Pāli RootsThe Precept in the ĀgamasThree Vinaya LineagesThe Mahāyāna TurnThe Precept-SubstanceBhaiṣajyaguru's Twelve VowsPrajñā's Sign-less PreceptThe Complete PreceptThe Modern Diagnosis
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Part 3 · Three Vinaya Lineages
Discipline · 3 papers
The close of Part Two left us with an observation: the precept in the Āgamas lies scattered, sutta by sutta—one dialogue hands over five precepts; one observance day confers the ei[ from the book's part intro ]
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09Architecture of the PāṭimokkhaThe Pāṭimokkha appears at first glance to be a compilation of rules — 227 monastic precepts sorted from gravest to lightest across eight categories. This paper argues otherwise: the Pāṭimokkha is not a rule-compilation but a self-legislating casuistic case law. Five strata across four traditions converge on this architectural reading: (1) the Pāli Suttavibhaṅga's four-component anatomy, its universal ādikammika exemption clause, and Pācittiya 72's recursive self-reference to the recitation event; (2) the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya (T1428) institutional rationale of "ten purposes" (dasa atthavase paṭicca) and the eightfold ardhamāsa-uddesa framing-formula in T1429; (3) the Sarvāstivāda Abhidharmakośa (T1558) and the Yogācāra Abhidharma-samuccaya and its Vyākhyā (T1605 / T1606) reading of prāti as "each-each" (別別) and their verses on the three restraints, the eightfold prātimokṣa-saṃvara, and the five–eight–ten–full ordination ladder; (4) the cross-tradition mirror of Buddhaghosa's catu-pārisuddhi-sīla and the Tiantai threefold pure precept system, both of which place pāṭimokkha-saṃvara at the foundational position; (5) Yijing's late-seventh-century eyewitness testimony of fortnightly recitation at Nālandā as living institutional practice. This is paper P09 of the SĪLA volume and the opening of Part III; it inherits the outward social-domain framing of P08 ("the fragrance of moral conduct") and turns inward to the Pāṭimokkha as its internal embodiment, laying the single-tradition architectural foundation for P10's tri-Vinaya comparison.10Three Vinaya Lineages in ConversationCross-tradition Vinaya comparison is often presumed to be a twentieth-century Western scholarly imposition; this assumption does not survive the textual evidence. Yijing's late seventh-century critique of the multi-Vinaya situation in Tang China — written after twenty-five years of direct observation at Nālandā — together with his contemporary Daoxuan's six-recension cataloguing in the Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshichao (T1804), already establishes a robust indigenous foundation for comparative Vinaya scholarship. This paper takes the placement of the eight garudhammas (八敬法) as the primary comparative axis, the eight-category prātimokṣa sequence as the stable-core baseline, and five Vinaya recensions — Mahīśāsaka, Mahāsāṅghika, Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, and Mūlasarvāstivāda — as the cross-comparison sample. Three findings emerge: the eight-category prātimokṣa sequence is stable across all five recensions; the placement of the garudhammas is consolidated in four of the five, with Mūlasarvāstivāda alone exhibiting a doubled register (narrative form in T1451 Kṣudrakavastu juans 29–30, dispersed-rule form in T1443 Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya juan 19); and Mahāsāṅghika carries a ninth rubric (dharma-anudharma) beyond the shared octave. The pairing of a stable core with a variable periphery constitutes a redactor's-eye finding internal to the comparative Vinaya tradition itself — neither an external ranking of any single recension nor a contemporary normative critique.11Two Sangha Crises and the Mechanism of Boundary-RenegotiationWhen and how does a saṅgha boundary break, and when and how can it be renegotiated? The Vinaya literature preserves two paradigm cases that bear on this question — the five-point demand of Devadatta and the Council of Vesālī's hearing on the dasa-vatthūni — but the six surviving recensions (Pāli, Sifenlü / Dharmaguptaka, Wufenlü / Mahīśāsaka, Shisonglü / Sarvāstivāda, Mohesengqilü / Mahāsāṅghika, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda cluster) do not converge on a single narrative for either. This paper, instead of selecting any one recension as standard, reads the two crises side by side across recensions. The Council of Vesālī exemplifies procedural boundary-renegotiation: an eight-member committee (ubbāhikā), constituted by ñatti-dutiya-kamma with parity composition (four eastern, four western), tests the ten contested practices against pre-existing training-rules and returns a recognitive verdict — "not Dhamma, not Vinaya, not the Teacher's instruction" — restoring cross-regional consensus without legislating anything new. Devadatta's five-point demand, by contrast, exemplifies foundational-posture conflict: the irreducible tension between an ascetic absolutism that would universalise the dhutaṅga and the Buddha's permission-architecture refusal to do so terminates not in restored consensus but in Prātimokṣa-recital secession.Same part, two ways in — papers keep the scholarly apparatus; the book is continuous prose for reading. Same source.