འདལ་བ་གཞ intro.83
The Chapter on Going Forth; The Chapter on the Restoration Rite; The Chapter on Lifting Restrictions; The Chapter on the Rains; The Chapter on Medicines intro.83
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intro.83
The Chapters on Monastic Discipline narrates the history of the Buddhist saṅgha as a frame story for its record of rulings on the communal life of Buddhist monks and nuns.¹ This grand narrative, as remembered by the compilers of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, begins in The Chapter on Going Forth with the early life of the Buddha and the growth of his community. At first, ascetic seekers were simply invited to join the Buddha in living a holy life conducive to liberation. This early saṅgha was still peripatetic and unorganized by any hierarchy. Monks, or more properly “mendicants,”² wandered the countryside, and as they did so people from faraway places began to seek out the Buddha. When the Buddha heard of one aspirant who had died while on the way to see him to get ordained, he formulated a simple rite by which those who wanted to live the holy life according to the Dharma and Vinaya he had taught could be ordained by monks other than himself.