Early Monastic Buddhism v2.c33.s1.12

v2.c33.s1.12

There also occurs the expression *Pañca-mātuka* which is a Prākrit form of *Pañca-mātṛkā* or (Pāli) *Pañca-mātukā*. In Pāli, *mātikā* is the usual term for the Abhidhamma-piṭaka. Among the Vinaya texts in Chinese, catalogued by Nanjio, there are four works with *mātṛkā* as a part of their titles, though none of these belong to the Mahāsanghikas.¹ Prof. Przyluski writes² the Mahāsanghikas had a particular fancy for the number “five”, specially in connection with the Vinaya rules. *Mātṛkā* was used by the ancient writers to denote the Vinaya-piṭaka as much as the Abhidharma-piṭaka, hence the word ‘Paṃca-mātuka’ of the inscriptions may well mean the Vinaya-piṭaka of the Mahāsanghikas whose text also had five divisions like the other schools.³