Wikivinaya:Distinguishing origins of rules

From Wikivinaya

This page is for trying to get some feedback and ideas, and to reach some agreement or standard for the future. You can also always click on the 'discussion' tab to start a discussion about any page of WikiVinaya.

When editing or adding to the WikiVinaya, I think that an effort should be made not to mix the original 'Vinaya of the Buddha' with later interpretations, scriptures and practices. This may be done by dividing the articles up in different paragraphs, or splitting articles up in smaller articles, or maybe there are some other ideas also, for example the category-system (look here for example for a look at the category structure of Buddhism at Wikipedia).

I also think it is important for (eventual??) contributors to the WikiVinaya to make a habit of including references to texts in order to avoid confusion about who said what, when. This will make it easy for readers to make the distinction between the words of the Buddha and the various opinions and interpretations which are of a later origin and of a commentarial nature. The references should be sufficiently clear so that they can be verified by those who choose to do so. --DJti 11:57, 26 June 2006 (EDT)

Another possibility is to add links to commentarial comments about a rule under the heading commentarial comments or something like that, on the bottom of the page on the actual rule. Every rule could have it's own category, which consists of pages on the actual rule, commentaries, 'kor wat'-stuf, etcetera. All these pages are seperate but interlinked and grouped together. --DJti 22:32, 27 June 2006 (EDT)--

I think it's just important to distinguish 'what comes from where', I don't mind including the commentaries as long as it's clear that 'commentaries are commentaries'. I think we should also be careful about the assumption that every word in the Vinaya-pitaka is "Word of the Buddha" (buddhavacana) - only some passages actually present themselves as spoken by the Buddha, and some of them may also be dubious, especially within the narratives. I think it's safer to assume that the Vinaya-pitaka is a compilation of units of different ages. Scholars basically think the initial compiliation must have happened before the schisms because the various recensions are all so similar, but there was probably some re-editing done most likely between the 2nd and 3rd Councils according to the Pali chronology of Councils. I would suggest reading the essay by Bhante Sujato called "It's Time", available at our website santifm1.0.googlepages.com. See also the 'Standardising the Structure' page. Bhikkhu Santi 00:32, 30 June 2006 (EDT)