Talk:Main Page

From Wikivinaya

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Revision as of 23:10, 29 June 2006

Goal and Content of WikiVinaya

The goal of WikiVinaya is to facilitate the creation of a free and editable online Vinaya resource*2, covering all the rules (and related conventions) relevant for bhikkhus (monks) and bhikkhunis (nuns), and the male and female lay buddhists who come into (regular) contact with buddhist monks and nuns. It is hoped that this will help both contributors and readers to improve in knowledge about Vinaya.

Any kind of information concerning the Vinaya (or monastic discipline) of the (Theravadin)* Buddhist Monastic Order has a place here. Please also have a look at the more specific subjects that WikiVinaya covers.

• I would suggest a different way of focussing on the Vinaya in a historical way - just make it clear that you want to maintain a historical perspective without limiting it to the 'Theravada' school or to a particular period, although it's clear that the initial contributors (incl. me) are all 'originalists' (BTW, I found out that among academic scholars 'originalism' is quite unfashionable nowadays.) but we also have to live in a complex modern world full of different traditions from later periods (not least within the Theravada school) so I think we have to allow space for discussing all later traditions that have grown up around Vinaya issues in all countries in all periods. There are several reasons for not limiting it to the 'Theravada' school: i) Theravada is only one of the early schools who have a complete Vinaya recension and there is no a priori reason why the Theravada's recension should necessarily be more reliable. When I lead the Vinaya classes here I sometimes check the other versions on dubious points, although only rarely so far because it would multiply the preparation work so much. Have a look at the similar intro I wrote for the Early Buddhism forum at websangha; ii) the 'Theravada' school is really a western academic abstraction, the term 'Theravada' only began to be used by western scholars in the last century, before that the 'Theravada' was called the "Tambapanniya" (Sri-Lankan) school or "Mahaavihaaravaasin" or "Tamrashatika" or "Theriya"; also within 'Theravada' in Asia there are actually influences from other schools: there are Sarvastivadin elements, Mahayana and Brahmanical elements in the commentaries, there are Mahayana and possibly Vajrayana elements in popular practice - for example the cult of the Kruba Ajahns in Thailand ('cult' just means 'worship' it's not necessarily pejorative) iii) I think it would be unhistorical to assume that absolutely everything in the Vinaya pitaka is 'Buddha-Vacana' or 'Buddha-Vinaya'. BTW, I understand what you mean by 'Buddha-Vinaya', and most of the mulesika group will, but wouldn't it be better to use more familar conventions like 'Buddha-Vacana' or 'rules formulated by the Tathagata'? Basically I think it would be better just to insist on clearly distinguishing different interpretations and periods and so on in an analytical and historical way rather than excluding any of them. In the ASA (Australian Sangha Association) it's good to see that some Tibetan and Chinese monks and nuns as they become more aware of other traditions and our shared roots, and scholarly perspectives on Buddhist history, are becoming more interested in researching and practicing the early Vinaya.

• 2 Do you want just scattered, miscellaneous info like on our Mulesika site or a well organised, comprehensive resource? I think it would be good to have a page for each rule, each chapter of the Khandhakas, each chapter of the Parivara, and for special subjects that span several chapters and rules, etc. etc. I think each page should begin with an accurate retranslation of the main Padabhajana section (at least) on each rule, ideally the complete Vinaya of each school, and eventually a synoptic edition of all of them with text and translation in parallel. Then, when commentarialists come along from the various schools we should ask them to provide references and justify every point that is not explicit in the earliest texts, not automatically reject what the say but just ask for references and logical arguments. I saw a good idea on the Early Buddhism forum recently, someone suggested having a page for "points of controversy", basically so that noobies know what they're getting themselves in for if they ask one of the questions on the list. Overall, I think this is a great idea in principle but to do it really well would be sooooo much work, and the monks who would be capable of doing this kind of thing are probably all super-busy already.

Adding to the WikiVinaya

Since WikiVinaya is a wiki, the writing of all pages of the WikiVinaya is principally a community-effort, and the contents of these pages can be altered. Also this page, and any of the other pages. So feel free to change and add things. However, you need to create an account on WikiVinaya in order to be able to edit pages and make new pages.

More information for newcomers to wikis can be found at the welcomepage for newcomers at wikipedia (P.S. Wikipedia is not the same as WikiVinaya, but it uses the same software as WikiVinaya and has a good help-section). [edit]

I think it would be good to control the group of those who can edit and create pages in order to maintain quality. Probably any bhikkhus or bhikkhunis should be given the benefit of the doubt that they know enough to particapate, at least until they've proven otherwise. I agree with your suggestion to limit the participation of laypeople to only quite knowledgeable and essentially sympathetic Buddhists, maybe also academic scholars. You could just try inviting a few scholars like Charles Prebish for example. I'm sure he would be very busy but I've read a few articles by him about 'scholar-practitioners' and I think he would in principle be interested in contributing.

About origins of rules

Nowadays many different rules exist in the different Buddhist monasteries and the various Buddhist monastic lineages. One may hear different interpretations of the same rule, which can be quite confusing for the newcomer to Buddhism, and see some rules being emphasized in some monasteries, and unheard of at other monasteries.

WikiVinaya tries to clear things up by trying to always make a distinction concerning the origin of a certain rule:

  1. Is the rule Buddha-Vinaya (contained in the oldest scriptures (the Vinaya Pitaka), and very likely to have been proclaimed by Buddha himself?
  2. Is it one of a number of variant interpretations of a passage or rule in the Vinaya Pitaka, which subsequently lead to different practices of the very same rule.
  3. Is it a commentarial comment on the Vinaya, written down (many) centuries after the passing away of the Buddha?
  4. Or is it a current practice, of which it maybe cannot be said that it has a basis in any rule contained in the old scripture of the Tipitaka and her (ancient) commentaries? 

I would like to rephrase this to allow any and every kind of historical analysis without any a priori assumptions: the Vinaya pitaka is the best resource we have for learning about the earliest Vinaya, but there are six complete versions and several other fragments, they're all very similar but slightly different, mostly in structure, but then structural differences can be very easily subjected to comparison and evaluation in a historical way. So there's a massive feild for research in comparative Vinaya studies. We have pretty much all the resources here at SFM, except for lots of free time of course!

Let me know whether you like these suggestions and then when I have time I will try to write something similar but rephrased along these lines. Santi.