Vinaya Texts

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

Page 17

xiv
VINAYA TEXTS FROM THE PÂLI.
sion of the offender from the Order. Inside each class the sequence of the clauses follows no invariable rule. Sometimes offences of a related character are placed together in groups', but sometimes those which would naturally come together are found scattered in quite different parts of the same class2. It is perhaps worthy of notice that there sometimes seems, as in the two cases first mentioned in the last note, to be an effort to arrange the offences in groups (vagga) of ten: and in three cases we find regulations formulated with the utmost brevity (the offences being merely expressed by a locative case dependent upon pâkittiyam) at the commencement of such a vagga. It seems to us, at least in the present state of our knowledge, quite impossible to draw any conclusions from such peculiarities as to the comparative age of any different parts of the Pâtimokkha. The irregularities in arrangement may very well be due to want of literary clearness in the compilers of the present Form of Confession, and it would be hazardous to attempt to trace in it any historical argument.
The various points in regard to the Pâtimokkha dealt with in the foregoing paragraphs do not of themselves show that it was at all older than the rest of the Vinaya Pitaka; and indeed the work, as a separate work, is not considered among Buddhists to belong to the Pitakas at all, and is therefore not included in the list of works of which the Pitakas consist. But every single Rule or Clause in the Pâtimokkha is in fact found word for word in the Sutta-vibhanga, the quotations being so complete that the Pâtimokkha might be entirely put together again by piecing together extracts from the Vinaya Pitaka. And it is not possible that the Pâtimokkha originated merely by such a process of dovetailing; for the quotations in the Vinaya Pitaka, though not actually called quotations, bear the unmistakable stamp of being taken from some pre-existing work. The cause which led to the Pâtimokkha, and the
1 For instance, regulations as to the conduct of Brethren towards Sisters come together in Pâkittiya 21-30; those about meal-times in Pâkittiya 31-40 ; about conduct in relation to armies in Pâkittiya 48-50.
2 For instance, Pâkittiya 5, 6, and 43-45; and again, Pâkittiya 20 and 62, &c.
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