Introduction

Overview

i.1The Chapter on the Rains is the fourth of the seventeen chapters in The Chapters on Monastic Discipline. It recounts the origins, timing, and procedures for the Rite of Pledging to Settle for the Rains, in which monastics pledge to remain at a single site for the duration of the varṣā or summer rains.

The preceding chapter has set out the Rite of Lifting Restrictions (pravāraṇa), which is held at the end of the rains retreat as an adjunct to the Rite of Restoration, or poṣadha. Although in practice the rite of lifting restrictions is performed at the end of the rains, months after the rite described in the present chapter, the chapters on these two rites appear in reverse order in The Chapters on Monastic Discipline.

i.2In the Buddha’s time, much like today, the Gangetic plain had three distinct seasons‍—a cool season, a hot season, and a rainy monsoon season‍—each said traditionally to last for roughly four months. During the monsoon rains, it was customary for mendicants, ordinarily peripatetic, to settle at a single site, often in a park with other ascetics, where they might pass the rains in relative comfort. According to the formalities described in this chapter for the Buddha’s followers, monastics could choose to reside for the first or last three of the four monsoon months.

Structure and Contents

i.3Like the other chapters of The Chapters on Monastic Discipline, The Chapter on the Rains starts with a “global summary” or piṇḍoddāna. In this case, the global summary mentions ten topics, but only the first three are dealt with as sections in the present chapter, and the remaining ones are covered in the chapter that follows.

The first section sets out the procedures of settling for the rains, and the second and third describe contingent circumstances under which application of the rules may be modified.

The Rite

i.4The first section, after its own summary (uddāna), opens with a nidāna, or “narrative introduction” in which we learn the reputed origins of the rite of pledging to settle for the rains. We join the Buddha as he is himself pledging to pass the rainy season at Prince Jeta’s Grove, Anāthapiṇḍada’s Park in Śrāvastī, just as recounted at the start of the preceding chapter, The Chapter on Lifting Restrictions. According to the narrative told here, there were at that time other members of the monastic community elsewhere continuing to wander the countryside through the rainy season, thus attracting the censure and criticism of other ascetics who were saying, in the words of the text:

“Sirs, the Śākyan ascetics are killers. These men do not balk at, shy away from, or avoid killing, for they travel and wander the countryside during the rains. When they travel and wander the countryside during the rains, they trample swarms of many tiny and minute creatures, thus depriving them of life. Even swallow chicks seasonally cower in their nests for the four rainy months. Cowering, they cringe and stay curled up. And if these shaven-headed ascetics do not understand even their basic pledges, who would give alms to them or even think to do so?”

i.6In response to these accusations of hypocrisy, the Buddha decreed that monks should settle at a single site for the duration of the monsoon rains. According to one traditional reckoning, the monsoon lasts for three months, the months of Jyeṣtha, Āṣāḍha, and Śrāvana. In other accounts, however, a fourth month, Bhādrapada, is included. Ten to fourteen days before the fifteenth day of Āṣāḍha, monastics are to prepare an appropriate site, the features of which are described in this chapter, and on the fifteenth perform a “quorum restoration,” allocate dwellings, and formally pledge to remain sedentary for the duration of the rains. Those monks who could not settle for the “early part of the rains” were to settle for the “later part of the rains,” figured from the sixteenth day of Śrāvana.

i.7The rite by which monastics pledge to stay at one site for the rains begins with the appointment of a monk residence caretaker by a twofold act and motion. Several caretakers can be appointed if one caretaker is not enough. Guṇaprabha adds that the monks are informed that anything they do for the duration of the rains will be scrutinized later by the saṅgha, a reference to the lifting of restrictions, or pravāraṇā rite, that concludes the rains. Each monk present then collects a tally stick, which is used to count the number of participants and to collect their bedding, before the monk residence caretaker formally assumes his responsibilities by accepting the locks and keys for the site and its buildings. Monks are then assigned dwellings, and bedding for all is distributed in order of seniority, starting with the preceptors and instructors. It is only after the site and its surrounding locale have been properly vetted and the monks assured it will prove a suitable and sustainable residence for the rains that the saṅgha undertakes the formal rite of pledging to stay at that site for the three months of rains.

i.8The first section of the chapter concludes with two interludes. In the first, a story about Udayana, the Buddha formulates the rule that monks who have undertaken a rains retreat should not go beyond the boundary of the site where they have settled, while in the second the Buddha makes an allowance for this rule and gives his consent to travel for a period of up to seven days so that monastics can tend to the business of male lay vow holders, monks, nuns, nun postulants, male novices, and female novices.

Other Considerations

i.9The second section describes cases in which a monk incurs no offense for interrupting the rains by prematurely leaving a site. The stated reasons include a lack of alms, medicine, or nurses. But the chapter also identifies other invitations that would hinder the renunciant’s vocation and so are not excused. These include interrupting the rains in response to the offers of women or girls, the appearance of an attractive woman, or a treasure trove that might tempt the monk into giving up the renunciant’s life, or kin who encourage the same.

i.10The third section states further cases in which a monk incurs no offense for leaving a site prematurely‍—in each case to help resolve an incipient schism in the saṅgha‍—and concludes with a short section on ways in which a monk’s pledge to a site is not considered complete.

Adaptations for Nuns

i.11Adaptations of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya’s ritual language to make the rites suitable for nuns’ participation are fairly straightforward according to Dharmamitra, who wrote an authoritative commentary on Guṇaprabha’s sūtra digest of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, and Butön Rinchen Drup, the remarkable Tibetan bibliographer and historiographer who was so influential upon the scholastic culture of Tibet. Butön includes two relevant sections in his commentary to the Vinayasūtra, the first of which explains how to translate the male rite for females, along with exceptions and transferring the script of the male going forth and ordination rites just for females, while Dharmamitra writes:

“For ordination, everywhere that [the monks’ rite] says ‘monk’ [the monk officiant] should say ‘nun.’ Here, ‘the officiant [who performs] the motion, and so forth,’ is the monk officiant [who performs] the motion for ordination. Apart from this monk officiant, for the other positions such as instructor confidante and preceptor, the word ‘nun’ should be said instead of ‘monk.’ ”

i.13As Dharmamitra’s explanation makes clear, Indic commentators on the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya recognized some, but not all, monastic offices to be open to women, leaving the nun saṅgha partially dependent on the monk saṅgha.

The Text

i.14The present translation is based on the Tibetan text of the version of the chapter in the Degé Kangyur, with reference to versions in other Kangyurs as detailed in the endnotes. The text was originally translated into Tibetan by Palgyi Lhünpo under the guidance of the Kaśmīri abbot Sarvajñādeva, the Indian abbot Vidyākaraprabha, and the Kaśmīri abbot Dharmākara. Their work was later proofread and finalized by Vidyākaraprabha and the translator-editor Paltsek.

i.15The Chinese monk Yijing translated The Chapter on the Rains into Chinese in the late seventh to early eighth centuries ᴄᴇ.

i.16A Sanskrit text of The Chapter on the Rains was recovered among the Gilgit manuscripts edited and published by Nalinaksha Dutt in Volume III, Part IV, of his Gilgit Manuscripts. Only a single leaf from The Chapter on the Rains is missing. The remaining fragments correspond to twenty-five of the twenty-eight pages in Tibetan (F.239.a–F.251.b). Shono Masanori’s re-edition of the chapter itself and of the corresponding section of the Vinayasūtra was also consulted in comparing the translation against the Sanskrit.

i.17Despite important contributions by scholars and translators, we still lack satisfactory translations for many important terms used in the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya. The English renderings of Vinaya technical terms given here benefitted greatly from discussion with the 84000 Vinaya Team but remain provisional. They may require revision as work on the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya progresses.