Some scholars connect the verbs ujjhāyati, khīyati, and vipāceti to negative emotional states (especially irritation and anger). Others connect the verbs to judgmental appraisal and the spreading of ill-fame. I show how both interpretations are valid.

It has been claimed that Indian Buddhism, as opposed to East Asian Chan/Zen traditions, was somehow against humour. In this paper I contend that humour is discernible in canonical Indian Buddhist texts, particularly in Indian Buddhist monastic law codes (Vinaya). I will attempt to establish that what we find in these texts sometimes is not only humourous but that it is intentionally so.

In spite of these negative descriptions of the behaviour of single Buddhist monks, the impression is certainly not correct that all monks followed all sorts of occupations to assure their good life and to increase their riches. There is no reason to doubt that the vast majority of monks seriously pursued their spiritual goals, particularly those who criticised their fellow monks for such lax behaviour.

The narrative of Devadatta’s early monastic life should be understood as a literary device that shows him as fulfilling the prerequisites for being a schismatic.

Bhante, on how many grounds has the Tathāgata prescribed the training rules for his disciples and recited the Pātimokkha?

The Ten Reasons the Buddha laid down the monastic rules.

In those days, of course, there was no easy transportation or communication, so there was a natural tendency for different groups of Bhikkus to begin drifting apart and a crisis moment arrived about a hundred years after the Buddha.

… the Buddhist tale of the impure, disgusting, and violent female body and the suffering of the fetus within the womb, so seemingly negative toward women, in fact operated discursively and affectively to support premodern female Buddhist monasticism by helping to generate a moral-social imaginary in which female fertility and sexuality cannot be the highest good of womanhood.

The Vinaya has outlasted Hammurabi and Justinian because it is a set of spiritual exercises rather than a legal system.

The way I read it, the article largely agrees with Bhante Sujato’s conclusion that there was harmony by the end of the second (and third) councils and that the real sectarian splits occurred much later due to distance rather than schism.

For some informed criticism of his main thesis, see Charles Patton’s reaction to this article on SuttaCentral—and feel free to leave your own comments on the thread too!

At the beginning of the first section of the tenth chapter of the Cullavagga, the events immediately preceding the establishment of the Buddhist Order of nuns are described. In general terms these are as follows:

When reviewed like this, the whole story appears a piece of improbable fiction, possibly a very distorted account of something which actually did take place. It is strange that a story like this, which does no credit to the Buddha, but quite the opposite, was permitted to remain in the Vinaya.

The argument that a nun called Sthūlanandā really did have pendulous breasts and large buttocks is, pardon the pun, a thin one. As stock images of uncouth femininity, these outsized and ungainly physical features serve the representational project of this passage

A survey of post-modern hermeneutical strategies for critical and historical readings of Canonical Vinaya literature.

… laxity within the Sangha is stressed ubiquitously by the Buddha himself as the cause of the decline of the Dhamma.

We are thus spared the problem of guessing why all references to the stupa have gone missing from the text of the khandhaka

“It would not be appropriate for me to give the Buddha a powerful laxative.”

The first few sections of the Robe Chapter tells of the origins and exploits of the Buddha’s personal physician.

Note that, while the treatments described in this tale remain undeniably dramatic, they nevertheless present an accurate account of ancient Indian medicine.

See also: the version of this story preserved in T553.

Ananda, Upali and Devadatta act out a theoretical quarrel about Buddhist attitudes to law

An interesting allegorical reading of three prominent characters in the Theravāda Vinaya.

Ajahn Geoff eventually picked up the project and took it in his own direction (resulting in the now-famous BMC), but these original notes remain a solid resource for practical vinaya, alongside Bhante Suddhaso’s more recent translation of the Vibhaṅga.

Vinaya narration like the Sudinna tale does not function in a way comparable to a record of case law precedents in modern judicial proceedings. Instead, the stories need to be understood in terms of their teaching function

Buddhist texts are, by and large, nice. There’s no draconian punishments, no irrational fervor, no ‘smiting with swords’. A serene air of reason, balance, and sanity pervades.

This niceness is a huge problem.

Bhikkhu Sujato reminds us that the Pali Canon is still an ancient mythological text which needs to be read with a careful eye towards symbolism and historical context.

The present compilation brings together in English translation the most important Pali Vinaya texts dealing with the first rule in the Sanghādisesa section of the Bhikkhu Pātimokkha: the training rule on intentional emission of semen — one of the disciplinary rules most fundamental to [a bhikkhu’s] training.

Beware though! This translation is known to have many mistakes! For a partial list, see Tiradhammo (JPTS v19)

Ajahn Brahmali’s excellent, new translation is much preferred. It can be found online at SuttaCentral.net

The tale is best understood in the light of the need of the early Buddhist tradition to demarcate its position in the ancient Indian context vis-à-vis ascetic practices and ideology.

Bhikkhu Analayo teaches us how to read the Vinaya in light of the Suttas and parallels and against the background of its ancient Indian context.