四分比丘戒本疏 1.47

1.47

Twelfth: The precept against slandering the Saṃgha when being expelled and disobeying an admonition. This text also has three parts: first, describing the transgressor; second, explaining the method of admonition; third, concluding with the offence of disobeying the admonition. Regarding the second, the method of admonition, there are two pairs and four clauses, as analysed before. Regarding the arising of the fault, the text has two clauses: first, the Saṃgha expels him on account of corrupting families; second, when being expelled, he slanders the Saṃgha contrary to reason. Slandering contrary to reason is precisely the matter being admonished. Regarding the preceding expulsion, the text again has two sections: first, corrupting families and engaging in evil conduct based in a town or village. As for 'corrupting families', according to the Vinaya there are four types: First, corrupting families based on a family: for example, taking gifts received from Zhang's family and sending them as presents to Wang's family, so that Zhang's family hears of it, loses faith, and becomes displeased, while Wang's family, upon receiving the goods, thinks of returning the favour with partiality, thereby losing impartial faith. Second, corrupting families based on offerings: receiving gain in accordance with the Dharma, yet giving it to one householder and not to another. Third, corrupting families based on relatives and friends: relying on royal ministers and showing bias for one person while neglecting another. Fourth, corrupting families based on the saṅghārāma: taking flowers and fruits belonging to the Saṃgha and giving them to one person and not to another; all of these cause the other person to lose an impartial mind, and hence it is called corrupting families. As for 'evil conduct', planting flowers oneself, teaching others to plant flowers, or sharing a bed, sharing food vessels, and so forth with a woman, up to all kinds of matters improper for deportment, ranging from a saṃghāvaśeṣa at the worst to a duṣkṛta at the lowest. Committing these two matters of corrupting families and evil conduct causes both clerics and laypeople to see and hear them. Second, from 'the monks should say to that monk' up to 'you must not dwell here': according to the Vinaya text, one performs a ñatticatuttha-kamma to expel him, causing him to leave the village in which he acted thus. Here in the prātimokṣa, it seems for a moment as if it is merely another person's spoken words of expulsion; this is because the formal act already includes these spoken words. As for the second, slandering the Saṃgha contrary to reason, the sense of the text is: 'The expelled monk says to the monks: "You have fondness, anger, fear, and delusion. Why is that? There are other monks who share the same offence as me; why do you not expel them, but expel me alone?"' According to the Mahāsāṃghika-vinaya, at that time six persons were together corrupting families. Hearing that the Saṃgha wished to expel them, Samvṛtta and Mahiṣādhṛti fled to a royal highway village, while Udāyin and Chanda repented on the way back. These four could not be penalized because they fled, or were free from offence because they repented. Only Aśvaka and Punarvasu neither fled nor repented, and were consequently expelled by the Saṃgha. Thereupon they slandered the Saṃgha, saying: 'You are fond of those who repented and fear those who fled, which is why you did not expel them; you hate us two, which is why you expelled us alone. Since you have these three—fondness, anger, and fear—we know you are fully endowed with the affliction of delusion.' Here ends the passage on the arising of the fault. Next, the explanation of the private admonition, its stopping and taking away, and so on, should be understood in accordance with the preceding. Fascicle 4 of the Sarvāstivāda-śāstra states: 'Whenever a monk seeks something, whether for the Three Jewels or for himself, and gives various gifts of faith to kings, great ministers, elders, householders, whether lay or ordained, all this is called corrupting families. None of the five assemblies is permitted [to do so]; even weeping and wailing at the death of parents, none of it is permitted. For the four assemblies it is a duṣkṛta; for a bhikṣuṇī it is a prāyaścittika.' The full explanation of permissions and prohibitions is detailed in that treatise.