འཁར་གསལ་འཆང་པའ་ཀན་ཏ་སྤྱད་པའ་ཆ་ག intro.2

intro.2

The renunciant’s staff is a religious implement shared by the ascetic cultures of Brahmanism, Buddhism, Jainism, and other Indian traditions.¹ The practice of ascetics carrying a staff when they wander about must be very old. Pāṇini’s Sanskrit grammar (ca. fourth century bce) already mentions maskarin, a staff bearer, as a name for a renunciant. Makkhali Gosāla, the founder of the Ājīvikas and a contemporary of the Buddha, is known by the epithet maskarin.² The Buddhist saṅghas in India developed a staff, called a khakkhara ³ in Buddhist Sanskrit texts, that, as far as we know, is unique in conception and design. Consisting of a metallic head, a long shaft, and a lower tip, it is included among the eighteen requisites of a Buddhist monastic.⁴ The canonical Vinaya texts of the Sarvāstivāda tradition, such as the Vinayavastu and the Vinayasūtra of Guṇaprabha, mention the ringing staff in passing as one of the regular items in a Buddhist monk’s possession.⁵ These texts provide neither a focused discussion of the staff nor a list of rules governing its use.