Notes

n.1For historical and ethnographical details concerning the gaṇḍī and its wide-ranging usage in Buddhist monasteries, see Helffer 1983, Hu-von Hinüber 1991, and Sobkovyak 2015. In The Pali Text Society’s Pali-English Dictionary, the term gaṇḍī is defined as “a shaft or stalk, used as a bar.” The related Sanskrit term gaṇḍi is defined in the Monier-Williams dictionary as “the trunk of a tree from the root to the beginning of the branches.” For a discussion of the various definitions and etymologies of the term, see Sobkovyak 2015, p. 689.

n.2The Poṣadhavastu of the Vinayavastu classifies five different types or uses of the gaṇḍī: the gaṇḍī to summon the saṅgha, the gaṇḍī for formal acts, for the dead, for meditation, and for danger. Different methods of striking the gaṇḍī are used in these different contexts. See The Chapter on the Restoration Rite, 1.­86. See also Sobkovyak 2015, pp. 690–708.

n.3The Gaṇḍī Sūtra , Toh 298.

n.4For a description of the ritual of striking the gaṇḍī that begins the poṣadha restoration rite, as observed in 2011 at Gandantegchenlin monastery in Ulan Bator, see Sobkovyak 2015, pp. 724-16.

n.5Takakasu (trans.) 1896, pp. 100–101. Taishō 2125, (CBETA).

n.6For discussions of the systems of recording time in ancient India based on a wide variety of Sanskrit texts, see Ôhashi 1993, Ôhashi 1994, and Hayashi 2017.

n.7In Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra 2.20.10, for example, fourteen aṅgula are said to make one pada. See Olivelle (trans.) 2013, p. 146.

n.8It is notable that the year is divided here into four seasons of three months each, rather than the five or six seasons more commonly found in Indian treatises. For example, Kauṭilya’s Arthaśāstra 2.20.54–60 describes six seasons of two months each. See Olivelle (trans.) 2013, p. 147.

n.9The readings for the second half of the first month of fall are inconsistent. In all the other readings, there is an incremental change every two weeks, as the shadows get longer as the days get shorter. It seems likely the correct measurements here should be three and a half feet and two and a half feet respectively.