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Celibacy and Chastity
149
ing the offences, the categorizing appears less scientific; for it appears to a general reader of the Vinaya that sometimes a very severe offence is placed in a minor category such as dukkața or pâcittiya, while a very trivial offence which possesses only a ritualistic significance is included in the higher or rigorous section. As, for example, the use of a decomposed corpse to quench the blind and impatient sex desire is only a dukkața offence, while touching the hair of a woman or praising her beauty is considered to be samghädisesa offence.
So far, in the discussion, only the Bhikkhu Pātimokkha is referred to, but in the Bhikkhuni Pātimokkha the precept and its violation are discussed independently and even with more cautiousness. Actually on the ground of this precept only the distinction between the Bhikkhu and the Bhikkhuni Pātimokkha appears to have been made, otherwise the differences in the two codes are almost negligible. The rules regarding nuns however are even more rigid than those regarding the monks; as for example the samghādisesa of monks might amount to the pārājika of the nuns. The reason for this is only that women occupied an inferior position in Buddhist community as compared with men. But so far as the legal proceedings of the offences and the transgressions of the precepts are concerned there does not exist much basic difference. Therefore it is not very necessary to discuss all these offences again. The ideal for both Bhikkhus and Bhikkhuņis lay in leading a chaste life, which is intrinsically one and the same for both. 1. When a man holds the hand of a nun out of lust, but
nun does not get annoyed on this and does not try to run away, on the other hand she enjoys his company, talks with him and goes to a lonely place with him, she is accused of Pārājika offence. --Bhikkhuņi Pātimokkha
On the other hand, in the case of a monk it would be counted as a Samghādisesa offence only.
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