Dead monks and bad debts: Some provisions of a Buddhist monastic inheritance law

Indo-Iranian Journal

Volumn 44, Issue 2, 2001, Pages 99-148

  Schopen, Gregory ^a  

^a UNIVERSITY OF CALIFORNIA   (United States)

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[No Author keywords available]

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EID: 54649083760     PISSN: 00197246     EISSN: 15728536     Source Type: Journal    
DOI: 10.1023/a:1012214722888     Document Type: Article

References (122)

1. P. Olivelle, The Āśrama System. The History and Hermeneutics of a Religious Institution (New York/ Oxford: 1993) 51;
2. C. Malamoud, Cooking the World. Ritual & Thought in Ancient India, trans. D.White (Delhi: 1996) 95
3. (for the original French version see C. Malamoud, "La théologie de la dette dans le brahmanisme," Purus ārtha: Science sociales en asie du sud 4 (1980) 39-62);
4. see also M. Hara, "Ānr n ya," in Langue, style et structure dans le monde indien. Centenaire de Louis Renou, éd. N. Balbir et al (Paris: 1996) 235-261. - The redactors of the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya, the text we will be most directly concerned with here, clearly knew something of this brahmanical anthropology. For example, the father of a newborn son is repeatedly said in this Vinaya to declare to his wife, in a narrative cliché, bhadre jāto 'smākam r n aharo dhanaharan , which in spite of Edgerton (s.v. r n adhara), and in light of far more occurrences than he knew and their Tibetan translations, must mean "My dear, (both) a remover of our debt (and) a taker of our wealth has been born to us" (see for occurrences of the cliché in Sanskrit, in addition to those cited from the Divyāvadāna by Edgerton: Bhais ajyavastu, GMs iii 1, 87.5; Pravrajyāvastu, GMs iii 4, 54.1; Sanghabhedavastu, (Gnoli) ii 32.22; 91.9; and the commentary on the cliché in the Vinayavastut īkā, Derge bstan 'gyur 'dul ba Tsu 284b. 1 - cf. E.H. Johnston, The Buddhacarita (Calcutta: 1935) IX.65: naran pitr nām anr n an prajābhir ...). Edgerton's r n adhara, by the way, is almost certainly a ghost form that should be disregarded.
5. The translation here is Olivelle's - The Āśrama System, 47.
6. R.W. Lariviere, The Nāradasmr ti, Pts. I-II (Philadelphia: 1989) - The quotation is from Pt. II, ix. All references to Nārada are to this very careful edition.
7. H. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt in Ancient India (Calcutta: 1971).
8. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt, 86, also cites this verse but, since he was using another edition, as IV.9.
9. P. Olivelle, "Renouncer and Renunciation in the Dharmaś āstras," Studies in Dharmaśāstra, ed. R.W. Lariviere (Calcutta: 1984) 81-152; here 145.
10. Olivelle, "Renouncer and Renunciation in the Dharmaśā stras," 144 (for inheritance of a renouncer's property): 143 (for the quotation).
11. Even only desultory observation would seem to indicate that some Buddhist monks, in spite of the fact that they sometimes claimed or invoked the status of "renouncer" (pravrajita), did not - by the testimony of their own rules - have that status. Olivelle ("Renouncer and Renunciation," 149) has said, for example, "His vow of poverty exempted the renouncer from both tolls and taxes;" but Mūlasarvāstivādin monks at least were both subject to and expected to pay such tolls - their Vibhaṅga has a section of more than twenty pages (Derge Ca 72b.6-84a.6) dealing with their obligations in regard especially to road taxes. Olivelle has also said (ibid, 143) that "After renunciation he [the renouncer] can no longer inherit any property;" but again the Mūlasarvāstivāda- vinaya has two separate texts dealing with a Mūlasarvāstivādin monk's continuing right to inherit family property after his ordination (see Ks udrakavastu, Derge Tha 252b.3-254a.1; Uttaragrantha, Derge Pa 130a.4-131a.3 - the first of these has been discussed in some detail in G. Schopen, "Monastic Law Meets the Real World: A Monk's Continuing Right to Inherit Family Property in Classical India," History of Religions 35.2 (1995) 101-123). Moreover, as will be seen below, Mūlasarvā stivādin monks are routinely presented as inheriting the estates of deceased fellow-monks. A systematic study of issues of this sort would undoubtedly bear handsome fruit, and might even point to inconsistencies on some of these questions in dharmaśāstra itself - see below n. 42.
12. See, as an example, G. Schopen, "The Monastic Ownership of Servants or Slaves: Local and Legal Factors in the Redactional History of Two Vinayas," JIABS 17.2 (1994) 145-173.
13. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt in Ancient India, xxv-xxvi.
14. Pāli Vinaya i 76.18 - Even otherwise very careful scholars have said the same sort of thing - Olivelle, "Renouncer and Renunciation," 146 n.121: "In Buddhism detailed rules were formulated regarding those disqualified from entering the saṅgha. Thieves, debtors and slaves were specifically barred from entry. Cf. Mahā-vagga 1.39-76;" Olivelle, The Āśrama System, 176: "Buddhist literature also indicates that 'being without debt' was a condition for becoming a monk ... One of the questions put to the candidate for ordination is 'Are you without debt?' A man with debts should not be allowed to become a monk (Vin I, 76) ... One can understand the concern of the Buddhists; they did not want their monasteries to become havens for people trying to dodge debt collectors;" see also 195 n. 38;
15. R.S. Sharma, "Usury in Early Mediaeval India (A.D. 400-1200)," Comparative Studies in Society and History 8 (1965-1966) 74: "The Buddhist Order did not admit a person who had not paid off his debts." -There is what appears to be an occasional reference in brahmanical sources to freedom from debt as a prerequisite (?) to renouncing;
16. see P. Olivelle, Rules and Regulations of Brahmanical Asceticism: Yatidharmasamuccaya of Yādava Prakāśa (Albany: 1995) 68; 235 (IV. 19); Manu VI. 94; etc.
17. See G. Schopen, "The Good Monk and his Money in a Buddhist Monasticism of the 'Mahāyāna Period'," The Eastern Buddhist, n.s. 32.1 (2000) 85-105; esp. 88ff.
18. For the texts see B. Jinananda, Upasampadājñaptin (Patna: 1961) 15.5: (The candidate for ordination must be asked:) mā te kasyaci[t] kiñcid deyam alpam vā prabhūtam vā [?] yadi kathayati deyam , vaktavyam / śaks yasi prabrajyâyam dātum [/] yadi kathayati na vivaktavyam ata eva gaccha [/] yadi kathayati śaks yāmîti vaktavyam , etc. (i.e. the ordination can proceed); Pravrajyāvastu, (Eimer) ii 142.13: khyod la la la'i bu lon mang yang rung nyung yang rung / cung zad chags pa med dam / gal te bu lon chags so zhes zer na / khyod bsnyen par rdzogs nas 'jal nus sam zhes dri bar bya'o / gal te mi nus shes zer na / 'o na song shig ces brjod par bya'o / gal te bsnyen par rdzogs nas 'jal nus shes zer na, etc; Kalyān amitra, Vinayavastut īkā, Derge bstan 'gyur 'dul ba Tsu 250b.1: khyod la la la'i bu lon mang yang rung nyung yang rung cud zad chags pa med dam zhes bya ba ni bu lon ni gzhal bar by a ba yin pas de'i phyir bu lon can rab tu dbyung ba dang rdzogs par bsnyen par mi bya'o / bu lon can thams cad rab tu dbyung ba dang rdzogs par bsnyen par mi bya ba yang ma yin te / 'di ltar gal te rdzogs par bsnyen nas 'jal nus so zhes zer na de rab tu dbyung ba dab [Peking Dzu 283b.1 has, correctly dang] rdzogs par bsnyen par bya'o / - Notice that there is some difference in these sources in regard to when the candidate should be able to repay the loan: in the Upasampadājñapti it is after he has 'gone forth' or entered the order (pravrajyā); in the Pravrajyāvastu it is after he has been fully ordained (upasam panna); in the commentary it is after both.
19. The 'karmavākya' from Gilgit says in A.C. Banerjee, Two Buddhist Vinaya Texts in Sanskrit (Calcutta: 1977) 63.4:
20. mā te kasyacit kiñcid deyam alpam vā prabhūtam vā śaknos i vā upasampadam dātum, but the manuscript (R. Vira & L. Chandra, Gilgit Buddhist Manuscripts (Facsimile Edition) (New Delhi: 1959) Vol. 10.1, 73.5) has: mā te kasyacit ki[m ]cid deyam alpam vā prabhūtam vā śaks yasi vā pravrajyā dātum . See also Vinayasūtra (Sankrityayana) 4.1; Vinayasūtra & Auto-Commentary (Bapat & Gokhale) 20.26; 'Dul ba'i mdo, Derge bstan 'gyur 'dul ba Wu 4a.4; Svavyākhyāna, Derge bstan 'gyur 'dul ba Zhu 20b.1; etc.
21. The statement about repayment is not found in M. Schmidt, "Bhiks un ī-Karmavācanā. Die Handschrift Sansk. c.25(R) der Bodleian Library Oxford," in Studien zur Indologie und Buddhismuskunde. Festgabe des Seminars für Indologie und Buddhismuskunde für Professor Dr. Heinz Bechert zum 60. Geburtstag am 26. Juni 1992, hg., R. Grünendahl et al (Bonn: 1993) 239-288, esp. 254.1.
22. G. Schopen, Daijo bukkyō kōki jidai: Indo no sōin seikatsu, trans. Odani Nobuchiyo (Tokyo: 2000) 70-146;
23. Schopen, "Art, Beauty, and the Business of Running a Buddhist Monastery in Early Northwest India," to appear in the proceedings of the symposium On the Cusp of an Era: Art in the Pre-Kushan World, to be held at the Nelson-Atkins Museum of Art in Kansas City.
24. Cf. H. Eimer, "Which Edition of the Kanjur was Used by A la ša Lha btsun in Studying the Vinaya," in H. Eimer, Ein Jahrzehnt Studien zur Überlieferung des tibetischen Kanjur (Wien: 1992) 185-189; esp. n. 7, 187.
25. Eimer says that "in the Derge and in the Urga edition ...the Vinayottaragrantha and the Vinayottamagrantha are not distinctly separated," but they are so at least in the Taipei reprint of the Derge; see G. Schopen, "If You Can't Remember, How to Make it Up: Some Monastic Rules for Redacting Canonical Texts," in Bauddhavidyāsudhākaran . Studies in Honour of Heinz Bechert on the Occasion of his 65th Birthday hg. P. Kieffer-Pülz & J.-U. Hartmann (Swisttal- Odendorf: 1997) 580 n. 30.
26. A.C. Banerjee, Sarvāstivāda Literature (Calcutta: 1957) 99.
27. G. Schopen, "Marking Time in Buddhist Monasteries. On Calendars, Clocks, and Some Liturgical Practices," in Sūryacandrāya. Essays in Honour of Akira Yuyama on the Occasion of His 65th Birthday, ed. P. Harrison & G. Schopen (Swisttal-Odendorf: 1998) 157-179; esp. 172ff.
28. Cīvara-vastu, GMs iii 2, 119.15; 121.2; for the Uttaragrantha text see the text marked I below, and for the auction especially n. 81.
29. See the references in n.8 above; and Schopen, "Marking Time in Buddhist Monasteries," 172, n. 54.
30. G. Schopen, "Doing Business for the Lord: Lending on Interest and Written Loan Contracts in the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya," Journal of the American Oriental Society 114 (1994) 527-554 (for the text in the Uttaragrantha - which I did not know at the time I was writing this paper - see Derge Pa 265a.6-265b.2). Gun aprabha appears to have used the Uttara text, though he refers to his source as "The Mātr kā" (pp. 543-544) (-For more on the monastic use of substitutes or surrogates see below pp. 23-24). Although the question needs much fuller study, what appears to be another example of the pattern is worth mentioning because it concerns the gandhakut ī. The Śayanāsana-vastu, Gnoli 10-12, has an important proof text that places the gandhakut ī within the vihāra, but this placement is attested in the archeological record only rather late (4th-5th century), and appears to be completely absent in Gandhara. The Uttara, however, has a text which places gandhakut īs around the perimeters of stūpas (Derge Pa 119b.2: ...mchod rten la mtha' ma dri gtsang khang gis bskor la ...), and this may be precisely what we see at, for example, the Dharmarājikā at Taxila.
31. M. Hahn, "The Avadānaśataka and its Affiliation," in Proceedings of the XXXII International Congress for Asian and North African Studies. Hamburg 25th-30th August 1986, ed. A. Wezler & E. Hammerschmidt (Stuttgart: 1992) 171.
32. For the texts in the Uttaragrantha see Derge Pa 104b.6-108a.4 (=Maitrakanyaka); Derge Pa 115b.1-119a.6 (=Śrīmatī- avadāna - M. Deeg. "The Saṅgha of Devadatta: Fiction and History of a Heresy in the Buddhist Tradition," Journal of the International College for Advanced Buddhist Studies 2 (1999) 183-218, esp. 198-199 & n. 86, says, referring to the Śrīmatī in the Avadāna-śataka, "This episode ... is not found anywhere else in Buddhist narrative literature," but the Uttara version requires that this be revised.
33. J.L. Panglung, Die Erzählstoffe des Mūlasarvāstivā da-vinaya. Analysiert auf Grund der Tibetischen Übersetzung (Tokyo: 1981) has not included the Uttara in its survey, and does not always give the parallels in the Avadāna-śataka for stories found even elsewhere in the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya; e.g. under what it calls "Die Bekehrung einer alten Frau" (p. 30) it does not indicate that this tale has a close parallel in Avadāna-śataka no. 78, "Kacangala." This is a particularly important parallel because the Vinaya version is preserved in Sanskrit (Bhais ajyavastu, GMs iii 1, 20.3ff) and can therefore be directly compared with the Sanskrit text of the Avadāna-śataka. The 4th varga of the Avadāna-śataka, by the way, appears to be particularly dependent on the Mūlasarvā stivāda-vinaya - as many as half of the tales in the former may have come from the latter (nos. 31,36,37,38 and 40).
34. This work has received very little attention and has yet to be described in any detail. L.W. J. van der Kuijp ("The Yoke is on the Reader: A Recent Study of Tibetan Jurisprudence," Central Asiatic Journal 43 (1999) 266-292; esp. 280, n. 29) has recently referred to it as a source for Buddhist Vinaya narrative literature bearing on legal matters, but it is also more than that.
35. myself have described it as "A condensed version of the entire Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya" and noted that "it follows the rearrangement of the canonical material effected by Gun aprabha in his Vinayasūtra" (Schopen, "Marking Time in Buddhist Monasteries," 178, n. 67). But whereas in the Vinayasūtra we get only the rulings, and then too in sometimes incredibly compact sūtra form rendering any identification of source very difficult, in Bu ston we get a more or less condensed version not only of the rulings but also of the narratives which generated them. These, of course, are much easier to recognize, though doing so requires a reasonably good knowledge of the canonical Vinaya. The commentaries on the Vinayasūtra - there are four by Indian authors - also occasionally cite something of the canonical narratives Gun aprabha is drawing on, and a combination of these sources usually allows one to identify the texts in the canonical Vinaya he is digesting with at least some degree of certainty.
36. The references here are to the text of the 'Dul ba pha'i gleng 'bum chen mo published in The Collected Works of Bu-Ston, Part 23 (H a), ed. L. Chandra (New Delhi: 1971) and the numbers given are the original folio numbers.
37. On the order of the vastus in the Mūlasarvāstivāda- vinaya see H. Hu-von Hinüber, "The 17 Titles of the Vinaya-vastu in the Mahāvyutpatti. Contributions to Indo-Tibetan Lexicography II," Bauddhavidyāsudhākaran , 339-345.
38. No one, to my knowledge, has yet to study the thematic logic of Gun aprabha's re-arrangement of the canonical material. In fact the study of the Vinayasūtra and its commentarial literature in general has moved at something less than even the usual snail's pace. Only recently, for example, have we begun to get some material for establishing better Sanskrit texts; see M. Nakagawa, "On the Adattādāna-pārājikam in the Vinayasūtravr tti - Transcription text on the sūtras no. 120-123 -," Indogaku bukkyōgaku kenkyū, 48.2 [96] (2000) 1135-1133, and his other papers cited there in n. 1 (Note, however, that this list is not complete).
39. Here it is worth noting that there appears to be at least one other attempt to systematize Buddhist monastic inheritance law that is very much in need of study. S. Weinstein has said: "The importance of the question of the disposition of the property of deceased monks, technically known as wang pi-ch'iu wu ... can be seen from the fact that Tao-Hsüan, the de facto founder of the Lu (or Vinaya) school, wrote a work solely devoted to this subject (the Liang-ch'u ch'ing-chung i ... in two fascicles ...)" (Buddhism Under the T'ang (Cambridge: 1987) 183 n. 25; cf. 93-94).
40. e siècle (Paris: 1956) 66n.2; 70n.2; etc; J. Kieschnick, The Eminent Monk. Buddhist Ideals in Medieval Chinese Hagiography (Honolulu: 1997) 12n.43; etc.
41. Capital roman numerals indicate the actual order of occurrence in the Uttaragrantha of the main texts presented here - the present text, for example, is the first given here but occurs in the Uttara at Tog Na 190b.3, and therefore after the last text presented in this paper, i.e. I, which occurs at Tog Na 121b.2. This seemed a good way of highlighting the fact that in presenting texts we often rearrange them and produce a 'system' which is entirely of our own making. Lower case roman numerals reflect the order or position of the texts treated here in Gun aprabha's 'system' and refer to the table on pp. 5-6.
42. So M. Monier-Williams, A Sanskrit-English Dictionary (Oxford: 1899)
43. s.v. kārs āpan a, though he cites only "Lexicographers;" for the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya and related literature see, for convenience, K. Upreti, India as Reflected in the Divyāvadāna (New Delhi: 1995) 40, 43, 44, 72-73, 96, 105, 130.
44. H.A. Jäschke, A Tibetan-English Dictionary (London: 1881) - hereafter cited simply as Jäschke.
45. Zhang Yisun et al., Bod rgya tshig mdzod chen mo, Vols. I-III (Peking: 1985) - here-after by title only.
46. Carma-vastu, GMs iii 4, 192.17: mā yus mābhin kiñcid uddhārīkr tam / ... nāsmābhin kiñcid uddhārīkr tam = Tog Ka 382b.4: khyed kyis skyin po cung zad ma byas sam /... bdag cag gis skyin po cung zad kyang ma byas te = Divyāvadāna 23.14.
47. See, for example, Prātimoks a (Banerjee) 29.20 = Derge Ca 10a.6; Saṅghabhedavastu (Gnoli) ii 104.13 = Tog Nga 246a.1; ii 106.22 = Tog Nga 247b.5; Cīvaravastu, GMs iii 2, 143.7 = Tog Ga 149a.5; Carmavastu, GMs iii 4, 192.13 = Tog Ka 382b.2; etc.
48. One might have thought that this would be covered by the 19th Naisargika-pāyantikā (yan punar bhiks ur nānāprakāram rupika-[ms. rūpika]- vyavahāram samāpadyeta naisargikā pāyantikā - Prātimoks a (Banerjee) 29.18; Gilgit Manuscripts (Facsimile Edition) i 44.2), but the treatment of this rule in the Vibhaṅga (Derge Cha 149b.7-155b.3) shows no sign of that. On the contrary, it is precisely under this rule that the Vibhaṅga authorizes monks to lend money on interest (see Schopen, "Doing Business for the Lord," 527-554). Moreover, the wording of this ruling is open to the same range of interpretations as is the 20th Naisargikā, which will be discussed below, pp. 21-22.
49. See G. Schopen, "On Avoiding Ghosts and Social Censure: Monastic Funerals in the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya," Journal of Indian Philosophy 20(1992), 1-39
50. [= G. Schopen, Bones, Stones, and Buddhist Monks. Collected Papers on the Archaeology, Epigraphy, and Texts of Monastic Buddhism in India (Honolulu: 1997) 204-237; hereafter BSBM].
51. Ks udraka-vastu, Tog Ta 45a.6-46a.1 = Derge Tha 31a.5-31b.4; Carma-vastu, GMs iii 4, 210.6-.14 [though the Sanskrit text is here faulty] = Tog Ka 395b.6-396a.7 = Derge Ka 277a.6-277b.5 - see also Ks udraka-vastu, Tog Ta 306a.6-307a.5 = Derge Tha 204b-205a.3.
52. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt in Ancient India, 90-91;
53. for Gautama, see now P. Olivelle, Dharmasūtras. The Law Codes of Ancient India (Oxford: 1999) 99 - his 12.40:
54. "Those who inherit the property of someone have to pay his debts;" for the text and translation of Yājñavalkya and Vis n u see, for convenience, B.N. Mani, Laws of Dharmasastras (New Delhi: 1989) 170.
55. Schopen, "Doing Business for the Lord," 537.
56. "Das Prātimoks asūtra ... ist nach übereinstimmender Ansicht der Forschung eines der ältesten Werke, wenn nicht das älteste Werk des buddhistischen Schrifttums überhaupt; " D. Schlingloff, "Zur Interpretation des Prātìmoks asūtra," Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft 113.3 (1964) 536.
57. For the Mūlasarvāstivādins see, for example, the 9th Pāyantikā, Prātimoks a (Banerjee) 32.17. But note too that the occurrence alone of the term sām ghika must of necessity imply the acknowledgement of other kinds of 'monastic' property. For example, if all vihāras belonged to the community then the expression sām ghike vihāre, "in a monastery belonging to the community," is redundant and the specification pointless. In fact the presence of sām ghika makes no sense unless there were other kinds of vihāras which did not belong to the community. Although not yet fully studied, it is already clear that the Pāli Vinaya knows and takes for granted vihāras owned by lay brothers (upāsaka - Pāli Vinaya ii 174.4; iii 65.38; 102.5). And there is no doubt that the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya even more fully acknowledges the private ownership of monasteries by both laymen and monks (see G. Schopen, "The Lay Ownership of Monasteries and the Role of the Monk in Mūlasarvāstivādin Monasticism," JIABS 19.1 (1996) 81-126, to which should be added at least two texts, one from the Vibhaṅga (Derge Cha 203a.4-205b.1) and one from the Uttaragrantha (Derge Pa 82b.1-84b.2) which deal with a dispute centered on a monastery that was the personal property of the Monk Rāhula). These considerations, moreover, would appear to place a significant restriction on a not insignificant number of Prātimoks a rules. The 14th-18th Pāyantikās, for example, would appear to apply, by virtue of the qualification sām ghike vihāre in them, only to community owned vihāras. In any other case the action described would not constitute an offence. I hope to return to these issues in the not too distant future.
58. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt in Ancient India, 101.
59. Olivelle, "Renouncer and Renunciation," 144-145 - dharmabhrātr is another dharmaśāstric term found in the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya. In the Uttaragrantha (Derge Pa 86a.2-.6) a nun claims the estate of a dead monk that was in her possession on the basis of the assertion that "He was also our brother in religion," bdag cag gi yang chos kyi ming po lags so zhes smras pa, and chos kyi ming po can hardly be anything other than a translation of dharmabhrātr . In a pendant to this text in which monks make a claim on a nun's estate the assertion is "she was also our sister in religion," de yang nged kyi chos kyi sring mo yin no (Derge Pa 86a.6-b.4), and here the text must be translating something like the lesser known dharma-bhaginī. Both claims are rejected on the principle that what belonged to a member of one gender goes to others of that same gender, except when there are no others of that same gender present. All these texts are taken up by Gun aprabha (ii-v in the table above pp. 5-6).
60. There is as well another potential difficulty here in terms of dharmaśāstra itself. If, as Yājñavalkya says, the heirs of a renouncer (yati) are, in part even, his dharmabhrātr , his "spiritual brothers," since his dharmabhrātr s are also presumably renouncers this would seem to indicate that renouncers can indeed inherit, and this would collide with Olivelle's assertion that "After renunciation he [the renouncer] can no longer inherit any property" ("Renouncer and Renunciation," 143).
61. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt in Ancient India, 122.
62. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt in Ancient India, 83; see also 84-87; Nārada I.6.
63. Cīvara-vastu, GMs iii 2, 124.11-125.9. Although I cite the Sanskrit text here it is by no means free of textual and/or lexical problems, the chief of which concern what Dutt reads as pānīyam and pātavyam (ns. 2&3) but prints as dānīyam and dātavyam (see Gilgit Buddhist Manuscripts (Facsimile Edition) vi 851.2-.6). These problems do not obscure the general sense, which is clear in the Tibetan (Derge Ga 104b.2-105a.1=Tog Ga 136b.6-137a.7) and even in the Vinayasūtra (Vinayasūtra & Auto-Commentary (Bapat & Gokhale) 47.2ff), but they need to be sorted out.
64. Vinayavibhaṅga, Derge Ca 79b.3ff: chos gos gsum la 'chel ba.
65. Vinayasūtra (Sankrityayana) 33.22 - 'Dul ba'i mdo, Derge bstan 'gyur Wu 27a.2.
66. On this title and office see the unpublished dissertation, J.A. Silk, The Origins and Early History of the Mahāratnakūt a Tradition of Mahāyāna Buddhism with a Study of the Ratnarāś isūtra and Related Materials, University of Michigan, 1994, 215ff.
67. See Vinayasūtra (Sankrityayana) 33.22: nāpr s t vā vr ddhām ... = 'Dul ba'i mdo, Derge bstan 'gyur Wu 27a.3: rgan rabs rgan rabs dag la ma zhugs par ...
68. Though limited for its textual sources to Pāli material see M. Njammasch, "Der navakammika und seine Stellung in der Hierarchie der buddhistischen Klöster," Altorientalische Forschungen 1(1974) 279-293; for the Mūlasarvāstivādin tradition see at least Vinayasūtra (Sankrityayana) 112.16-31.
69. Uttaragrantha, Derge Pa 112b.1-113a.1; see also Vinayavibhaṅga Derge Ca 75b.5-76b.4.
70. Pāli Vinaya i 297.33-298.3; see also iv 286.3.
71. O. von Hinüber, Entstehung und Aufbau der Jātaka-Sammlung. Studien zur Literatur des Theravāda-Buddhismus I (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz) (Stuttgart: 1998) 23-24.
72. also L. Feer, "Études bouddhiques. Maitrakanyaka- Mittavindaka. La piété filiale," Journal asiatique (1878), 388-392.
73. H. Hu-von Hinüber, Das Pos adhavastu. Vorschriften für die buddhistische Beichtfeier im Vinaya der Mūlasarvāstivā dins (Reinbek: 1994) 280-281; Śayanāsanavastu (Gnoli) 38.30; 47.18.
74. On lenders and lending institutions in early India see, for example, L. Gopal, "Credit Laws in Ancient India," Felicitation Volume (A Collection of Forty-two Indological Essays) Presented to Mahamahopadhyaya Dr. V.V. Mirashi, ed G.T. Deshpande, et al (Nagpur: 1965) 444-458;
75. H.S. Singh, "Institutions of Money-lending," Journal of the Ganganatha Jha Kendriya Sanskrit Vidyapeetha 38 & 39 (1982-1983) 109-124;
76. S. Gururajachar, "Banking Practices in India (Up to AD 1600)," New Trends in Indian Art and Archaeology. S.R. Rao's 70th Birthday Felicitation Volume, ed. B.U. Nayak, N.C. Ghosh (New Delhi: 1992) Vol. 2, 573-582.
77. As already noted in the apparatus to the Tibetan text (n. 3), a negative appears to have dropped out of the text. Although it occurs in neither Tog, Derge, nor Peking - nor even in Bu ston - both context and the previous ma byin par in line 6 would seem to require it and I have supplied it in translation.
78. L. Finot, "Le prātimoks asūtra des sarvāstivādins," Journal asiatique (1913) 498 (No. 20); Prātimoks a (Banerjee) 29 (no. 20); Prātimoks asūtram of the Lokottaravādimahāsāṅghika School, ed. N. Tatia (Patna: 1976) 16 (No. 19); Pātimokkha, ed. R.D. Vadekar (Poona: 1939) 9 (No. 20).
79. Schopen, "The Good Monk and his Money," 103.
80. S.C. Vidyabhusana, "So-sor-thar-pa; or, a Code of Buddhist Monastic Laws: Being the Tibetan Version of Prātimoksa of the Mūla- Sarvāstivāda School," Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, n.s. 11 (1915) 99. - Notice too that the "Old Commentary" embedded in its Vibhaṅga glosses rnam pa sna tshogs (nānāprakāra) with rnam pa mang po (Derge Cha 156.7), and in the previous rule the same term is glossed by rnam pa du ma. Mang po most commonly means "many," and du ma virtually the same; neither carries the sense "all."
81. Huber in Finot, "Le prātimoks asūtra des sarvāstivādins," 498:
82. cf L. Wieger, Bouddhisme Chinois. Vinaya. Monachisme et discipline. Hinayana, véhicule inférieur (Paris: 1910) 233: "Si un moine fait le commerce, en quelque marchandise que ce soit, il y a transgression" - Dharmaguptaka.
83. M. Wijayaratna, Le moine bouddhiste selon les textes du Theravāda (Paris: 1983) 97;
84. I.B. Horner, The Book of the Discipline (Sacred Books of the Buddhist 11) (Oxford: 1940) Pt. 2, 111;
85. T.W. Rhys Davids & H. Oldenberg, Vinaya Texts (Sacred Books of the East 13) (Oxford: 1885) 27.
86. Schopen, "The Good Monk and his Money," 100ff.
87. Chatterjee, The Law of Debt in Ancient India, xvii; xx.
88. Pāli Vinaya iii 242.11; Horner, Book of the Discipline ii 112 - see also R. Gombrich, Theravāda Buddhism. A Social History from Ancient Benares to Modern Colombo (London & New York: 1988) 92-93; 102-103; 162-164.
89. Uttaragrantha, Derge Pa 134a.1-134b.7 = Tog Na 192b.5-194a.4.
90. Vinayavibhaṅga, Derge Cha 156b.3.
91. The definition is from W. Doniger, The Laws of Manu (London: 1991) 316;
92. see also R. Lingat, The Classical Law of India, trans. J.D.M. Derrett (Berkeley: 1973) 39-40.
93. Notice the qualification of lay brothers both here and in the text just cited from the Uttara. Both indicate that a "trustworthy" lay brother should be used, meaning, it seems, that not all lay brothers were so. For yet another reference to the use of a "trustworthy" lay brother see the text treated in Schopen, "Doing Business for the Lord," 530, where dge bsnyen dad pa can is incorrectly translated as "a devout lay-brother."
94. For the text see Vinayavibhaṅga, Derge Cha 149b.1-.7 - for another instance of the use of surrogates in the Mūlasarvāstivāda- vinaya, see above p. 4 and notice the difference in this regard between the Vibhaṅga and the Uttara pointed out there.
95. For some indications of the same sort of thing even in the Pāli Vinaya see Gombrich, Theravāda Buddhism, 103.
96. Ks udraka-vastu, Derge Tha 262b.4-263a.6 = Tog Ta 392b.2-393b.2.
97. See, for example, Cīvara-vastu, GMs iii 2, 119.14 = Tog Ga 133b.6; GMs iii 2, 121.2 = Tog Ga 134b.6; GMs iii 2, 125.6 = Tog Ga 137a.5.
98. At first sight at least the Pāli version looks like a much condensed or 'edited' version of the text found in the Mūlasarvā stivāda-vinaya, and there are other instances of what seems to be the same pattern, although the whole question has yet to be carefully studied.
99. Pāli Vinaya ii 174.18-.24; Rhys Davids & Oldenberg, Vinaya Texts iii 217; Horner, Book of the Discipline v 245; M. Wijayaratna, Buddhist Monastic Life. According to the Texts of the Theravāda Tradition, trans. C. Grangier & S. Collins (Cambridge: 1990) 81
100. The original (Wijayaratna, Le moine bouddhiste, 97) reads: "...furent autorisés à l'échanger contre un article plus utile."
101. Y. Ousaka, M. Yamazaki, and K.R. Norman, Index to the Vinaya-Pit aka (Oxford: 1996) 472.
102. Horner, Book of the Discipline iv 109.
103. For a good idea of what could fall under contract law in dharmaśāstra see Nārada V, VI, VIII and IX - the binding nature of the act of acceptance of a fee is startlingly clear, for example, in Nārada VI. 20: śulkam gr hītvā pan yastrī necchantī dvis tad āvahet.
104. As is characteristic of the prose of the Mūlasarvāstivā da-vinaya, in both Sanskrit and Tibetan, the text here and throughout can be both elliptical and heavily dependent on the use of pronouns. The text in fact never uses a term for 'body' or 'corpse,' but simply the 'demonstrative pronoun' de. I have as a consequence sometimes translated this by supplying what I take to be the referent, and sometimes simply by "it."
105. Our text makes dris pa la lan 'debs pa 'i dge slong ... look like a title or designation for yet another monastic office, and yet it can hardly be anything else than an attempt to render something like the common pr s t avācikayā bhiks ūn samanuyujya (Kat hinavastu (Chang) 52.28, which is more typically rendered: dris pa'i tshig gis dge slong rnams la yang dag par bsgo la (Chang 80.13). The Sanskrit phrase itself, however, especially pr s t a - or pr s t ha-vācika, remains problematic (see Edgerton 353; Hu-von Hinüber, Das Pos adhavastu, 212-214;
106. H. Matsumura, "The Kathinavastu from the Vinayavastu of the Mūlasarvāstivādins," in Sanskrit-Texte aus dem buddhistischen Kanon: Neuentdeckungen und Neueditionen III (Sanskrit- Wörterbuch der buddhistischen Texte aus den Turfan-Funden. Beiheft 6) (Göttingen: 1996) 193, n. 72) Given this it might be useful to cite the two commentarial 'definitions' that I have come across. Śīlapā lita, Āgamaks udrakavyākhyāna; Derge, bstan 'gyur 'dul ba Dzu 22a.6: dris pa'i tshig gis zhes bya ba ni ga n d ī brdungs ba na lam gyi phyogs na gnas pa'i dge slong gis ci'i phyir gan d ī brdungs ba sngon du song ba can gyi 'dus pa mdzad ces dris ba gang yin pa de la / dris nas lan du brjod pa de ni dris pa'i tshig yin no /, which - if I have understood it correctly - might be translated as: "'With the pronouncement of what is asked' means: when the monk stationed to the side of the path when the gan d ī is struck is asked the question 'for what reason is an assembly preceded by striking the gan d ī called?,' and he gives the answer - that is the pronouncement of what is asked." Vinītadeva, Vinayavibhaṅgapadavyākhyāna, Derge, bstan 'gyur 'dul ba Tshu 91b.4: dris pa'i tshig gis zhes bya ba ni ci'i phyir gan d ī brdungs zhes gzhan gyis dris pa la 'di'i phyir brdungs so zhes lan gdab pa'i tshig gis so /: "'With the pronouncement of what is asked' means: with the pronouncement of the answer 'it has been struck for this reason' when someone asks 'for what reason has the gan d ī been struck?'"
107. gtsug lag khang skyong (ba) can hardly be anything but a translation of something very like vihārapāla - gtsug lag khang is the standard translation of vihāra, and skyong ba commonly renders forms of √pāl. This office is referred to elsewhere in the Uttara as well, at Derge Pa 72a.1 (where the vihārapāla is one of two officers - the other is the sam gha-sthavira - charged with keeping track of the date; see Schopen, "Marking Time in Buddhist Monasteries," 173,175), 151a.5 (which would seem to indicate that it was a rotating office: tshe dang Man pa kun dga' bo la gtsug lag khang skyong gi res bab bo /), 200b.5ff, etc.
108. Yijing says "Those who stand guard, administer the monastery gates, and announce the business to the community meeting are called vihārapāla" (Silk, The Origins and Early History of the Mahāratnakūt a, 235).
109. What is probably the same title occurs in the form gtsug lag khang dag yongs su skyong bar byed ba in the Ksudraka (see Schopen, "The Lay Ownership of Monasteries," 110, n. 60).
110. rin thang bskyed pa as a unit does not yet have an attested equivalent, but rin thang is given as an equivalent of argha and mūlya in the Tibetan-Sanskrit Dictionary (2264), and bskyed pa is given for vardhana (207). The Tibetan, then, is not very far from one of the definitions that Monier-Williams (English-Sanskrit Dictionary 32) gives - on what authority I do not know - of the English word "auction": varddhamānamū lyena nānādravyavikrayan . The Uttaragrantha has in fact detailed rules governing this kind of sale, which include one against monks artificially inflating the bid (Derge Pa 177b.2). But a discussion of these and other references to monastic auctions must wait for another time. Note, for the moment, only that other Buddhist monastic traditions also appear to have known such sales - see G. Roth, Bhiks un ī-vinaya. Manual of Discipline for Buddhist Nuns (Patna: 1970) 182.13
111. É. Nolot, Règles de discipline des nonnes bouddhistes (Paris: 1991) 184.18.
112. Vinayavibhaṅga, Derge Ja 154b.2-156b.7.
113. Schopen, "On Avoiding Ghosts and Social Censure," 14-17 [BSBM 215-218].
114. Bhais ajyavastu, GMs iii 1, 285.17.
115. Bhais ajyavastu, GMs iii 1, ix - the passage here has been in large part reconstructed by Dutt.
116. Though the story line differed, the same 'explanation' was also given to justify, for example, monastic control of important relics; see G. Schopen, "Ritual Rights and Bones of Contention: More on Monastic Funerals and Relics in the Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya," Journal of Indian Philosophy 22(1994) 31-80, esp. 52.
117. It has indeed been difficult to detect even a trace of Buddhists in dharma-literature; see Lingat, The Classical Law of India, 123;
118. see also, for examples, J. Filliozat, "La valeur des connaissances gréco-romaines sur l'inde," Journal des savants, avril-juin (1981) 113, n. 32.
119. R. Gombrich, "The Earliest Brahmanical Reference to Buddhism?," in Relativism, Suffering and Beyond. Essays in Memory of Bimal K. Matilal, ed. P. Bilimoria, J.N. Mohanty (Delhi: 1997) 32-49,
120. but see Olivelle, Rules and Regulations of Brahmanical Asceticism, 32, n. 10;
121. O. von Hinüber, Das Pātimokkhasutta der Theravādin. Studien zur Literatur des Theravāda-Buddhismus II (Akademie der Wissenschaften und der Literatur, Mainz) (Stuttgart: 1999) 23, n. 50. - It is, of course, commonly suggested that "Buddhists" are included by dharmaśāstra writers under the term pās an d a, but this is only made explicit in later commentaries;
122. see, for example, Lariviere, The Nāradasmr ti, Pt. II, 130.