四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔 2.285

2.285

Precept Seventy-eight: Striking a bhikṣu in anger. Four conditions: first, a fully ordained bhikṣu; second, giving rise to an angry mind; third, harboring the intention to strike; fourth, landing the blow incurs the offense. In the Vinaya, striking one guilty of a grave offense is also a pāyattika. Striking with hands, stones, staffs, and the like is a pāyattika; poking with other items like a key or duster handle is a duṣkṛta. The Daśādhyāya-vinaya states: "Like scattering a handful of sand or beans at many bhikṣus, each person hit incurs a pāyattika." The Vinayasaṃgraha states: "Striking a woman with lustful intent is a saṃghāvaśeṣa." The Mahāsāṃghika-vinaya states: "If wild elephants, horses, oxen, or sheep enter a stūpa or monastery, bumping into statues or damaging flowers and fruit trees, one may strike wood or stone with a staff to frighten them away; one must not aim the staff at the animals; each instance is a duṣkṛta." Exceptions in the Vinaya: being ill and requiring someone to pound or massage; choking on food and pounding the back; touching someone when speaking together because he did not hear; even touching by mistake, is not an offense. Examining the various sūtras and Vinayas, there is no allowance for bhikṣus to administer beatings with rods for disciplinary punishment. It did not exist at all during the single teaching period of Śākyamuni, yet in the final age it is frequently seen; this was already clarified in the previous fascicle, and is indeed a sign of the Dharma's decline. The Mahāsaṃnipāta-sūtra states: "If monastics or laypeople beat a precept-breaking or preceptless bhikṣu, their sin is heavier than shedding the blood of a myriad koṭis of Buddhas. Why? Because he is able to show people the essential path of emancipation, up to nirvāṇa." The Mahāprajñāpāramitopadeśa states: "The establishment of precepts in the Vinaya is for worldly matters, for gathering the saṃgha, and for protecting the Buddhadharma; having persons and sentient beings, the precepts are established according to conventional designations, without regard to the magnitude of sin in future lives. For instance, if a renunciant whips or kills oxen and sheep, the sin is heavy while the precept violation is light; whereas the sin for the precept on admiring a woman's body is heavy, but the sin in future lives is light, and so forth."