Studies in Buddhist and Jaina Monachism

Author(s): Nand Kishor Prasad
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

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STUDIES IN BUDDHIST AND JAINA MONACHISM
(ii) How to enter upon the Retreat ?
No direct mention is made in the Pali Vinaya of the procedure of entering upon the retreat. However a very brief procedure can be deduced from the closing paragraphs of the Vassúpanā yika kkhandhaka which may be summed up as below :
One who intended to enter upon the retreat should come to the vihara on the first day of the month after the full-moon day of Asalha or one month later, prepare himself a lodging place, get drinking water and food ready and sweep the cell. Then he or she should begin the retreat.
Ācārya Buddhaghosa in his commentary on the Vinaya, the Samantapasādika, supplements this procedure by this formal resolution of the monk---'I will observe the vassa for three inonths in this vihara'.
Besides this procedure, a criterian has also been evolved in the Pali Vinaya to test the validity and invalidity of entering upon the retreat. As such if anybody, having promised to a lay-devotee to enter upon the retreat at his residence came to the vihara on the pratipada (that is on the first day of the next month after having kept the uposatha outside) with a view to observe vassā there and left the place on that very day with or without any business, after two or three days with or without any business, after two or three days with a business to be performed within a week and did not return in due time, then his or her entering upon the retreat was not valid But if a monk or a nun left the place after two or three days with a business to be accomplished within a week and returned to one's former place by the end of the week, then his or her retreat was valid. 3 A person leaving the residence seven days before the pavarana was not obliged to return to one's former place. 4
Like the Buddhist the Jaina sources too do not give any direct procedure of entering upon the retreat. However the monks were asked to wash and clean their clothes and requisites a little before the rain set in.5 It may be noted that the main problems of the monks as regards the observance of the retreat was that of a proper
i MV, 3, 12.24-25. pp. 161-64. 2. idha vagsam upemi ti tikkhattur vattabbarh. 3. MV, 3. 12. 24-25, pp. 161-64. 4. Ibid, 3. 12. 25, p. 164. 5. OghN, 350, p. 131b; Pind N, 26, p. 12b.