Tagged: Vinaya
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Anālayo - The Chinese Parallels to the Dhammacakkappavattana-sutta (1) (2012)
1This paper analyzes Chinese parallels to the Dhammacakkappavattana-sutta, focusing on Mūlasarvāstivāda and Sarvāstivāda versions, and reveals significant variations from the Pāli canon and among the parallels themselves. Some versions, such as the Saṃyukta-āgama discourse and the Sarvāstivāda Vinaya, omit the teaching on the two extremes and the explanation of the Four Noble Truths, focusing exclusively on the "three turnings" applied to each truth. Other versions present the teachings as separate components; for instance, the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya includes the two extremes and the three turnings, but places the detailed explanation of the truths only after Kauṇḍinya's initial awakening. The author argues against the theory that the Four Noble Truths are a late addition, proposing instead that the shorter texts are intentional extracts from a longer, multi-part discourse, and that the Mūlasarvāstivāda and Sarvāstivāda traditions considered the teaching on the "three turnings" to be the central element that set the wheel of Dharma in motion.
Clough - The higher knowledges in the Pāli Nikāyas and Vinaya (2010)
2In early Buddhist texts like the Pāli Nikāyas and Vinaya, the *abhiññās* or "higher knowledges" are an integral, though often overlooked, component of the path to liberation. These extraordinary abilities, attained in advanced states of meditation, typically include five mundane powers - supernormal feats (iddhi), divine ear, mind-reading, recollection of past lives, and the divine eye. A sixth, supermundane knowledge—the destruction of the mental defilements (āsavakkhayañāna) — is uniquely Buddhist and constitutes enlightenment itself. Although the Buddha expressed wariness about their pursuit and display, and they were not always considered essential for liberation, the abhiññās served crucial pedagogical, epistemological, and soteriological functions. They acted as signs of meditative progress, tools for teaching, and, most importantly, as a means to experientially verify core Buddhist doctrines like kamma, rebirth, and the Four Noble Truths, with the final three knowledges being central to the traditional account of the Buddha's own awakening.
Seeger - The Bhikkhunī-ordination controversy in Thailand (2006)
3The ordination of Chatsumarn Kabilsingh as Bhikkhunī Dhammanandā has sparked a significant controversy within Thai Theravāda Buddhism regarding the revival of the extinct female monastic lineage. Proponents argue for the legitimacy of female ordination by citing the validity of descendant lineages like the Dharmaguptaka, interpreting the Buddha's teachings as prioritizing spiritual potential over social convention, appealing to the Thai constitution's principles of gender equality and religious freedom, and critiquing the historical decision to "freeze" the monastic code (*Vinaya*). Conversely, traditionalists, including the Thai *saṅgha* and the influential monk Phra Payutto, maintain that a valid ordination is impossible because the *Vinaya* requires a dual ceremony involving an unbroken line of Theravāda nuns, which no longer exists. They argue that altering the canon or using a different lineage (*nānāsaṃvāsa*) would violate sacred texts and destroy the consensus essential for preserving the tradition's integrity. Amid this debate, some prominent female practitioners (*maechis*) and laywomen argue that a *bhikkhunī* order is unnecessary for spiritual practice and that women should focus on self-development within existing structures, while others propose para-monastic alternatives to accommodate modern needs without conflicting with canonical authority.
Frauwallner - The Earliest Vinaya And The Beginnings Of Buddhist Literature (1956)
4The Vinayas of the Sarvāstivādin, Dharmaguptaka, Mahīśāsaka, Pāli, Mūlasarvāstivādin, and Mahāsāṃghika schools all derive their Skandhaka section from a single, comprehensive literary work created in the first half of the 4th century BCE. This foundational text, which predates the Aśokan missions, was not a mere collection of rules but a grandly conceived narrative that embedded the monastic precepts within a biography of the Buddha, framing their promulgation as responses to specific events in his life from his early career to his death. The author of this work drew upon earlier traditions, including existing rules, commentaries on the Prātimokṣa, and Sūtra texts, which he adapted into his biographical framework, adding accounts of the first councils and a list of teachers to bestow Vedic-style authority on the text. This finding implies that the basis for many later biographies of the Buddha and early church histories is not a direct historical record but this 4th-century BCE literary creation, rendering much of what was considered authentic tradition a later, legendary construction designed to establish authority.
Gombrich, Richard F. - Theravāda Buddhism (2006)
5Richard Gombrich's *Theravāda Buddhism* provides a social history of this conservative branch of Buddhism, which originated with the Buddha's teachings in 5th-century BCE India on achieving salvation (*nibbāna*) from suffering through a "Middle Way" of morality, meditation, and wisdom. Central to this path was the redefinition of *kamma* as intention and the denial of an eternal soul (*anattā*), doctrines preserved and spread by a monastic Order (the Sangha) governed by a detailed disciplinary code (*vinaya*). With the patronage of Emperor Asoka, Theravāda was established in Sri Lanka around 250 BCE, where it became fused with Sinhalese national identity and developed a devotional culture of pilgrimage and relic worship, while the Sangha adapted to its role as a land-owning elite, undergoing cycles of decline and revival. The 19th century brought a major transformation with the rise of "Protestant Buddhism," a lay-led movement reacting to Christian missionaries and colonial rule, which reinterpreted Buddhism as a rational, scientific philosophy and promoted lay activism. In the contemporary era, this legacy has been shaped by civil war and globalization, fostering a more intense nationalism and new forms of lay religiosity, from ecstatic god-worship to the re-establishment of the nuns' order, presenting new challenges and adaptations for the ancient tradition.
Gombrich - What the Buddha Thought (2009)
6In *What the Buddha Thought*, Richard Gombrich argues that the Buddha was a brilliant and original thinker whose coherent system of thought can only be understood by placing it in its historical context as a pragmatic debate with and reaction to contemporary Brahminical and Jain ideas. Gombrich posits that the Buddha was not an essentialist philosopher but a practical teacher focused on how things function, redefining concepts like *kamma* from ritual action to ethical intention and clarifying "no-self" as the absence of an *unchanging* essence. A central thesis is that subsequent generations, failing to grasp the Buddha's use of metaphor, irony, and context-dependent arguments, took his teachings literally, thereby creating new scholastic doctrines—such as misinterpreting the *brahma-vihāras* as a path to heaven rather than nirvana. This process of misinterpretation, Gombrich contends, explains many apparent inconsistencies in the Pali Canon, which he establishes as the key evidence for understanding how the Buddha used fire as a central metaphor for non-random process and satirized Vedic cosmogony in the Chain of Dependent Origination.