Vinaya Texts

SR No.: 007684
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: T W Rhys Davids, Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford
Publication Year: 1881
Total Pages: 2523
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 47 MB

Page 1053

212
MAHÂVAGGA.
VIII, 13, 4.
delivered a religious discourse, addressed the Bhikkhus, and said:
4, 5. When on the high road, &c. . . . I saw, &c. . . . . and I thought, &c. .... (all the chapter is repeated down to ".... I were to allow the use of three robes"). I allow you, O Bhikkhus, the use of three robes, (to wit), a double waist cloth, and a single? upper robe, and a single under garment?'
1 Ekakkiyam. Compare Gâtaka I, 326. Buddhaghosa says dvigunam dupatta-samgharim ekakkiyam ekapattam. Though
single,' the lengths of cotton cloth, pieced together, of which the robes were made, were allowed to be doubled at the seams, the collar, the elbows, and the knees. See above, VII, 1, 5.
• The waist cloth (samghati) was wrapped round the waist and back, and secured with a girdle. The under garment (antaravâsaka; see also the end of this note) was wrapped round the loins and reached below the knee, being fastened round the loins by an end of the cloth being tucked in there, and sometimes also by a girdle. The upper robe (uttarâsamga) was wrapped round the legs from the loins to the ankles, and the end was then drawn, at the back, from the right hip, over the left shoulder, and either (as is still the custom in Siam, and in the Siamese sect in Ceylon) allowed to fall down in front, or (as is still the custom in Burma, and in the Burmese sect in Ceylon) drawn back again over the right shoulder, and allowed to fall down on the back. From the constant reference to the practice of adjusting the robe over one shoulder as a special mark of respect (for instance, Mahâvagga I, 29, 2; IV, 3, 3), the Burmese custom would seem to be in accordance with the most ancient way of usually wearing the robe. The oldest statues of the Buddha, which represent the robe as falling over only one shoulder, are probably later than the passages just referred to.
The ordinary dress of laymen, even of good family, in Gotama's time was much more scanty than the decent dress thus prescribed for the Bhikkhus. See Rh. D.'s note on the Book of the Great Decease,' VI, 26. But it consisted also, like that of the Bhikkhus, not in garments made with sleeves or trousers, to fit the limbs, but in simple lengths of cloth.
The antara-vâsaka corresponds, in the dress of the monks, to
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