Vinaya Texts

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

Page 22

INTRODUCTION..
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in the present MSS., as above pointed out, into two books called respectively-after the class of Rules with which they begin-Pârâgika and Pâkittiya. And it is possible throughout, without the possibility of mistake, to distinguish between the three portions of which the present work is built up. The historical basis comes first, leading up to the extract from the Pâtimokkha, which is always placed in the Buddha's own mouth; then comes the Old Commentary, with its verbal explanations; and then, finally, the Notes giving the exceptions to, and the extensions of, the Rule in the Pâtimokkha.
The foregoing paragraphs show the way in which the Sutta-vibhanga grew up on the basis of the Pâtimokkha. The following books—the Khandhakas-give a detailed and connected account of the admission into the Samgha ; of the ceremony of the Uposatha; of the annually recurring observances connected with the beginning and the end of the rainy season; of the principal disciplinary proceedings; and of miscellaneous details regarding the medicine, food, dwelling-places, and daily life of the members of the Order (Bhikkhus). As in the Sutta-vibhanga, so here also, the outward form is arranged in such a way that in the case of every regulation a history was given of the occasion upon which the Buddha was supposed to have made it. These histories again lead up, in most cases, to a liturgical formulary by which the regulation was to be carried out.
While, however, in the case of the Sutta-vibhanga the liturgy on which it has been founded has been preserved in a separate shape, the formularies in the Khandhakas have not as yet, except in some instances, been found in existence apart from the Khandhakas. The principal exception is the Upasa mpada-kammavâka (The Words of the Act of Ordination), which recurs in its entirety in the First Khandhaka of the Mahâvagga (I, 76, 3 to I, 78, 5). It is impossible therefore as yet to trace the history of the gradual formation of the Khandhakas as we think it already possible to do in the case of the Sutta-vibhanga. In the Khandhakas too, no doubt, the introductory
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