Vinaya Texts

Author(s): T W Rhys Davids, Hermann Oldenberg
Publisher: Oxford

Page 16

INTRODUCTION.
xiii
Thus in the Kullavagga (VI, 13, 1) we find the passage"At that time the Blessed One proclaimed the Vinaya in many a way to the Bhikkhus, exalted the Vinaya, exalted the learning of the Vinaya, exalted again and again the venerable Upâli. Then thought the Bhikkhus, “The Blessed One hath proclaimed the Vinaya in many a way, hath exalted the Vinaya, hath exalted the learning of the Vinaya, hath exalted again and again the venerable Upâli. Come now let us learn the Vinaya from the venerable Upâli.” And so many Bhikkhus, old and middle-aged and young, learnt the Vinaya from the venerable Upâli.'
And again in a Sutta of the Anguttara Nikâya 1, where those Bhikkhus are enumerated who, in any particular respect, are the first and foremost in the Brotherhood, Upâli is mentioned as the first among the custodians of the Vinaya (the Vinaya-dharâ). And further, as is well known, it is Upâli who, according to the tradition, plays, at the First Council, the same part of propounder with regard to the Vinaya Texts which Ånanda does with regard to the Dhamma Texts. There may well be some truth in this very ancient tradition that Upâli was specially conversant with the Rules of the Order ; but it would be hazardous on that account to ascribe to Upâli a share, not only in the handing down of existing Rules, but in the composition of the Pâtimokkha itself.
As regards the order in which the various offences are arranged in the Pâtimokkha, the principal division corresponds to the division of the Order into Brethren and Sisters: there is a Bhikkhu-pâtimokkha and a Bhikkhunî-pâtimokkha. In each of these two chief divisions the offences are divided into various classes, beginning with the heaviest -- with those, that is, that result in the exclu
1 Phayre MS., vol. i. fol. kau.
Kullavagga XII. s In the Ceylon Chroniclers (Dîpavamsa, Bhânavâras 4 and 5) Upâli even becomes the first in a series of Vinaya pamokkhâ, or. Chiefs of the Vinaya ;' but no such office is known to the older tradition; and had it existed it would certainly have been mentioned in connection with the dispute about the so. called Ten Points of the Vinaya at the Council of Vesali.
Digitized by Google