rites described in the present text for use in admitting and ordaining women into the Buddhist renunciant order. For a summary of these procedures see Tsedroen and Anālayo (2011, esp. 757–66).
The opposition between śramaṇa ascetics and brāhmaṇa householders is common in Buddhist literature but also well recognized in Vedic culture; the second-century
Though they are referred to collectively as “six tīrthika teachers,” it is not clear what the designation tīrthya (as it appears in the Gilgit Manuscripts) or its mainstream Sanskrit equivalent tīrthika actually mean. Though the term is used pejoratively in much Buddhist literature, Schopen believes Edgerton was almost certainly right in saying it was originally a neutral term referring to an adherent or founder of any religion (Schopen, 2000, n. 1.18).
The philosophies of the six tīrthika teachers are also related in the Śrāmaṇyaphala Sūtra, though the account there differs considerably in both its philosophical details and its attribution of ideas from the account given in the present chapter. Claus Vogel (1970) has published a translation and study of the account from the present chapter, while Graeme MacQueen (1978) has published a translation and study of seven surviving editions of the Śrāmaṇyaphala Sūtra, four in Chinese and one each in Pali, Sanskrit, and Tibetan.
The main body of the biography is contained in the seventeenth and final chapter, the Saṅghabhedavastu. For more on Tibetan biographies that draw on the Vinayavastu, such as Situ Paṇchen Chökyi Jungné’s biography of the Buddha (bdag cag gi ston pa rnam ’dren shA kya’i dbang po’i mdzad pa mdo tsam du legs par bshad pa), see Lin (2011).
Jain scriptures claim Gośālīputra was a pupil of the Mahāvīra who later broke with him to become a prominent Ājīvika teacher; see Basham (1981) and Bronkhorst (2003, 155–57). For more on the Ājīvikas, see Bronkhorst (2003).
See Strong (1989); see also Tatelman (2000, 4–10) and Rotman (2008, 19–22) for more on the term avadāna in the Mūlasarvāstivādin Vinaya.
Vogel and Wille (1984, 1992, 1996a, 1996b). Previous editions of the Sanskrit manuscripts were produced by Dutt (1950) and Bagchi (1970).
Burnouf (1844, 313–335) and (2010, 310-326); Hiraoka (2007 vol. 2, 1–50); and, for the preamble 4.110 to 4.157, Ware (1938).
Consider our use of the word “ordination,” for instance. In Catholicism, one “professes” to become a monk and is “ordained” to become a priest. While a monk may become a priest, the two are distinct vocations, the latter being a clerical office with specific rights and responsibilities not shared by unordained monks. Since the Buddhist tradition does not distinguish between monastic and clerical offices, it is misleading and perhaps even incorrect to translate the Tibetan bsnyen par rdzogs pa (Skt. upasaṃpadā) as “ordination.” However, as we have not yet come upon a satisfactory translation for this term, we have decided to follow established precedent. We are indebted to Wulstan Fletcher for his advice on this term.
In his work, Bronkhorst speaks of Greater Magadha, an area he defines as the Ganges Valley east of the Gaṅgā and Yamunā confluence (Bronkhorst, 2007, 2–3). Over several books, he marshals evidence for its distinctive culture, different from the Vedic society of Kuru-Pañcāla to the west. One of the main features of this Greater Magadhan culture is the preeminence of ascetic (or śramaṇa) orders like the Jains and Ājīvikas concerned with liberation from saṃsāra, which stand in contrast to the householder brahmins whose fire sacrifices are aimed at securing greater prosperity within saṃsāra. See especially Bronkhorst (2007, 2011). See also part one of Samuel (2008).
In the Āpastamba Dharmasūtra (ca. fourth or fifth century
Though the Buddha famously rejected mortification as a path to liberation, “ascetic” seems the best translation for śramaṇa. “Ascetic” not only reflects the Sanskrit sense of hardship and toil, it is derived from the Greek word for “exercise” (askein), whence the Greek word for “monk” or “hermit” (askētēs), which well reflects the Tibetan dge sbyong.
See Bronkhorst (2003) for a discussion of whether Ājīvikas, like Gośālīputra, practiced asceticism.
There is some uncertainty in the Tibetan tradition regarding how the author’s name should be rendered in Sanskrit, whether Kalyāṇamitra or Śubhamitra. Tāranātha speaks of the Vinaya master dge legs bshes gnyen, a contemporary of Haribhadra (late eighth century
Tib. ’dul ba gzhi rgya cher ’grel ba, Skt. Vinayavastuṭīkā. According to Anukul Chandra Banerjee’s Sarvāvastivāda Literature, Kalyāṇamitra gives this text the title lung gzhi’i ’grel pa or Āgamavastuvṛtti in the colophon (Martin, 2011: *Śubhamitra). None of the Degé, Choné, Kangxi, or Narthang editions of this commentary include a colophon; all of them end abruptly after thirteen fascicles. In the commentary itself, however, Kalyāṇamitra refers to his work numerous times as the ’dul ba gzhi rgya cher ’grel ba and identifies himself as the mdo sde ’dzin pa dge legs bshes gnyen (“the sūtra master Kalyāṇamitra”) at the end of his remarks on the second chapter. The lack of a colophon prevents us from identifying the Tibetan translators who executed the translation and the Indian paṇḍitas who oversaw it.
Such variance, common when texts are transmitted in manuscript form, becomes less common with the adoption of block printing. Recent work by scholars such as Shayne Clarke, Chistopher Emms, and Haiyan Hu-von Hinüber also points to the existence of multiple Mūlasarvāstivādin transmissions, though the nature and extent of their differences is not yet clear. That said, the Tibetan translations of Kalyāṇamitra’s commentary and the Chapter on Going Forth show remarkable agreement, as do the Sanskrit Vinayavastu manuscripts uncovered in Gilgit and the Tibetan translation preserved in the Kangyur.
The Vinayavastu itself takes up nearly 2,500 pages over four volumes but, since the extant Tibetan translations of Kalyāṇamitra’s Vinayavastuṭīkā are incomplete, it is not clear how long his commentary was in the Sanskrit original. The Vinayavastuṭīkā begins with a detailed, word-by-word commentary on the first chapter that is as long as the chapter itself, 261 pages. By contrast, the commentary on the Vinayavastu’s 180-page second chapter takes only 32 pages. Despite its brevity, Kalyāṇamitra’s commentary to the second chapter is consistent with the material, the structure and terms of which are more straightforward and less diverse than the first chapter. Kalyāṇamitra may have treated the other fifteen chapters as extensively as he did the first chapter or as cursorily as he did the second; given the available material, it is impossible to say more.
Following YJKNC: khongs su chud (“absorbed in thought”) instead of D: khong du chud (“comprehended”) (Pedurma, 722).
The Buddha saw an opportunity to be reborn in the right family, in the right land, at the right time, with the right patrilineage, and to the right woman (Kalyāṇamitra, folios 183.a.7–183.b.1).
The “gulf between worlds” refers to the cold hells said to exist between the four continents of ancient Indian cosmology (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 183.b.5–6).
The Sanskrit fragments of the Pravrajyāvastu recovered from Gilgit begin here. The first complete sentence in Sanskrit begins on the front or recto side of the second folio [S.2.a] (Vogel and Wille, 1992, 71).
Following S: rtse ’grogs, and HKC (Pedurma, 723): rtsed grogs (playmates), instead of D: rtsen grogs.
The exact meanings of the last three items in this list are obscure and do not appear in the Sanskrit [S.2.a.2] (Vogel and Wille, 1992, 71). A similar list does however appear in the Divyāvadāna’s “Story of Koṭikarṇa,” where Rotman translates these three as “debts, deposits, and trusts” (Rotman, 2008, 42). Kalyāṇamitra explains that dbyung ba “refers to the ‘yield’ of materials such as bamboo and so forth” (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 184.b.3). In deference to these two sources, we have decided to translate dbyung ba, gzhug pa, gzhag pa here as “expenditures, revenues, and deposits,” terms which are fundamental to finance, a subject likely to figure in a king’s education. The same trope is encountered later in the text 1.143, where Śāriputra’s training in reciting the Vedas is described. In that case, we have chosen to follow Geshé Rinchen Ngödrup’s suggestion that these three skills refer to “the way words in Sanskrit are formed or constructed from verbal roots and parsed grammatically.” In that case, we have translated the three as “to exclude, to add, and to leave.”
According to Geshé Rinchen Ngödrup, this refers to the turbans warriors would wear into battle.
The eighteen guilds were merchants, potters, garland makers, alcohol sellers, cowherds, barbers, millers, smiths, carpenters, fortune-tellers, weavers, leatherworkers, fishermen, dyers, bamboo-weavers, butchers, hunters, and ox-cart makers (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 185.b.4–6). Guilds were an important factor in urban life, “both in organizing production and in shaping public opinion… Customary usage of the guild (śreṇi-dharma) had the force of law. That the guild also intervened in the private lives of its members is also clear” (Thapar, 1990, 109–10).
The four Vedas are the Ṛgveda, which contains sacred incantations or mantras; the Sāmaveda, which rearranges the Ṛgveda’s verses into chants or songs; the Yajurveda, which supplements the Sāmaveda’s chants with prose for ritual use; and the Atharvaveda, which has incantations used for more mundane ends (Doniger, 2009, 123-124). The branches of Vedic learning are treatises on precepts, rituals, grammar, prosody, etymology, and astrology (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 186.b.4–5).
The first four are Vedic sages, ancestors of different brahmin gotras (lineages). The last two may be references to the Pañca Gauḍa and Pañca Drāviḍa, the two main geographical groupings of brahmins, respectively to the north and south of the Vindhya hills, each of which comprises five subgroups.
On the goal of bodily ascent to heaven, in White (1996) see chapter three, “Embodied Ascent, Meditation & Yogic Suicide.”
The implements they carry distinguish them as brahmin. The water jugs and ladles they bring would have been used for pūja while the bast robes they wore were made of vālkam/valkala or bark. “Valkala was also manufactured from the fiber of the bark of the trees and was usually worn by the saints. Another name for this was Druma Charma. Valkala cloth was forbidden to the Buddhist monks,” (Jain, 2003, 199). By the fourth century of the common era, the term vālkam was used to designate a certain class of textile that included, in addition to cloth made from tree bark, materials such as kṣauma, or linen (Kumar, 2008, 60).
In this case, the victor’s prize was akin to an endowment, or a land grant (Skt. brahmadeya) that entitled the recipient to keep the taxes collected from that village. In Chakravarti (1987), see chapter three, “The Gahapati”.
Following S: rtse ’grogs, and YHKN (Pedurma, 725): rtse grogs (playmates) instead of D: rtsen grogs.
A materialist philosophy inspired by the Cārvaka (Tib. rgyang ’phen pa). It is called “This Worldly” (Tib. ’jig rten pa, Skt. lokāyata) because of its rejection of rebirth and an afterlife. For more on Lokāyata philosophy see Chattopadhaya (1959).
The three folio sides 10.b to 11.b of the text contain a verbatim repetition of the passage from 7.a to 8.b, i.e. 1.53 through 1.69 above, beginning, “The brahmins’ students were in the habit…” and ending, “Since all worthy opponents and anyone counted as learned will be close to the king, it is the king I shall see.” The only difference is that in this later passage the “teacher of brahmins” who leads his students to Magadha and the Middle Country is not Māthara but Tiṣya, who—unlike Māthara in the earlier passage—is named twice. The passage in the Sanskrit runs from S.4.b.3 to S.5.a.5 (Vogel and Wille, 1992, 77).
Following YKCH: glo bur du (“for a short time”) instead of D: blo bur du (“sprung from mind”) (Pedurma, 727).
Following YK: nyams par bgyis (“robbed,” “brought ruin,” “caused to diminish”) instead of D: nyams par bgyid (“robbing,” “bringing ruin,” “causing to diminish”) (Pedurma, 727).
An early school of Indian grammar, possibly a source for the later grammarian Pāṇini. See Burnell (1875).
Following NH: dpral (“forehead”) instead of D: ’phral (“incidental,” “immediate”) (Pedurma, 727).
Following S: rtse ’grogs, and NH (Pedurma, 727): rtse grogs (playmates) instead of D: rtsen grogs.
That is, the words of the Vedas (Kalyāṇamitra folio 190.b.4–5). Presumably, Upatiṣya is asking about the meaning of the words found in the Ṛgveda’s hymns, which were, as noted earlier, incorporated into the Sāmaveda’s chants and elaborated on in the Yajurveda’s ritual manuals.
S.6.b.10 ends here with ca pratyupasthito bhavati eṣāṃ trayāṇāṃ (Vogel and Wille, 1992, 81). The Tibetan contains just over one half of a folio of material (Degé folios 15.a.6-16.b.1) before the Sanskrit resumes on S.7.a with sā aṣṭānāṃ vā navānāṃ vā masānāṃ (Vogel and Wille, 1992, 302).
Following S: rtse ’grogs, YK: rtsed grogs, and NH (Pedurma, 728): rtse grogs (playmates) instead of D: rtsen grogs.
A traditional meter of the Jagatī class consisting of twelve syllables per pāda (Morgan, 2011, 124).
As beings are said to be miraculously reborn in the intermediate state, this is taken to be a rejection of the intermediate state (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 198.b.3–4).
Following K: bag la zhi bar ’gyur (“recede”) instead of D: bag la zha bar ’gyur (Pedurma, 730).
To Gośālīputra, “causes” refer to internal acts like meditation while “conditions” refer to external acts like listening to teachings (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 201.b.3–4).
Literally, “unties a knot,” as in “unties a rope to open a door” (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 204.a.7).
Most likely a reference to the sudarśana cakra, a circular saw-like weapon used by Viṣṇu as mentioned in the Mahābhārata (see Begley, 1973). The use of cakram, or circular throwing blades, in ancient Indian warfare is also well attested.
One of the main brahmin gotra or patrilineages, the Śāṇḍilya clan traces its origins to the sage Śāṇḍilya. The Kangyur redactions give Śaṇḍila or Śanṭila (Pedurma, 65 and 731) while the Sanskrit at leaf 11.b.1 identifies the clan as the Kauṇḍinya clan (Vogel and Wille, 1984, 12).
The three phases refer to the three stages of (1) identifying the four truths, (2) understanding how to relate to each of the four truths, and (3) knowing that the respective goals of the four truths have been accomplished; when these three stages are applied to each of the four truths, there are twelve aspects in all. The events around the Buddha’s awakening and teaching that these brief references summarize here, simply as chronological landmarks, are related in much more extensive detail in The Chapter on Schism in the Saṅgha (Toh 1, ch. 17). For this episode of the Buddha’s first teaching of the Four Truths, see The Sūtra of the Wheel of Dharma (Dharmachakra Translation Committee, 2018), which is itself an extract from ch. 17.
The text of this summarized version here is simply lnga pa dang / nye lnga dag, but from the many more expansive accounts it can be surmised that the “group of five” (lnga pa, more often lnga sde, Skt. pañcaka, q.v. in Edgerton, also often called the pañcavargika) refers to the Buddha’s five former companions in ascetic practice—Kauṇḍinya, Aśvajit, Vāṣpa, Mahānāman, and Bhadrika—who received his first teaching and became his first followers; while the “five friends” (nye lnga, elsewhere nye lnga’i sde, see Tāranātha II, folio 28.b et seq.) refers to the five wealthy young Vārāṇasī merchants’ sons, first Yaśas and, following his lead, Pūrṇa, Vimala, Gavāṃpati, and Subāhu, all of whom constituted the first ten bhikṣus to receive ordination.
The first batch of Sanskrit fragments end on Sanskrit leaf 12.b.10 (Vogel and Wille, 1984, p. 14). The Sanskrit fragments resume with leaf 43.b.1 (see Vogel and Wille, 1996, p. 254), which corresponds to folio 99.b.7 of the present text.
The passage “who hurts, who wants, who is unhappy” is repeated in the Tibetan text as well. Kalyāṇamitra explains that on first mention, their meaning is to be understood in a straightforward way. He then glosses their second mention as follows, “Some argue that beings hurt because it is hard to escape [the suffering of saṃsāra], they want because there will be no other opportunities to make amends, and they are unhappy because they are subject to harm,” (Kalyāṇamitra, folio 219.a.2–4).
Another, parallel version of the narrative from this point, with slightly less detail but interesting differences, is to be found in the Mahāsannipātaratnaketudhāraṇī, Toh 138, folio F.188.a et seq. For translation, see Dharmachakra Translation Committee (2020) The Ratnaketu Dhāraṇī.
The Sanskrit is: ye dharmā hetuprabhavā hetuṃ teṣāṃ tathāgato hy avadat | teṣāṃ ca yo nirodha evaṃvādī mahāśramaṇaḥ. This well known and widely quoted stanza, the origin of which is the story in this passage, is sometimes called “the essence of dependent arising” (rten ’brel snying po). The formula in Sanskrit and Pali has acquired the status of a dhāraṇī, and is ubiquitous in Buddhist Asia as a seal at the end of texts, rolled into scrolls in stūpas, or used in rituals (sometimes with oṁ at the beginning and svāhā at the end). See The Sūtra on Dependent Arising (Toh 212), in which the Buddha explains and recommends its use in the construction of stūpas; also Sykes (1856) and Skilling (2003). It should be noted that there are several quite significantly different renderings of the verse in Tibetan—compare, for example, the version in the present text and the one in Toh 212. A considerably expanded version of the same four lines, which exists in Tibetan translation but of which the original Sanskrit may be lost, can be seen in other texts—for example, in the parallel version of this narrative in the Mahāsannipātaratnaketudhāraṇī, Toh 138, folio 188.b (1.3) et seq. (see n.97).
Following S and YJKC: yid ma rangs (“disappointed”) instead of D: yi ma rangs (Pedurma, 734).
The informal ordination first employed by the Buddha.
Buddhas have abandoned five branches or factors that perpetuate saṃsāra: pursuing desires, ill will, lethargy and languor, regret and agitation, and view and doubt.
One of the heavens of Buddhist cosmology, counted among the six heavens of the desire realm, it is home of future Buddha Maitreya.
Symptom that may be evidence of an illness considered an impediment to ordination.
See also n.125.
To accept (e.g., a person) as a novice.
As in to account for the income and allocations of a monastery.
Matters that govern the saṅgha community’s daily life, regular observances (such as the rains retreat and the restoration) and special events (like ordination) are ratified by a formal act of the saṅgha. There are one hundred and one such types of formal acts, all of which fall into one of three categories depending on the procedure needed for ratification. An act of motion alone requires only a motion; an act whose second member is a motion require a motion and the statement of the act; while an act whose fourth member is a motion require a motion and three statements of the act.
One of five types of disciplinary acts meted out by the saṅgha. This was first imposed on the Pandulohitaka monks for their quarrelsomeness.
One of five types of disciplinary acts meted out by the saṅgha.
One of five types of disciplinary acts meted out by the saṅgha.
A formal act of the saṅgha in which the motion suffices, with no need to formally state the act. Such an act is employed before a candidate for ordination is asked about private matters pertaining to his fitness for ordination.
One of five types of disciplinary acts meted out by the saṅgha.
One of five types of disciplinary acts meted out by the saṅgha. A monk may be suspended on one of seven grounds: failing to acknowledge an offense; refusing to amend or rehabilitate one’s behavior; deviant views; being overly belligerent and quarrelsome; creating the circumstances for a quarrel; maintaining overly close relations with nuns, unruly people, and ne’er-do-wells; and refusing to let go of a Dharma matter that has been peacefully resolved.
A formal act of the saṅgha that requires an initial motion followed by the statement of the proposed act, repeated three times. Such an act is required for several proceedings—among other occasions, to fully ordain someone, or to officially threaten an intransigent monk.
A formal act of the saṅgha that requires an initial motion followed by the statement of the proposed act. Such an act is needed to grant the vows of full ordination to a nun, among other occasions.
The Mūlasarvāstivādin tradition grouped the Buddha’s early sūtra discourses into four divisions, or āgama (Tib. mdo sde’i lung sde bzhi): the Dīrghāgama (Tib. lung ring po), the Madhyamāgama (Tib. lung bar ma), the Ekottarikāgama (Tib. lung gcig las ’phros pa), and the Saṃyuktāgama (Tib. lung dag ldan/yang dar par ldan pa’i lung). They are more familiar to many English-speaking Buddhists through the translations of their Pali correlates: the Dīgha Nikāya, Majjhima Nikāya, Aṅguttara Nikāya, and the Samyutta Nikāya, for which see the Wisdom Publications titles: The Long Discourses of the Buddha, The Middle-Length Discourses of the Buddha, The Numerical Discourses of the Buddha, and The Connected Discourses of the Buddha, respectively.
Sesbania grandiflora.
The son of King Bimbisāra.
One of the six tīrthika teachers contemporaneous with Śākyamuni.
See “Ajita of the hair shawl.”
One of the six tīrthika teachers contemporaneous with Śākyamuni.
See “Ajita of the hair shawl.”
A tīrthika order.
An acceptable form of food for a monk, as identified in the Four Supports section of the ordination ritual.
To always abide by the six spheres means to always be aware of and attentive to the six objects of visual, auditory, olfactory, gustatory, tactile, and mental consciousness.
Symptom that may be evidence of an illness considered an impediment to ordination.
See also n.125.
The Buddha’s nephew and attendant who recited the Buddha’s sūtra discourses from memory after the Buddha passed.
King of Ujjayinī and father of Pradyota.
Name of a lake.
A kingdom on the southern bank of the Ganges (in modern day Bihar and Bengal) whose influence waned during the life of Śākyamūni Buddha at the hands of the kings of Magadha. Its capital was at Campā.
An acceptable form of cloth for a monk, as identified in the Four Supports section of the ordination ritual. Cloth from foreign countries to the west of Magadha, such as Aparānta (also Aparāntaka), an ancient kingdom in western India.
A junior monk who lives with and under the guidance of a senior monk.
King of Śrāvastī and father of Prasenajit.
Symptom that may be evidence of an illness considered an impediment to ordination.
See also n.125.
Specifically non-Vedic ascetics; śramaṇa ascetics are typically contrasted with brahmin householders.
See also n.25.
A kind of apprentice disciple.
Symptom that may be evidence of an illness considered an impediment to ordination.
See also n.125.
One of the Five Excellent Companions, with whom Siddhārtha Gautama practiced asceticism near the Nairañjanā River and later heard the Buddha first teach the Four Noble Truths at the Deer Park in Sarnath. He was renowned for his pure conduct and holy demeanor so Buddha sent him to attract Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana to the order.
One of the notorious “group of six” monks whose antics and heavy-handed interference prompted a great many of the Buddha’s injunctions on conduct.
Mindfulness, discernment, diligence, joy, pliancy, samādhi, and equanimity (Kalyāṇamitra, folios 217.b.6–218.b.2).
The park of Veṇuvana was the first settled residence specifically dedicated to the Buddhist saṅgha, offered to the Buddha by King Bimbisāra of Magadha.
The Buddha’s father, King Śuddhodana, donated this park on the outskirts of the Śākya kingdom of Kapilavastu, in present day Nepal, to the Buddhist community.
A synonym for the wood splint used as a sundial to mark time in ordination ceremonies.
Cloth made from the bark of the valkala tree was worn by Indian ascetics but forbidden to Buddhist monks and nuns.
One of the five excellent companions, with whom Siddhārtha Gautama practiced asceticism near the Nairañjanā River and who later heard the Buddha first teach the Four Noble Truths at the Deer Park in Sarnath.
Another name for the river Gaṇgā, mentioned by the teacher Sañjayin in encouraging Śāriputra and Maudgalyāyana to seek out the Buddha who was born on its banks.
The queen, wife of King Mahāpadma and mother of Bimbisāra.
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C Choné
D Degé
H Lhasa (Shöl)
J Lithang
K Beijing Kangxi
N Narthang
S Stok Palace Manuscript
Y Yongle