Vinaya (Pali and Sanskrit: विनय) refers to numerous monastic rules and ethical precepts for fully ordained monks and nuns of Buddhist Sanghas (community of like-minded sramanas). These sets of ethical rules and guidelines developed over time during the Buddha's life. More broadly, the term also refers to the tradition of Buddhist ethical conduct. The term "Vinaya" also refers to a genre of Buddhist texts which contain these precepts and rules and discuss their application, along with various stories of how the rules arose and how they are to be applied. Various lists and sets of Vinaya precepts were codified and compiled after the Buddha's death in different Vinaya texts.The 17th Karmapa Orgyen Trinley Dorje. "The development of the Vinaya rules for monastics and the Pratimoksha Sutra precepts". August 2022. Transcribed by Adele Tomlin, Dakini Translations, 02 September 2022.
As one of the main components of the canonical Buddhist canons (Tripiṭakas), alongside the Sūtra and Abhidharma (Pāli: Abhidhamma), the Vinaya Piṭakas contains detailed prescriptions governing the behavior, conduct, and communal procedures of monks (bhikṣu) and nuns (bhikṣuṇī). These include rules of individual discipline (prātimokṣa), protocols for communal harmony, and guidelines for handling transgressions.
The word Vinaya is derived from a Sanskrit verb that can mean to lead, take away, train, tame, or guide, or alternately to educate or teach. It is often translated as "discipline", with the term Dhamma-Vinaya (doctrine and discipline) being used by the Buddha to refer to his complete teachings, suggesting its integral role in Buddhist practice.Access to Insight: Vinaya Pitaka: The Basket of Discipline Thus, Vinaya also denotes the living tradition of ethical training and cultivation which encompasses inner moral discipline, and the communal process of ethical deliberation and confession within the sangha. In this sense, vinaya is not only legalistic but also pedagogical and soteriological, oriented toward the purification of ethical conduct (śīla) as a foundation for meditative concentration (samādhi) and wisdom (prajñā).
Over time, Buddhist Vinaya lineages split into various traditions, mirroring the development of the various Indian Buddhist schools. Three Vinaya traditions remain in use by modern ordained sanghas: the Theravada (Sri Lanka & Southeast Asia), Mulasarvastivada (Tibetan Buddhism and the Himalayan region) and Dharmaguptaka (East Asian Buddhism). In addition to these three Vinaya traditions, five other Vinaya schools of Indian Buddhism are preserved in Asian canonical manuscripts, including those of the Kāśyapīya, the Mahāsāṃghika, the Mahīśāsaka, the Sammatīya, and the Sarvāstivāda.Keown, Damien. Dictionary of Buddhism. 2003. p. 220.
Origins
According to an origin story prefaced to the Suttavibhaṅga, a Theravadin commentary on the Vinaya Piṭaka, in the early years of the Buddha's teaching, the sangha (community) lived together in harmony with no vinaya; there was no need, because all of the Buddha's early disciples were highly realized if not fully enlightened. After thirteen years and as the sangha expanded, situations arose which the Buddha and the lay community felt were inappropriate for mendicants.Introductory story of the Theravada Bhikkhu Vibhanga
According to tradition, the complete Vinaya Piṭaka was recited by Upāli at the First Buddhist council shortly after the parinirvana (the Buddha's death). All known Vinaya texts employ the same system of organizing rules and share the same sections, leading scholars to infer that the Vinaya's fundamental organization predates the separation of the various schools.New Penguin Handbook of Living Religions, page 380
While traditional accounts fix the origins of the Vinaya during the lifetime of the Buddha, all of the existing manuscript traditions are from significantly later, most around the 5th century. While the early community seems to have lived primarily as wandering monks who begged for alms, many Vinaya rules assume settled monasticism to be the norm, along with regular collective meals organized by lay donors or funded by monastic wealth.
The earliest dates that can be established for most Vinaya texts are the 5th century Chinese translations. The earliest established dates of the Theravada Vinaya stem from the composition of Buddhaghosa's commentaries in the 5th century and became known to Western scholarship through 17th- and 18th-century manuscripts.
The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya was brought to the Tibetan Empire by Śāntarakṣita (d. 788)H.H. The 14th Dalai Lama, "Ordination in the Tibetan Buddhist Tradition". Excerpts from Direct Instruction From Shakyamuni Buddha – A Gelong's Training in Brief. 1973. Translated by Geshe Graham Woodhouse, Himachal Pradesh: Institute of Buddhist Dialects, 2009. by , when the first monks were ordained there, and was translated into Chinese by the 8th century. Earlier Sanskrit manuscripts date to the 5th to 7th centuries. Scholarly consensus places the composition of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya in the early centuries of the first millennium. However, all the manuscripts and translations are relatively late.
Overview
The core of the Vinaya is a set of rules known as the Pāṭimokkha in Pāli and the Prātimokṣa in Sanskrit. This is the shortest portion of every Vinaya, and universally regarded as the earliest. This collection of rules is recited by the gathered Sangha at the new and full moon. Rules are listed in descending order, from the most serious (four rules that entail expulsion), followed by five further categories of more minor offences.
Most traditions include an explicit listing of rules intended for recitation, called the Prātimokṣa-sutra. In the Theravada tradition, the Pāṭimokkha rules appear in writing only alongside their exegesis and commentary, the Suttavibhaṅga or Vibhaṅga. While the Prātimokṣa is preserved independent of the Vibhaṅga in many traditions, scholars generally do not believe that the rules it contains were observed and enforced without the context provided by an interpretive tradition, even in the early era- many of the exceptions and opinions of the Vibhanga seem to stem from older customs regarding what was and wasn't permissible for wandering ascetics in the Indian tradition.
The second major component of the Vinaya is the Suttavibhaṅga, which provides commentary on each of the rules listed in the Prātimokṣa. This typically includes the origin of the rule in a specific incident or dispute, along with variations that indicate related situations covered by the rule, as well as exceptions that account for situations that are not to be regarded as violations of a more general rule.
The third division of the Vinaya is known as the Vinayavastu, Skandhaka, or Khandhaka, meaning 'divisions' or 'chapters'. Each section of these texts addresses a specific aspect of monastic life, including procedures and regulations for ordination, the acquisition and storage of medical supplies, and the procurement and distribution of robes. The final segment of this division, the Kṣudrakavastu ("minor division"), contains miscellanea that do not belong to other sections, and in some traditions is so large that it is treated as a separate work. Strong agreement between multiple different recensions of the Skandhaka across different traditions and languages with respect to the number of chapters (generally 20) and their topics and contents has led scholars to the conclusion that they must stem from a common origin.
Parallel and independent Prātimokṣa rules and Vibhangas exist in each tradition for bhikkhus and bhikkhunis. The majority of rules for monastics are the same, but the bhikkhuni Prātimokṣa and Vibhaṅga includes additional rules that are specific to women, including the controversial Eight Garudhammas, whose authorship is not attributed to the Buddha. In the Pali text, a specific chapter of the Khandhaka deals with issues pertaining specifically to women renunciants, and the Mulasarvastivada tradition devotes most of one of the two volumes of its Ksudrakavastu to matters related to women.
Beyond this point, the distinct Vinaya traditions differ in their organization. The Pali Vinaya includes a text known as the Parivāra that presents a question-and-answer format that recapitulates various rules in different groupings, along with various analyses. The Chinese texts include two sections not found in the Pali tradition, the Niddanas and Matrkas that have counterparts in the Tibetan tradition's Uttaragrantha. Relatively little analysis of these texts has been conducted, but they seem to contain an independent reorganization of the Vinaya rules that may be an earlier strata of texts.
Texts
Theravada Vinaya The Theravāda Vinaya is preserved in the Pāli Canon called the Vinaya Piṭaka. Suttavibhaṅga: Pāṭimokkha and commentary Mahāvibhaṅga: rules for monks Bhikkhunīvibhaṅga: rules for nuns Khandhaka: 22 chapters on various topics Parivāra: analyses of rules from various points of view
Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya (Sanskrit; ; ) (T. 1442), a translation from the Mūlasarvāstivāda school, extant in both the Tibetan Buddhist canon in the Kangyur, in a Chinese edition, and in an incomplete Sanskrit manuscript. This is the version used in Tibetan Buddhism. It comprises seven major works and may be divided into four traditional sections. Vinayavastu (): 17 skandhakas (chapters) Vinayavibhaṅga Prātimokṣasūtra (སོ་སོར་ཐར་པའི་མདོ་ so sor thar pa‘i mdo): rules for monks Vinayavibhaṅga (འདུལ་བ་རྣམ་འབྱེད་ ‘dul ba rnam ‘byed): explanations on rules for monks Bhikṣunīprātimokṣasūtra (དགེ་སློང་མའི་སོ་སོར་ཐར་པའི་མདོ་ dge slong ma‘i so sor thar pa‘i mdo): rules for nuns Bhikṣunīvinayavibhaṅga (དགེ་སློང་མའི་འདུལ་བ་རྣམ་པར་འབྱེད་པ་ dge slong ma‘i ‘dul ba rnam par ‘byed pa): explanations on rules for nuns Vinayakṣudrakavastu (འདུལ་བ་ཕྲན་ཚེགས་ཀྱི་གཞི་ ‘dul ba phran tshegs kyi gzhi): miscellaneous topics Vinayottaragrantha (འདུལ་བ་གཞུང་བླ་མ་ ‘ba gzhung bla ma): appendices, including the Upāliparipṛcchā, which corresponds to a chapter of the Parivāra. Vinayottaragrantha (འདུལ་བ་གཞུང་དམ་པ་ ‘dul ba gzhung dam pa): a second, more comprehensive version of the above
Dharmaguptaka Four Part Vinaya The Four Part Vinaya (Sanskrit: Cāturvargīya-vinaya; ) (T. 1428). This is Chinese translation of the Dharmaguptaka version and is used in the Chinese tradition and its derivatives in Korea, Vietnam and in Japan under the early Kokubunji temple system. In the case of Japan, this was later replaced with ordination based solely on the Bodhisattva Precepts. Bhikṣuvibhaṅga: rules for monks Bhikṣunīvibhaṅga (明尼戒法): rules for nuns Skandhaka (犍度): of which there are 20 Samyuktavarga Vinayaikottara, corresponding to a chapter of the Parivara Other surviving Vinayas
Three other Vinaya collections survive in Chinese translation.
Various complete vinaya texts are preserved in the Chinese Buddhist canon (see: Taishō Tripiṭaka), and these include: Mahīśāsaka Vinaya (T. 1421) Mahāsāṃghika Vinaya (T. 1425) Dharmaguptaka Vinaya (T. 1428) Sarvāstivāda Vinaya (T. 1435) Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya (T. 1442)
Six complete versions are extant. Fragments of the remaining versions survive in various languages.
Ten Recitation Vinaya The Ten Recitation Vinaya (Sanskrit: Daśa-bhāṇavāra-vinaya; ) (T. 1435), a Chinese translation of the Sarvāstivāda version Bhikṣuvibhaṅga Skandhaka Bhikṣunīvibhaṅga Ekottaradharma, similar to Vinayaikottara Upaliparipriccha Ubhayatovinaya Samyukta Parajikadharma Sanghavasesha Kusaladhyaya
Five Part Vinaya The Five Part Vinaya (Sanskrit: Pañcavargika-vinaya; ) (T. 1421), a Chinese translation of the Mahīśāsaka version Bhikṣuvibhaṅga Bhikṣunīvibhaṅga Skandhaka
Mahāsāṃghika-vinaya The Mahāsāṃghika-vinaya () (T. 1425), a Chinese translation of Mahāsāṃghika version. An English translation of the bhikṣunī discipline is also available.