The
Vinaya is the regulatory framework for the Buddhist monastic community, or
sanghaSangha is a word in Pali or Sanskrit that can be translated roughly as "association" or "assembly," "company" or "community" with common goal, vision or purpose...
, based in the canonical texts called
Vinaya PitakaThe ' is a Buddhist scripture, one of the three parts that make up the Tripitaka. Its primary subject matter is the monastic rules for monks and nuns...
. The teachings of the
BuddhaSiddhārtha Gautama was a spiritual teacher from the Indian subcontinent, on whose teachings Buddhism was founded. In most Buddhist traditions, he is regarded as the Supreme Buddha Siddhārtha Gautama (Sanskrit: सिद्धार्थ गौतम; Pali: Siddhattha Gotama) was a spiritual teacher from the Indian...
, or Buddhadharma can be divided into two broad categories: '
DharmaDharma means Law or Natural Law and is a concept of central importance in Indian philosophy and religion. In the context of Hinduism, it refers to one's personal obligations, calling and duties, and a Hindu's dharma is affected by the person's age, caste, class, occupation, and gender...
' or doctrine, and 'Vinaya', or discipline. Another term for Buddhism is
dharmavinaya.
At the heart of the
Vinaya is a set of rules known as
PatimokkhaIn Buddhism, the Patimokkha is the basic Theravada code of monastic discipline, consisting of 227 rules for fully ordained monks and 311 for nuns . It is contained in the Suttavibhanga, a division of the Vinaya Pitaka.- Parajika :...
(Pāli), or
PratimokshaThe Pratimoksha is a Buddhist moral discipline. A loose translation of the term is "personal liberation", and thus the discipline is concerned with the Buddhist's quest for personal liberation, and originated with the Pratimoksha Vows given by the Buddha to his followers. "Prati" means 'towards' or...
(Sanskrit). The Vinaya was orally passed down from the Buddha to his disciples. Eventually, numerous different Vinayas arose in Buddhism, based upon geographical or cultural differences and the different Buddhist schools that developed. Three of these are still in use. The Vinayas are the same in substance and have only minor differences. Buddhists in Burma,
CambodiaCambodia , officially known as the Kingdom of Cambodia, is a country located in the southern portion of the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia...
,
LaosLaos Lao: ສາທາລະນະລັດ ປະຊາທິປະໄຕ ປະຊາຊົນລາວ Sathalanalat Paxathipatai Paxaxon Lao, officially the Lao People's Democratic Republic, is a landlocked country in Southeast Asia, bordered by Burma and China to the northwest, Vietnam to the east, Cambodia to the south and Thailand to the west...
,
Sri LankaSri Lanka, officially the Democratic Socialist Republic of Sri Lanka is a country off the southern coast of the Indian subcontinent. Known until 1972 as Ceylon , Sri Lanka is an island surrounded by the Indian Ocean, the Gulf of Mannar and the Palk Strait, and lies in the vicinity of India and the...
, and
ThailandThailand , officially the Kingdom of Thailand , formerly known as Siam , is a country located at the centre of the Indochina peninsula and Southeast Asia. It is bordered to the north by Burma and Laos, to the east by Laos and Cambodia, to the south by the Gulf of Thailand and Malaysia, and to the...
follow the Theravadin Vinaya, which has 227 rules for the
bhikkhuA Bhikkhu or Bhikṣu is an ordained male Buddhist monastic. A female monastic is called a Bhikkhuni Nepali: ). The life of Bhikkhus and Bhikkhunis is governed by a set of rules called the patimokkha within the vinaya's framework of monastic discipline...
s and 311 for the long defunct
bhikkhuniA bhikkhuni or bhikṣuṇī is a fully ordained female Buddhist monastic. Male monastics are called bhikkhus. Both bhikkhunis and bhikkhus live by the vinaya...
s. Buddhists in
ChinaChinese civilization may refer to:* China for more general discussion of the country.* Chinese culture* Greater China, the transnational community of ethnic Chinese.* History of China* Sinosphere, the area historically affected by Chinese culture...
,
KoreaKorea ) is an East Asian geographic region that is currently divided into two separate sovereign states — North Korea and South Korea. Located on the Korean Peninsula, Korea is bordered by the People's Republic of China to the northwest, Russia to the northeast, and is separated from Japan to the...
,
TaiwanTaiwan , also known, especially in the past, as Formosa , is the largest island of the same-named island group of East Asia in the western Pacific Ocean and located off the southeastern coast of mainland China. The island forms over 99% of the current territory of the Republic of China following...
and
VietnamVietnam – sometimes spelled Viet Nam , officially the Socialist Republic of Vietnam – is the easternmost country on the Indochina Peninsula in Southeast Asia. It is bordered by China to the north, Laos to the northwest, Cambodia to the southwest, and the South China Sea –...
follow the
DharmaguptakaThe Dharmaguptaka are one of the eighteen or twenty early Buddhist schools, depending on one's source. They are said to have originated from another sect, the Mahīśāsakas...
Vinaya (四分律), which has 250 rules for the bhikkhus and 348 rules for the bhikkhunis.
JapanJapan is an island nation in East Asia. Located in the Pacific Ocean, it lies to the east of the Sea of Japan, China, North Korea, South Korea and Russia, stretching from the Sea of Okhotsk in the north to the East China Sea and Taiwan in the south...
technically follows this, but as many "monks" in Japan are married, they are more rightly considered "priests" (ie specialists in performing ceremonies). Other Japanese monks follow the
Bodhisattva PreceptsThe Bodhisattva Precepts are a set of moral codes used in Mahayana Buddhism to advance a practitioner along the path to becoming a Bodhisattva. Traditionally, monastics observed the basic moral code in Buddhism, the Pratimoksha, but in the Mahayana tradition, monks would additionally observe the...
only. Buddhists in
TibetTibet is a plateau region in Asia, north-east of the Himalayas. It is the traditional homeland of the Tibetan people as well as some other ethnic groups such as Monpas, Qiang, and Lhobas, and is now also inhabited by considerable numbers of Han and Hui people...
and
MongoliaMongolia is a landlocked country in East and Central Asia. It is bordered by Russia to the north and China to the south, east and west. Although Mongolia does not share a border with Kazakhstan, its western-most point is only from Kazakhstan's eastern tip. Ulan Bator, the capital and largest...
follow the
MūlasarvāstivādaThe Mūlasarvāstivāda was an early school of Buddhism, developed in India during the 2nd century AD and in decline by the 7th century. Its vinaya lineage has been preserved by Tibetans and Mongolians up to the present, although until recently, only Mulasarvastivadin monks existed - the lineage of...
Vinaya, which has 253 rules for the bhikshus and 364 rules for bhikshunis (in theory, as the female order was never introduced in Tibet). However, the Dalai Lama has authorized followers of the Tibetan tradition to be ordained as nuns in traditions that have such ordination.). In addition to these patimokkha rules there are many supplementary rules.
The Buddha constantly reminds his hearers that it is the spirit of the rules that counts. On the other hand, the rules themselves are designed to assure a satisfying life, and provide a perfect springboard for the higher attainments. Monastics are instructed by the Buddha to live as "islands unto themselves". In this sense, living life as the vinaya prescribes it is, as one scholar puts it: "more than merely a means to an end: it is very nearly the end in itself."
Surrounding the rules is a range of texts. Some of these explain the origins of the rules - it is possible to trace the development of the rules from responses to specific situations or actions to a general codification. There are also a number of
suttaSūtra is an aphorism or a collection of such aphorisms in the form of a manual. Literally it means a thread or line that holds things together and is derived from the verbal root siv-, meaning to sew , as does the medical term...
-like texts that are more general statements about Buddhist doctrine, or that give biographical details of some of the great disciples and their enlightenment. Other sections detail how the rules are to be applied, how breaches are to be dealt with, and how disputes amongst the monks are handled.
It is thought that originally there were no rules and the Buddha and his disciples just lived in harmony when they were together. Most of the time they would have been wandering alone, but every year, during the monsoon season when travelling became impossible, the bhikkhus would come together for a few months. As the sangha became bigger and started accepting people of lesser ability who remained unenlightened, it became necessary to begin having rules.
It seems that initially these were quite flexible and were adapted to the situation. By the time of the Buddha's death there would have been a body of rules bhikkhus were expected to follow. In the
Mahaparinibbana SuttaFor the Mahayana Mahaparinirvana Sutra see Nirvana Sutra.----The Mahaparinibbana Sutta is a Theravada Buddhist sutta in the Digha Nikaya of the Tipitaka...
the Buddha, as part of his last teaching, tells the bhikkhus that they can abandon some minor rules, but that they should stick to the major ones, but there appears to have been some confusion over which was which. It was therefore decided that they would keep all of the rules. Immediately after the Buddha's death there was a council, at which all of the teachings were recited, collected, and sorted. Legend has it that the huge volume of teachings was recited from memory, with
AnandaĀnanda was one of the principal disciples and a devout attendant of the Buddha. Amongst the Buddha's many disciples, Ānanda had the most retentive memory and most of the suttas in the Sutta Pitaka are attributed to his recollection of the Buddha's teachings during the First Buddhist Council...
reciting the dhamma and
UpaliUpali was a monk, one of the ten chief disciples of the Buddha. Before joining the order, he worked as a barber. He asked the Buddha if a person of "low birth" such as he could join the order...
reciting the Vinaya.
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