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IV, 4, 6.
ESOTERIC DOCTRINE.
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gata shine forth when displayed, and not when kept secret. And on the other hand the recitation of the Pâtimokkha and the whole of the Vinaya Pitaka are kept close and secret? But this last is not the case as regards all men. They are only kept secret up to a certain limit. And the recitation of the Pâtimokkha is kept secret up to that certain limit on three grounds-firstly because that is the traditional custom? of previous Tathagatas, secondly out of respect for the Truth (Dhamma), and thirdly out of respect for the position of a member of the Order 3.' . 6. 'And as to the first it was the universal custom, O king, of previous Tathagatas for the recitation of the Pâtimokkha to take place in the midst of the members of the Order only, to the exclusion of all others. Just, О king, as the Kshatriya secret formulas (of the nobles) are handed down among the nobles alone, and that this or that is so is common tradition among the nobles of the world and kept secret from all others—[191] so was this the universal custom of previous Tathagatas, that the recitation of the Pâtimokkha should take place among the
1 This is, so far as I know, the earliest mention of this being the case. There is nothing in the Pâtimokkha itself (see my translation of this list of offences against the rules of the Order in vol. i of the Vinaya Texts' in the S. B. E.) as to its recitation taking place in secret, and nothing in the Vinaya as to its being kept secret. But the regulations in the Vinaya as to the recitation of the Pâtimokkha forbade the actual presence of any one not a member of the Order, and as a matter of fact any one not such a member is excluded in practice during its recitation now in Ceylon. But it would be no offence in a layman to read the Vinaya, and learned laymen who have left the Order still do so.
. Vamsa (repeated in the Simhalese). • Bhikkhu-bhQmiyâ (also repeated in the Simhalese, p. 252). • Khalliyanam (but the Simhalese has Sakyayangê).
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