--- title: Three Vinaya Lineages in Conversation subtitle: Synchronic Structure and the Five-Recension Cross-Comparison volume: 戒門 SĪLA paper_id: "SILA-P10" paper_number: P10 language: en date: 2026-05-19 author: "釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing)" license: CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 series: Six Practice Gates --- # Three Vinaya Lineages in Conversation **Synchronic Structure and the Five-Recension Cross-Comparison** *中文主題：三系律藏之對話——共時結構與五系部派對勘* --- **Author:** 釋慧鏡 Shi Huijing **Date:** May 2026 **License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 **Version:** 1.0 --- ## Abstract Cross-tradition Vinaya comparison is often presumed to be a twentieth-century Western scholarly imposition; this assumption does not survive the textual evidence. Yijing's late seventh-century critique of the multi-*Vinaya* situation in Tang China — written after twenty-five years of direct observation at Nālandā — together with his contemporary Daoxuan's six-recension cataloguing in the *Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshichao* (T1804), already establishes a robust indigenous foundation for comparative *Vinaya* scholarship. This paper takes the placement of the eight *garudhammas* (八敬法) as the primary comparative axis, the eight-category *prātimokṣa* sequence as the stable-core baseline, and five *Vinaya* recensions — Mahīśāsaka, Mahāsāṅghika, Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, and Mūlasarvāstivāda — as the cross-comparison sample. Three findings emerge: the eight-category *prātimokṣa* sequence is stable across all five recensions; the placement of the *garudhammas* is consolidated in four of the five, with Mūlasarvāstivāda alone exhibiting a doubled register (narrative form in T1451 *Kṣudrakavastu* juans 29–30, dispersed-rule form in T1443 *Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* juan 19); and Mahāsāṅghika carries a ninth rubric (*dharma-anudharma*) beyond the shared octave. The pairing of a stable core with a variable periphery constitutes a redactor's-eye finding internal to the comparative *Vinaya* tradition itself — neither an external ranking of any single recension nor a contemporary normative critique. **Keywords:** three *Vinaya* lineages, eight *garudhammas*, *prātimokṣa*, five-recension cross-comparison, Mūlasarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, Theravāda, Yijing, Daoxuan, Bhikkhu Anālayo, Ann Heirman, Shayne Clarke, redactor's-eye view, synchronic structure, indigenous awareness ## 摘要 跨系比較律學常被視為二十世紀西方佛教研究外加之視角，然此一假設於文本層證據前難以成立。七世紀末義淨於那爛陀寺二十五年親見回國後對漢地多系律藏並存所作之內生批判，與同期道宣於《四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔》中對六部正本之分類，已為比較律學立下內生基礎。本文以八敬法（*aṭṭha garudhammā*）所在位置為主要對勘軸，以八支波羅提木叉（*prātimokṣa*）編定順序為穩定共核之對照基線，以化地部、大眾部、薩婆多部、法藏部、根本說一切有部五系律藏為對勘樣本，得三項並陳之發現：八支波羅提木叉編定順序跨五系穩定一致；八敬法所在位置於五系中四系皆集中收錄，唯根本說一切有部以雙軌並存（敘事形態之 T1451《雜事》卷二十九至三十與散入規條形態之 T1443《苾芻尼毘奈耶》卷十九）為五系中之唯一例外；大眾部則於八支基底之外獨有第九「法隨順法」分位。穩定共核與變動外緣之雙重結構，為以編訂者之眼所見之比較律學內生發現，不為單系優劣之排序，亦不為現代規範性之批判。 **關鍵詞：** 三系律藏、八敬法、波羅提木叉、五系部派對勘、根本說一切有部、四分律、上座部、義淨、道宣、釋無著、海爾門、克拉克、編訂者之眼、共時結構、內生覺察 --- ## I. Introduction In the late seventh century, after twenty-five years of direct observation at Nālandā, the Chinese pilgrim Yijing returned to Tang China and, in his *Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan* (《南海寄歸內法傳》, T2125), summarised the state of *Vinaya* practice in his home country with two pointed phrases: that on Chinese soil "the various *Vinaya*-holding schools were pulling on each other" and that the situation had become "tangled and disorderly in its commentaries and excerpts" (神州持律諸部互牽 / 章鈔繁雜).[^1] This was not an externally imposed comparative perspective. It was the response of an East Asian *Vinaya* master with direct experience of how the Indian *Vinaya* was actually being lived, to the lived reality of his home country, where several *Vinaya* traditions — Dharmaguptaka, Sarvāstivāda, Mahīśāsaka, Mūlasarvāstivāda — were co-circulating in monastic practice with porous and sometimes confused boundaries. His contemporary Daoxuan, working from a distinctively Chinese vantage point, performed the same comparative work in a different register. In fascicle 1 of his *Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshichao* (《四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔》, T1804), Daoxuan enumerated "the six authentic recensions" — Saṃghika, Dharmaguptaka, Sarvāstivāda, Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya, and Vātsīputrīya — and offered a typology of "the six kinds of *Vinaya*-holders in the world", together with a self-disclosed comparative practice ("the texts list four readings; the Sarvāstivāda *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* is in seal-print agreement in meaning").[^2] Yijing's critique and Daoxuan's classification approach the same fact from opposite vantage points — one Indian, one Chinese — but what they jointly address is the brute fact of cross-tradition coexistence. By the seventh and eighth centuries in East Asia, comparative *Vinaya* scholarship was already an indigenous concern of working *Vinaya* masters. It was not first imported by Western Buddhist studies in the twentieth century. The present paper takes the three-lineage frame as its principal stage: by "three lineages" we mean the Pāli *Vinaya* of the Theravāda, the *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* (T1428) on which the East Asian *Vinaya*-school depends, and the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya* group translated by Yijing. To ensure that the comparison sample is representative, we extend the witness layer to a five-recension array by adding the Mahīśāsaka *Vinaya* (T1421), the Mahāsāṅghika *Vinaya* (T1425), and the Sarvāstivāda *Vinaya* (T1435), with the first three lineages forming the principal axis and the latter three forming the cross-witness axis. The previous paper (P09) read the *Pāṭimokkha* within a single tradition as a self-legislating casuistic case law.[^3] The present paper extends that reading along its natural axis: from one tradition to many, from intra-tradition architecture to synchronic cross-tradition comparison. Two questions follow. First, does the self-legislating categorial logic of the *prātimokṣa* hold across the three lineages? Second, if what is stable across the three lies in one stratum and what diverges lies in another, what does that distribution itself disclose about the deeper architecture of *Vinaya* redaction? The thesis of the paper is the following. The comparison of the three *Vinaya*-lineages takes no single recension as benchmark. The textual core — the eight-category sequence of the *prātimokṣa* — is stable across all three lineages and across all five recensions. The textual periphery — where the eight *garudhammas* (the eight weighty rules) are placed within the *Vinaya* — diverges, with Mūlasarvāstivāda alone exhibiting a doubled register: a narrative form in the *Kṣudrakavastu* (T1451) and a dispersed-rule form in the *Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* (T1443). This pairing of a stable core with a variable periphery is a redactor's-eye finding internal to the comparative *Vinaya* tradition itself. The register of this paper is descriptive-historical, not normative-prescriptive. We name no living *saṅgha*; we take no position on the contemporary *bhikkhunī*-ordination debates; we rank no recension above another. --- ## II. The Three Textual Axes Placed Side by Side ### 2.1 The Theravāda Pāli axis The most direct attestation of the eight-category *Pāṭimokkha* sequence in the Pāli *Vinaya* appears in the First Council scene of *Cullavagga* XI, where Upāli is recited as having recited the *Pāṭimokkha* in this order: *pārājika*, *saṅghādisesa*, *aniyata*, *nissaggiya-pācittiya*, *pācittiya*, *pāṭidesanīya*, *sekhiya*, and *adhikaraṇa-samatha* — eight categories in total.[^4] In the same chapter, Mahākassapa, when ruling on the question of the "lesser and minor training-rules" (*khuddānukhuddaka*), instituted what would become the transmission discipline of the whole tradition. The Pāli formula — *apaññattaṁ nappaññapeyya paññattaṁ na samucchindeyya yathāpaññattesu sikkhāpadesu samādāya vatteyya*, "what has not been laid down shall not be laid down; what has been laid down shall not be cut off; one should accept and live by the training-rules as they have been laid down"[^5] — is a foundational textual proposition shared across the lineages: the content of the *Vinaya* may have its bounds set by the Buddha's institution, but its transmission must not be expanded or pruned by later hands at will. *Pācittiya* 72 of the *Bhikkhu-pāṭimokkha*, the *Vilekhanasikkhāpada*, supplies the *Pāṭimokkha*'s self-referential signature: the rule, within the text of the *Pāṭimokkha* itself, refers to *the* event of the *Pāṭimokkha* being recited (*pātimokkhe uddissamāne*).[^6] At the grammatical surface this is a recursive feature of the text; at the structural level it attests the *Vinaya*'s self-legislating categorial logic — that the institution within which the rule operates is itself protected, by name, inside the rule. The eight *garudhammas* (*aṭṭha garudhammā*) in the Pāli *Vinaya* are placed in their own chapter, *Cullavagga* X, the *Bhikkhunī-khandhaka*. The eight rules are framed by the ordination narrative of Mahāprajāpatī Gotamī and laid out as a continuous block.[^7] Across the Pāli stratum there is one further continuity-of-doctrine link worth noting. The *Aṅguttara-nikāya* situates the *prātimokṣa*-restraint within a developmental sequence — AN 4.245 *Sikkhānisaṃsa-sutta* on the benefits of training, and AN 11.1 *Kimatthiya-sutta* on the eleven-link chain that places *sīla* at the head of the path to wisdom. This developmental axis is shared canonical ground across all three *Vinaya*-lineages: whatever the recension-level divergences, the *sikkhā* axis itself, and the *sīla* → *paññā* chain that builds upon it, is convergent doctrinal territory. ### 2.2 The Dharmaguptaka *Sifenlü* axis The *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* (T1428) is the textual axis on which the East Asian *Vinaya*-school has depended for more than a thousand years. Its opening fascicle announces the "ten purposes" (*dasa atthavase paṭicca* — 十句義) for which the precepts were laid down, and the eight-category, seven-aggregate (*pañca-khanda* / *satta-piṇḍa*) architecture organises the rest of the text.[^8] The eight-category sequence of the *prātimokṣa* appears in fascicle 54 in the First Council scene of Upāli's recitation — *pārājika*, *saṅghādisesa*, *aniyata*, *naiḥsargika-pāyantika*, *pāyantika*, *pratideśanīya*, *śaikṣa*, *adhikaraṇa-śamatha* — in one-to-one correspondence with *Cullavagga* XI. The Second Council scene of the seven hundred follows in the same fascicle (lines 291–560), where Mahākāśyapa, in the parallel role to the Pāli redaction, similarly handles the question of the "lesser and minor" rules across the eight categories.[^9] The Dharmaguptaka–Pāli correspondence at the *prātimokṣa* sequence level admits direct, point-by-point cross-mapping. The eight *garudhammas* in the Dharmaguptaka recension are consolidated in fascicle 48, the *Bhikṣuṇī-khandhaka*. The eight rules sit together in a single block, each closed by the uniform formula "this rule is to be respected, revered, and praised; it is not to be transgressed for as long as life endures"; the block is framed by the marriage-garland *upasampadā* simile ("if a woman can keep these, this itself is *upasampadā*") and sealed by the five-hundred-year *saddhamma*-duration prediction.[^10] Both the consolidation and the closure are strong textual signals and admit direct cross-mapping with *Cullavagga* X. The *Dharmaguptaka-bhikṣu-prātimokṣa* (T1429) carries a parallel attestation of the eightfold sequence in the form of a recurring framing-formula: "fortnight by fortnight to be recited, drawn from the *Bhikṣu-prātimokṣa*" (半月半月說、戒經中來). The formula occurs nine times across the *Prātimokṣa* text, covering all eight categories of the eightfold division — the precise functional equivalent of the Pāli "venerable ones, these four *pārājika* rules come up for recitation in the *Pāṭimokkha*" (*imāni kho panāyasmanto cattāro pārājikā dhammā uddesaṃ āgacchanti*).[^11] The nine framing-occurrences themselves are an independent witness to the stability of the eight-category sequence at the *Prātimokṣa* level. One terminological note is warranted before proceeding. The Pāli term *pācittiya* and its Sanskrit cognate *pāyantika* receive three different Chinese transcriptions across the recensions: Dharmaguptaka renders 波逸提, Mahāsāṅghika renders 波夜提, Mūlasarvāstivāda renders 波逸底迦, while Sarvāstivāda again renders 波逸提. These are three transcriptions of the same root, not three categorial entities. We note this once and do not repeat the gloss. ### 2.3 The Mūlasarvāstivāda doubled register The Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya* in Chinese is the work of a single translation project — Yijing's, between 700 and 712 in Luoyang and Chang'an — and survives in a cluster of texts: the *Bhikṣu-vinaya* (T1442), the *Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* (T1443), the *Saṅghabhedavastu* (T1450), the *Kṣudrakavastu* (T1451), and several others. Within this single tradition, the eight *garudhammas* are placed in a manner that differs from the other four recensions in a structurally distinctive way. There is no consolidated block, and there is no single textual register. Instead the same eight rules are distributed across two registers within the same tradition: a narrative form and a dispersed-rule form. The narrative form occurs at the close of fascicle 29 and the opening of fascicle 30 of the *Kṣudrakavastu* (T1451). Here we find Mahāprajāpatī's three requests for ordination; the Buddha's three hesitations expressed in three similes (a household with few men and many women, a crop struck by hail, a sugarcane stalk with red joints); Ānanda's intercession; the eight *garudhammas* presented one by one, each addressed to "Ānanda!"; and Mahāprajāpatī's post-acceptance ordination posture, the receiving of the rules upon her head as a garland. The whole passage reads as a *jātaka*-like narrative, not as a regulatory code.[^12] One correction is required for the present series' internal record: an earlier project note placed the *garudhamma* narrative at fascicle 40 of T1451; in fact fascicle 40 belongs to the Second Council material (the territory of the next paper, P11). The *garudhamma* narrative is at fascicles 29–30. The opening of T1451 fascicle 1, moreover, names itself as "*Kṣudraka-vastu*" — organised by *uddāna*-summary topical clusters rather than by numbered *śikṣāpada* — and this self-naming is the narrative register's own framing.[^13] The dispersed-rule form appears in fascicle 19 of the *Mūlasarvāstivāda-bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* (T1443). The same eight *garudhammas* are no longer continuous in this register; they are distributed across the numbered *śikṣāpada* table as individual *pāyantika* rules. *Śikṣāpada* 126, the "rule on requesting instruction", corresponds to Pāli *garudhamma* 3 (the fortnightly request for instruction); *śikṣāpada* 127, the "rule on holding the *uposatha* where there are no *bhikṣus*", corresponds to the requirement that *uposatha* be performed in the presence of *bhikṣus*; *śikṣāpada* 128, the "rule on entering the rains-retreat where there are no *bhikṣus*", corresponds to Pāli *garudhamma* 2 (rains-residence in dependence on the *bhikṣu*-residence); *śikṣāpada* 129, the "rule on not performing the *pravāraṇā* three observances at the joint assembly", corresponds to Pāli *garudhamma* 4 (the threefold *pravāraṇā* before both communities). Each of the four closes with the *pāyantika* category-marker and is embedded in the continuous *pāyantika* numbering — fascicles 15 through 20 cover *śikṣāpada* 38 onward into the 180s.[^14] In format, these four rules sit fully on a level with their neighbours: no consolidation, no narrative frame, no closure formula distinguishing them from the surrounding *pāyantika* material. The opening *Vinaya*-preface of T1443 fascicle 1 announces the *bhikṣuṇī*-rules as "*prātimokṣa-sūtra*" (別解脫經) and notes the "eight *pārājika* rules" as the *bhikṣuṇī*-code's opening marker.[^15] But the eight *garudhammas* themselves, by the time we reach fascicle 19, no longer have the textual identity of a consolidated block. The same Vinaya tradition, the same translator, the same translation project, the same decade: and yet two genuinely distinct registers stand side by side. T1451's narrative form develops *garudhamma* material along the units of person–scene–occasion; T1443's dispersed-rule form develops the same material as numbered *śikṣāpada*. This internal doubling is not a cross-tradition phenomenon. It is not shared by the other four recensions. It is fully internal to Mūlasarvāstivāda — and crucially, its detection does not require cross-recension comparison. It is visible simply by reading the two T-numbers of the same translator side by side. A second terminological note. The *Sarvāstivāda-vinaya* (T1435, *Daśa-bhāṇavāra*, translated by Puṇyatara and Kumārajīva, 404–409) and the *Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya* cluster (T1442 / T1443 / T1450 / T1451, translated by Yijing, 700–712) are not the same tradition despite the proximity of their names. Yijing himself, in T2125, draws the distinction and corrects what was already a common Chinese confusion ("the *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* is the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya*"). We return to this point in §V. --- ## III. The Five-Recension Architectural Triangulation ### 3.1 The five-recension comparison table Extending the comparison sample to six witnesses — the Pāli of the Theravāda, the *Mahīśāsaka-vinaya* (T1421), the *Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya* (T1425), the *Sarvāstivāda-vinaya* (T1435), the *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* (T1428), and the Mūlasarvāstivāda cluster (T1442 / T1443 / T1450 / T1451) — the placement of the eight *garudhammas* distributes as follows. | Recension | Principal text | Placement of the eight *garudhammas* | Textual form | |---|---|---|---| | Theravāda | Pāli *Cullavagga* X | *Bhikkhunī-khandhaka* opening consolidated block | Consolidated; Mahāprajāpatī's ordination narrative as frame | | Mahīśāsaka | T1421 fascicle 29 | "Section Five, Eight Rules for Bhikṣuṇīs" consolidated block | Consolidated; Gotamī ordination narrative as frame; eight non-transgressible rules in a continuous block | | Mahāsāṅghika | T1425 fascicles 30 & 32 | Fascicle 30 *Bhikṣuṇī-dharma* opening (line 359 onward) | Strongest consolidated form; each rule with its own "transgression-of-*gurudharma*" gloss; sealed with "the Nth *gurudharma* ends" | | Sarvāstivāda | T1435 fascicles 42–47 | Within the *Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* section; fascicle 47 separates an independent *garudharma* chapter (line 523) | Double consolidated (within section + standalone chapter); embedded in fortnightly-instruction (*ardhamāsa-uddesa*) frame, not ordination-narrative frame | | Dharmaguptaka | T1428 fascicle 48 | *Bhikṣuṇī-khandhaka* consolidated block | Consolidated; uniform closure formula per rule; five-hundred-year prediction as block-end seal | | Mūlasarvāstivāda | T1451 fascicles 29–30 + T1443 fascicle 19 | Narrative form in T1451; dispersed-rule form in T1443 *śikṣāpada* 126–129 | Doubled register internal to the tradition; no single consolidated block | At the layer of *garudhamma*-placement, five of the six witnesses (Theravāda, Mahīśāsaka, Mahāsāṅghika, Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka) share the consolidated form. Mūlasarvāstivāda alone exhibits the doubled-register pattern — one of six. The distribution is five-to-one, not three-to-three and not even. The asymmetry itself is the principal finding of the comparison. ### 3.2 Narrative and dispersed-rule registers coexisting within a single tradition The Mūlasarvāstivāda internal split carries a further structural implication. The same eight rules can appear, *within a single tradition*, in two textually distinct registers — narrative (T1451) and dispersed-rule (T1443). This is not a cross-tradition difference but an intra-tradition register difference. The *Vinaya* in this tradition does not present itself as a single textual genre. It is not the case that *vinaya* names a single text-type; rather, in this one tradition, *vinaya* simultaneously takes the form of a person-scene-occasion narrative and the form of a numbered rule-table. This phenomenon stands in structural correspondence with the *Suttavibhaṅga*-versus-*Pāṭimokkha* split discussed in the previous paper (P09). There, within a single tradition, the *Suttavibhaṅga* developed the four-component anatomy of each rule (*nidāna*, *sikkhāpada*, *padabhājanīya*, *vinīta-vatthu*) — already a composite of narrative and rule elements — while the *Pāṭimokkha* compiled the regulatory clauses alone. P09 displayed this narrative-versus-rule split as an intra-tradition phenomenon at the *Suttavibhaṅga*/*Pāṭimokkha* level. The present paper extends the observation: in Mūlasarvāstivāda, the same intra-tradition split appears at the *Vinaya*-text level, with two separate texts in the same translation project occupying the two registers — T1451 takes the narrative pole, T1443 takes the rule pole. This intra-tradition register-doubling is, among the five recensions, found only in Mūlasarvāstivāda. ### 3.3 Stable core and variable periphery as a dual architecture The five-recension comparison discloses a dual-layer architecture. The first layer is the stable core. The eight-category *prātimokṣa* sequence — *pārājika*, *saṅghādisesa*, *aniyata*, *naiḥsargika-pāyantika*, *pāyantika*, *pratideśanīya*, *śaikṣa*, *adhikaraṇa-śamatha* — admits one-to-one cross-mapping across five of the six witnesses (Theravāda, Mahīśāsaka, Dharmaguptaka, Sarvāstivāda, Mūlasarvāstivāda). The Mahāsāṅghika carries an added ninth heading, but its first eight match the same sequence (see §3.4 below). The category-names are linguistically diverse across recensions (three Chinese renderings of the same *pāyantika* root, as noted at §2.2), but their category-rule-vinīta-vatthu identity is structurally stable. This stability is the cross-recension convergence baseline for comparative *Vinaya* work. The second layer is the variable periphery. The placement of the eight *garudhammas* — whether they are consolidated, whether they are narrativised, whether they are dispersed into the numbered *śikṣāpada* — diverges across the recensions. Importantly, this divergence is not a two-versus-three split. It is a four-to-one asymmetry: four recensions converge on consolidation, one alone diverges into doubled register. The variation at the periphery does not destabilise the convergence at the core. The stable core is not the whole *Vinaya*; the variable periphery is not the whole *Vinaya* either. The two coexist at different strata of the same text — core convergent, periphery divergent. That is the dual finding of comparative *Vinaya* at the architectural level. At the practice-and-scholarship interface, the implication of this dual structure may be stated as follows: the cross-tradition variation of the *Vinaya* is not uniformly distributed. The stability of the core layer secures that the three *Vinaya*-lineages point to the same teaching; the variation of the periphery layer displays that the same teaching can take more than one historical embodiment. Textual diversity is in service of doctrinal coherence, not the other way around. ### 3.4 The Mahāsāṅghika ninth-rubric variant axis The *Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya* (T1425), in fascicle 32, adds beyond the shared eightfold base a ninth heading — *dharma-anudharma* ("the Dharma and what conforms to the Dharma", 法隨順法). Its first eight categories correspond fully with the other four recensions; the ninth is unique to the Mahāsāṅghika.[^16] This added heading sits inside the Mahāsāṅghika tradition's historical distinctiveness as a separate school from the Sthavira side, and provides a textual witness to that split at the level of *prātimokṣa* organisation — the first eight as the shared cross-recension base, the ninth as the recension-specific addition. The eight-plus-one pattern is itself a further instance of the "stable core plus variable periphery" architecture on another axis. One further note. The Sarvāstivāda placement of the eight *garudhammas*, while consolidated, sits inside the fortnightly-instruction (*ardhamāsa-uddesa*) framing rather than the ordination-narrative framing.[^17] The placement-layer divergence among the four consolidated recensions is itself further textured at the level of framing. This paper does not expand that sub-layer in detail; we register it here as a refinement, not as a counterexample. --- ## IV. Three-Scholar Dialogue ### 4.1 Bhikkhu Anālayo (Pāli leg) Among contemporary scholars, the most systematic treatment of the cross-tradition textual stability of the *bhikkhunī*-rules is the work of Bhikkhu Anālayo. *The Foundation History of the Nuns' Order* (Hamburg University Press, 2016), together with the trilogy of articles in the *Journal of Buddhist Ethics* between 2014 and 2017, brings the cross-recension philology of the eight *garudhammas* to the mature current standard of the field.[^23] Anālayo's core method is historical-foundationalist: cross-recension comparison is deployed to identify which elements belong to the early stratum and which are later redactional additions, with the aim of recovering the historical layers of the *garudhamma* material. The present paper acknowledges the philological baseline Anālayo has set, and pushes one step along a different methodological axis. The historical-foundationalist question is *when*: which form is earliest, which late, what is the redactional history? The question of the present paper is *how the redactors arranged*: why does the placement-layer distribute in a four-to-one asymmetry across the five recensions? The two registers — placement-as-consolidated versus placement-as-dispersed — are visible to the redactor's eye, not the origin-historian's eye. The two approaches do not conflict; they ask different questions. The first asks about temporal layering ("earlier or later"); the second asks about synchronic arrangement ("how laid out"). ### 4.2 Ann Heirman (Dharmaguptaka leg) The most systematic contemporary study of the Dharmaguptaka *bhikṣuṇī*-code is Ann Heirman's *Rules for Nuns according to the Dharmaguptakavinaya*, three volumes (Motilal Banarsidass, Buddhist Tradition Series 47–49, 2002).[^24] This is the strongest contemporary Western monograph on the Dharmaguptaka nuns' code, and the starting point for any East Asian *Vinaya* study that engages this material. The present paper acknowledges Heirman's single-recension depth and supplements it along the cross-recension breadth axis. Heirman handles the Dharmaguptaka as a self-contained study within one tradition; the present paper places the Dharmaguptaka within a five-recension comparative frame, where its consolidated form sits as "one of five, four of which share the consolidated pattern" — a majority pattern, not a default baseline. The consolidated form of the Dharmaguptaka, viewed from inside the single tradition, is its native architectural feature; viewed across the five-recension array, it is one instance of a shared four-recension pattern. Heirman's single-recension depth makes the cross-recension breadth of the present paper available; the breadth would be unreadable without the depth. ### 4.3 Shayne Clarke (Mūlasarvāstivāda leg) The principal contemporary study of the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya* is Shayne Clarke's *Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms* (University of Hawai'i Press, 2014), together with several Mūlasarvāstivāda-specific articles including "Lost in Tibet, Found in Bhutan".[^25] Clarke's principal thesis is that the *narrative density* of the Mūlasarvāstivāda — its tendency to develop *Vinaya* material through persons, scenes, and occasions rather than through abstracted code — is the defining textual feature of this tradition. The present paper acknowledges Clarke's observation of narrative density and supplements it with a complementary register internal to the same tradition. Clarke's focus is on the narrative side (the *Kṣudrakavastu* tradition exemplified by T1451). The present paper adds the observation of the dispersed-rule side (T1443 *Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* fascicle 19). The full picture of the Mūlasarvāstivāda is not narrative alone; it is the doubled register, narrative (T1451) and dispersed-rule (T1443) coexisting in the same tradition. The internal register-split is a structural feature that single-axis narrative-focus misses; once the second register is included, the Mūlasarvāstivāda's picture becomes architecturally complete. ### 4.4 Brief acknowledgement and an honest disclosure The three scholars carried over from P09 — Bhikkhu Sujato's Pāli *Vinaya* English translation and *Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga* introduction; Oskar von Hinüber's *A Handbook of Pāli Literature* (de Gruyter, 1996) on the redactional stratigraphy of the Pāli *Vinaya*; and W. Pachow's *A Comparative Study of the Prātimokṣa* (Sino-Indian Studies V, 1955), the foundational figure of all modern cross-recension Prātimokṣa comparison — each receive one-line acknowledgement here without further development.[^26] Pachow in particular is the figure on whose 1955 foundation the entire subsequent comparative *Vinaya* project (including the work of Anālayo, Heirman, and Clarke) rests. One honest disclosure is owed. The specific finding of the present paper — that across the five-recension array the Mūlasarvāstivāda is the sole exception, and that its defining feature in this comparison is the doubled register — does not yet appear, to our knowledge, as a focused monograph treatment in contemporary Western scholarship. Anālayo, Heirman, and Clarke each work within deep specialisation, predominantly within a single tradition or a particular two-tradition comparison. The five-recension architectural reading of the present paper attempts a positioning in a region of relatively sparse contemporary attention rather than an inheritance of an already-mapped comparative tradition. --- ## V. Indigenous Cross-Tradition Awareness in the Chinese Commentaries §V is the distinctive contribution of the present paper. The cross-recension comparative work of Daoxuan and Yijing demonstrates that comparative *Vinaya* scholarship is not an external imposition by twentieth-century Western academy but an indigenous concern that East Asian *Vinaya* masters had already taken up in the seventh and eighth centuries. ### 5.1 Daoxuan's six-recension classification in the *Xingshichao* In fascicle 1 of his *Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshichao* (T1804), Daoxuan offers an explicit classification of the cross-recension situation in his day. His enumeration of the "six authentic recensions" runs in order: Saṃghika (Mahāsāṅghika), Tánwúdé (Dharmaguptaka), Sarvāstivāda, Mīshāsai (Mahīśāsaka), Jiāyèyí (Kāśyapīya), and Pólúfúluó (Vātsīputrīya).[^19] The six-recension list is set down with the Dharmaguptaka as the principal house tradition, but the cross-recension inventory itself is explicit and named. In the same fascicle Daoxuan also lays out a typology of "the six kinds of *Vinaya*-holders in the world" and self-discloses a comparative practice: "the texts list four readings; the *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* is in seal-print agreement in meaning" — that is, when comparing four recensions on the same rule, the rendering in the *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* (T1435, Sarvāstivāda) agrees in translation and in meaning. This self-disclosure is itself a seventh-century indigenous practice of cross-recension textual comparison — methodologically equivalent to what modern scholarship calls textual collation, even if it does not use the modern terminology. ### 5.2 The continuation in word-level collation: Yuanzhao's *Zichiji* The comparative work Daoxuan opened is carried to a finer-grained register by the Song Nanshan master Yuanzhao in his *Sifenlü xingshichao zichi ji* (《四分律行事鈔資持記》, T1805), a sub-commentary on Daoxuan's *Xingshichao*.[^20] In one passage on the "Mahīśāsaka and *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* general agreement" (五分十誦大同), he compares the *upasampadā* procedure across the Mahīśāsaka and Sarvāstivāda texts; in a passage on the *Vinaya*-time-and-place categories of the *Mingliao lun* (《明了論》, Sammitīya *Vinaya* commentary), he traces transmission marks of the Sammitīya school; and in a passage on the phrase "these two characters refer to the two schools" he does word-level cross-school disambiguation. This word-level collation extends the cross-recension comparison Daoxuan established in the *Xingshichao* (seventh century) and refines it within the Song Nanshan line; its granularity is methodologically continuous with modern comparative *Vinaya* scholarship — again without the modern terminology, but with the same substantive method. The indigenous comparative tradition thus runs unbroken from Daoxuan in the Tang to Yuanzhao in the Song. ### 5.3 The three indigenous segments in Yijing's *Nanhai jigui* Yijing's indigenous cross-tradition perspective rests on three textual segments in the *Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan*. The first is the geographical-distribution segment. Yijing notes, in T2125, that the northern regions of Tang China principally use the Dharmaguptaka, while the southern Jiangnan area carries a mixture of several recensions; the geographical variation is itself an indigenous datum for comparative *Vinaya* observation.[^21] The second is Yijing's self-disclosed Mūlasarvāstivāda standpoint with historical-philological precision. In the same text he states plainly that his own translations all follow the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya*, and in the same passage explicitly corrects what was already a current Chinese confusion ("the *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* is the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya*") and supplies the historical-philological frame "the Sarvāstivāda group divides into three: Dharmaguptaka, Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya".[^22] The historical significance of this self-disclosure is that it is a seventh-century contemporary observation by an East Asian *Vinaya* master with twenty-five years of direct Indian experience — not a retrospective sectarian positioning. This passage must be presented in a descriptive-historical register; it should not be expanded into a contemporary advocacy for Mūlasarvāstivāda superiority. The third is the critical segment already quoted in §I: the "various *Vinaya*-holding schools were pulling on each other" and "tangled and disorderly in its commentaries and excerpts". The context of this critique is the same East Asian *Vinaya* master, returning from long observation of Indian *Vinaya* practice, commenting on the conditions he found at home — the coexistence of multiple recensions with blurred boundaries. What Yijing performs here is itself a piece of comparative *Vinaya* work: his stance is descriptive-historical, not ranking-prescriptive. ### 5.4 A four-layered indigenous-evidence summary Compiling the comparative work of Daoxuan and Yijing into a four-layered evidence summary for the claim that comparative *Vinaya* is an indigenous East Asian concern rather than an externally imposed twentieth-century framework: First layer: Daoxuan's six-recension enumeration in the *Xingshichao* establishes the cross-recension factual inventory at the level of recension identification and naming. Second layer: Yuanzhao's word-level collation in the *Zichiji* (a Song sub-commentary on Daoxuan's *Xingshichao*) extends the cross-recension comparative method Daoxuan opened to the level of word-level textual scholarship. Third layer: the *Abhidharma* stratum — the *Abhidharmakośa* (T1558) and the *Abhidharma-samuccaya* (T1605) treatments of the three-restraint architecture — provides recension-aware doctrinal classification at the *śāstra* level. Fourth layer: Vasubandhu's eightfold *prātimokṣa-saṃvara* inventory in *Abhidharmakośa* fascicle 14 (treated in P09) provides cross-recension synthesis at the *śāstra* pivot point. The combined conclusion is that comparative *Vinaya* scholarship was already a working indigenous concern in seventh- and eighth-century East Asia — Daoxuan's *Vinaya*-text recension-inventory, Yijing's transregional observation, and the recension-aware *śāstra* stratum — and was carried to word-level granularity at the *Prātimokṣa*-text stratum by the Song Nanshan line (Yuanzhao's *Zichiji*); an unbroken thread from Tang to Song. The contribution of the present paper sits inside this indigenous tradition's extension, not outside it. What we add is one further layer of synchronic structural reading — the placement-distribution pattern across five recensions — not a new external framework. ### 5.5 The Zhiyi-equivalent translation thread (carried forward) The previous paper treated the cross-recension equivalence-of-translation work of Zhiyi and his successors on the "everywhere-liberation" (處處解脫) and "obtainable-liberation" (保得解脫) renderings of *prātimokṣa*. We pick this up here in one line and do not extend it further: the Tiantai and Nanshan *Vinaya* schools also contributed to this cross-tradition equivalence-translation work, but their principal venues are the preceding and following papers in the series, not the present one. --- ## VI. Conclusion On the principal stage of the three *Vinaya*-lineages (Theravāda Pāli, Dharmaguptaka *Sifenlü*, Mūlasarvāstivāda), with the placement of the eight *garudhammas* as the primary comparative axis, the eight-category *prātimokṣa* sequence as the stable-core baseline, and the five-recension array as the comparison sample, three structural findings emerge. First, the eight-category *prātimokṣa* sequence is stable across all five recensions. Second, the placement of the *garudhammas* is consolidated in four of the five recensions, with Mūlasarvāstivāda alone exhibiting the doubled register (narrative T1451 plus dispersed-rule T1443). Third, the Mahāsāṅghika carries a ninth rubric (*dharma-anudharma*) beyond the shared eightfold base. The dual architecture of a stable core and a variable periphery is a redactor's-eye finding internal to the comparative *Vinaya* tradition itself — neither a ranking of one recension above another, nor a contemporary normative critique. At the practice-and-scholarship interface, the meaning of this structural finding may be stated as follows. The comparison of the three *Vinaya*-lineages is not a project of adjudicating which is true and which false; it is a way of observing the same self-legislating categorial logic in more than one historical embodiment. Textual diversity is in service of doctrinal coherence. The three *Vinaya*-lineages differ in detail but converge on the same *sikkhā* axis and on the same *sīla*-to-*paññā* developmental sequence anchored at the head of the AN 11.1 chain — the same teaching in multiple textual instantiations. At the scholarship-and-institution interface, the meaning of the same finding may be stated as follows. Comparative *Vinaya* scholarship is not an external twentieth-century imposition by Western academy; it is the historical extension of an indigenous East Asian *Vinaya*-master concern — Daoxuan, Yijing, and others — into the seventh and eighth centuries. The present paper works within the continuation of that indigenous lineage. What it adds is one layer of synchronic-structural pattern-recognition, not the introduction of a new framework. The present paper has focused on the *synchronic* comparison of the three *Vinaya*-lineages — the placement of the eight *garudhammas* and the eight-category *prātimokṣa* sequence as the dual architecture of a stable core and a variable periphery. The next paper (SĪLA-P11, *The Second Council and the Devadatta Episodes*) will take up the *diachronic* narrative axis: the Second Council and the seven hundred at Vaiśālī, and the inversion of the fifth of Devadatta's five demands between the Mūlasarvāstivāda and the Pāli traditions — where the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Saṅghabhedavastu* (T1450 fascicle 10) frames the fifth demand as "dwelling in village dwellings" (an anti-eremitic, comfort-seeking demand), while the Pāli tradition frames it as a strict forest-only demand (an ascetic intensification). The diachronic axis observes the same cross-recension discipline as the present paper's synchronic axis, but along a different time-arrow. The two papers together offer a more complete picture of the *Vinaya* in both static and dynamic aspects. One open question is left for the reader and for subsequent papers: if the stable core secures that the three *Vinaya*-lineages point to the same teaching, and the variable periphery displays that the same teaching can have multiple historical embodiments, does this dual structure replicate at the periphery of other non-*bhikkhunī* *Vinaya* domains — *upasampadā* procedure, *uposatha* observance, rains-residence institution, *kaṭhina*-robe regulation, and so on? Does the four-to-one asymmetry repeat, or vary? The answer must wait for further point-by-point cross-recension work in those domains. The present paper's single-axis finding at the *garudhamma* placement is a first step of that broader comparative project, not the whole of it. --- ## Footnotes [^1]: Yijing, *Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan* (《南海寄歸內法傳》), fascicle 1, *Taishō* T54 No. 2125, T54 p.0205c20–0206a04. The two key phrases of Yijing's critique are 神州持律諸部互牽 ("the various *Vinaya*-holding schools in this divine land were pulling on each other") and 章鈔繁雜 ("[their] commentaries and excerpts had become tangled and disorderly"). Citations verified against the CBETA Electronic Tripiṭaka Collection. [^2]: Daoxuan, *Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshichao* (《四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔》), fascicle 1, *Taishō* T40 No. 1804. The six-recension list at fascicle 1 upper, line 354; the "six kinds of *Vinaya*-holders in the world" typology at fascicle 1 upper, lines 261–264; the "texts list four readings; the *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* is in seal-print agreement in meaning" passage at fascicle 1 upper, lines 247–253. [^3]: Shi Huijing, "Architecture of the *Pāṭimokkha*: A Self-Legislating Casuistic Case Law", *Six Practice Gates* series, SĪLA-P09, 2026, github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/six-practice-gates. [^4]: Pāli *Cullavagga* XI, the First Council scene of Upāli's recitation of the *Pāṭimokkha* in eight categories: PTS Vin ii 287, SuttaCentral UID `pli-tv-kd21`, Brahmali editorial recension of the Mahāsaṅgīti edition (CC0). [^5]: *Cullavagga* XI, PTS Vin ii 288, SuttaCentral UID `pli-tv-kd21`. The Pāli runs: *apaññattaṁ nappaññapeyya paññattaṁ na samucchindeyya yathāpaññattesu sikkhāpadesu samādāya vatteyya*. [^6]: *Bhikkhu-pāṭimokkha*, *Pācittiya* 72, *Vilekhanasikkhāpada*: PTS Vin iv 142, SuttaCentral UID `pli-tv-bu-vb-pc72`. The recursive self-reference of the *Pāṭimokkha* to its own recitation event (*pātimokkhe uddissamāne*) is the structural attestation; the key term *khuddānukhuddaka* appears in this rule and is shared with the Buddha's final allowance at *Dīgha-nikāya* 16 §6.3 (P09 carry). [^7]: Pāli *Cullavagga* X, *Bhikkhunī-khandhaka*: PTS Vin ii 253–258. The passage is cited here from the SuttaCentral CC0 edition (Bhikkhu Brahmali English, Mahāsaṅgīti Pāli ms), SuttaCentral UID `pli-tv-kd20` segments 1.4.1–1.4.21. The *Cullavagga* X material is absent from the Pāli vault and was retrieved via the SuttaCentral CC0 fallback. [^8]: *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* (《四分律》), trans. Buddhayaśas and Zhu Fonian, Later Qin Hongshi 12–15 (410–413 CE), fascicle 1 (序分): CBETA *Taishō* T22 No. 1428. The *dasa atthavase paṭicca* / 十句義 formulation of the rationale for laying down the precepts appears at the opening of fascicle 1. [^9]: *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* fascicle 54, T22 No. 1428, T22n1428_p0966–p0971. Upāli's First Council recitation in eight categories at lines 1–290; Mahākāśyapa's Second Council ruling on the "lesser and minor" rules at lines 291–560. (Note: an earlier project document mistakenly placed the Second Council material at fascicle 60; in fact both councils sit in fascicle 54, the second immediately following the first.) [^10]: *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* fascicle 48, *Bhikṣuṇī-khandhaka* consolidated *garudharma* block: CBETA T22 No. 1428, T22n1428_p0922b–c. Each rule closed by the formula "this rule is to be respected, revered, and praised; it is not to be transgressed for as long as life endures"; block sealed by the five-hundred-year *saddhamma* prediction. [^11]: *Dharmaguptaka-bhikṣu-prātimokṣa* (《四分律比丘戒本》), trans. Buddhayaśas: CBETA T22 No. 1429. The framing-formula 半月半月說、戒經中來 ("fortnight by fortnight to be recited, drawn from the *Bhikṣu-prātimokṣa*") occurs nine times across the text, covering all eight categories. Pāli parallel: *imāni kho panāyasmanto cattāro pārājikā dhammā uddesaṃ āgacchanti* ("venerable ones, these four *pārājika* rules come up for recitation in the *Pāṭimokkha*"). [^12]: *Mūlasarvāstivāda-Kṣudrakavastu* (《根本說一切有部毘奈耶雜事》, T1451), trans. Yijing, Tang (710–711), fascicle 29 (end) through fascicle 30 (opening): CBETA T24 No. 1451, T24n1451_p0350b–p0351b. The passage contains Mahāprajāpatī's three requests, the Buddha's three hesitations with the three similes (household with few men / hailstone-struck crop / sugarcane with red joints), Ānanda's intercession, the eight *garudhammas* each addressed with "Ānanda!", and the marriage-garland ordination posture. (Project correction: an earlier note placed this narrative at fascicle 40; fascicle 40 is in fact Second Council material that belongs to P11.) [^13]: *Kṣudrakavastu* (T1451) fascicle 1 opening: the text names itself as *kṣudraka-vastu* (《雜事》) and announces its organisation by *uddāna*-summary topical clusters rather than by numbered *śikṣāpada*. CBETA T24 No. 1451. [^14]: *Mūlasarvāstivāda-bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* (《根本說一切有部苾芻尼毘奈耶》, T1443), trans. Yijing, Tang (700–712), fascicle 19: CBETA T23 No. 1443. *Śikṣāpada* 126 "rule on requesting instruction" corresponds to Pāli *garudhamma* 3; *śikṣāpada* 127 "rule on holding the *uposatha* where there are no *bhikṣus*" corresponds to the rule that *uposatha* must be performed in the presence of *bhikṣus*; *śikṣāpada* 128 "rule on entering the rains-retreat where there are no *bhikṣus*" corresponds to Pāli *garudhamma* 2; *śikṣāpada* 129 "rule on not performing the *pravāraṇā* three observances at the joint assembly" corresponds to Pāli *garudhamma* 4. Each is closed with the *pāyantika* (波逸底迦) category-marker and embedded in the continuous *pāyantika* numbering of fascicles 15–20, which cover *śikṣāpada* 38 through 180 and beyond. [^15]: *Mūlasarvāstivāda-bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* (T1443) fascicle 1, *Vinaya*-preface (毘奈耶序), line 99. The preface, in *uddāna*-summary form, announces the *bhikṣuṇī*-code as "*prātimokṣa-sūtra*" (別解脫經) and identifies the "eight *pārājika* rules" as the opening marker of the *bhikṣuṇī*-code. The *bhikṣuṇī* eight *pārājikas* (against the *bhikṣu* four) is a cross-recension stable feature of the nuns' code. [^16]: *Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya* (《摩訶僧祇律》, T1425), trans. Buddhabhadra and Faxian, Eastern Jin (416–418), fascicle 32: CBETA T22 No. 1425. Fascicle 32 explicitly establishes a "nine-heading sequence" (九法序), adding the ninth heading *dharma-anudharma* (*dhamma-anudhamma*, 法隨順法) beyond the shared eight-category base. The *bhikṣuṇī*-rules consolidated block sits in fascicle 30 opening (line 359 onward), in the strongest consolidated form of the five recensions: each rule glossed with an "exceeding-of-*gurudharma*" (越敬法) explanation, and sealed with the formula "the Nth *gurudharma* ends". [^17]: *Sarvāstivāda-vinaya* (《十誦律》, T1435), trans. Puṇyatara with Kumārajīva, Dharmaruci, and Vimalākṣa, Later Qin (404–409): CBETA T23 No. 1435, fascicles 42–47. The eight *garudhammas* are placed within the *bhikṣuṇī*-section and, additionally, in an independent *garudharma* chapter at fascicle 47 line 523. The framing is the fortnightly-instruction (*ardhamāsa-uddesa*) ritual rather than the ordination narrative — a sub-pattern distinct from the four other consolidated recensions. [^18]: *Mahīśāsaka-vinaya* (《彌沙塞部和醯五分律》, T1421), trans. Buddhajīva and Zhu Daosheng, Liu-Song (423–424): CBETA T22 No. 1421, fascicle 29. The eight *garudhammas* are placed in the "Section Five, Eight Rules for *Bhikṣuṇīs*" consolidated block. The Gotamī ordination narrative provides the frame; the eight non-transgressible rules sit as a continuous block. [^19]: As n. 2. The *Xingshichao* fascicle 1 upper, line 354, "six authentic recensions" enumeration: Saṃghika / Tánwúdé / Sarvāstivāda / Mīshāsai / Jiāyèyí / Pólúfúluó. [^20]: Yuanzhao, *Sifenlü xingshichao zichi ji* (《四分律行事鈔資持記》, T1805), a Song sub-commentary on Daoxuan's *Xingshichao*, *Taishō* T40 No. 1805. The "Mahīśāsaka and *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* general agreement" (五分十誦大同) passage at fascicle 1 lines 156–162; the *Mingliao lun* (《明了論》) on time-and-place categories of *Vinaya* at lines 991–1003; the "these two characters refer to the two schools" passage at lines 1007–1016. Note: *Taishō* 40 No. 1805 is by Yuanzhao (Song), NOT Daoxuan; Daoxuan's own *Hanzhu jieben shu* (戒疏) is *Manji Zokuzōkyō* X0714. These word-level collation passages are Yuanzhao's, glossing Daoxuan's *Xingshichao* and extending the cross-recension comparison Daoxuan opened. [^21]: As n. 1. *Nanhai jigui* T54 p.0205b26–c04: geographical distribution of the four *Vinaya* recensions in Tang China — northern regions principally Dharmaguptaka, Jiangnan southern regions a mixture. [^22]: As n. 1. *Nanhai jigui* T54 p.0206b28–c04: Yijing's self-disclosure that his translations follow the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya*; explicit correction of the common Chinese confusion "the *Daśa-bhāṇavāra* is the Mūlasarvāstivāda *Vinaya*"; and the historical-philological framing "the Sarvāstivāda group divides into three: Dharmaguptaka, Mahīśāsaka, Kāśyapīya". [^23]: Anālayo, Bhikkhu. *The Foundation History of the Nuns' Order*. Hamburg Buddhist Studies 6. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2016. See also Anālayo's series of articles on the eight *garudhammas* and *bhikkhunī*-rules in the *Journal of Buddhist Ethics* vols. 21 (2014), 22 (2015), and 24 (2017). [^24]: Heirman, Ann. *Rules for Nuns according to the Dharmaguptakavinaya*. Buddhist Tradition Series 47–49. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2002, three volumes. See also Heirman, "Where is the Probationer in the Chinese Buddhist Nunneries?", *Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft* 158:1 (2008), pp. 105–137. [^25]: Clarke, Shayne. *Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms*. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014. See also Clarke, "Lost in Tibet, Found in Bhutan: The Unique Nature of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Law Code for Nuns", *Buddhism, Law & Society* 2 (2016–17), pp. 199–292. [^26]: Bhikkhu Sujato is the principal contributor of English translations of the Pāli *Vinaya* on SuttaCentral and the author of the *Bhikkhunī-vibhaṅga* introduction. Oskar von Hinüber, *A Handbook of Pāli Literature* (Berlin: de Gruyter, 1996), §31–43, on the redactional stratigraphy of the *Vinaya-piṭaka*. W. Pachow, *A Comparative Study of the Prātimokṣa*, Sino-Indian Studies V (Santiniketan: Sino-Indian Cultural Society, 1955) — the foundational figure of all modern cross-recension *Prātimokṣa* comparison. --- ## References ### Primary Sources — Pāli - *Cullavagga* X, *Bhikkhunī-khandhaka*: PTS Vin ii 253–285. Edition used: SuttaCentral CC0 public-domain edition (Bhikkhu Brahmali English, Mahāsaṅgīti Pāli ms), UID `pli-tv-kd20`. - *Cullavagga* XI, *Pañcasatika-khandhaka* (First Council): PTS Vin ii 284–308. Edition used: SuttaCentral CC0, UID `pli-tv-kd21`. - *Suttavibhaṅga*, *Bhikkhu-vibhaṅga*, *Pācittiya* 72 *Vilekhanasikkhāpada*: PTS Vin iv 142–144, SuttaCentral UID `pli-tv-bu-vb-pc72`. - *Aṅguttara-nikāya* 4.245 *Sikkhānisaṃsa-sutta*: PTS AN ii 243, SuttaCentral UID `an4.245`. (cross-paper anchor) - *Aṅguttara-nikāya* 11.1 *Kimatthiya-sutta*: PTS AN v 1–2, SuttaCentral UID `an11.1`. (cross-paper anchor) ### Primary Sources — Chinese (CBETA) - T1421: *Mahīśāsaka-vinaya* (《彌沙塞部和醯五分律》), trans. Buddhajīva (佛陀什) and Zhu Daosheng (竺道生), Liu-Song (423–424). CBETA T22 No. 1421. - T1425: *Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya* (《摩訶僧祇律》), trans. Buddhabhadra (佛陀跋陀羅) and Faxian (法顯), Eastern Jin (416–418). CBETA T22 No. 1425. - T1428: *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* (《四分律》), trans. Buddhayaśas (佛陀耶舍) and Zhu Fonian (竺佛念), Later Qin Hongshi (410–413). CBETA T22 No. 1428. - T1429: *Dharmaguptaka-bhikṣu-prātimokṣa* (《四分律比丘戒本》), trans. Buddhayaśas, Later Qin. CBETA T22 No. 1429. - T1435: *Sarvāstivāda-vinaya* (《十誦律》, *Daśa-bhāṇavāra*), trans. Puṇyatara (弗若多羅) with Kumārajīva (羅什), Dharmaruci (曇摩流支), and Vimalākṣa (卑摩羅叉), Later Qin (404–409). CBETA T23 No. 1435. - T1442: *Mūlasarvāstivāda-bhikṣu-vinaya* (《根本說一切有部毘奈耶》), trans. Yijing (義淨), Tang (700–712). CBETA T23 No. 1442. - T1443: *Mūlasarvāstivāda-bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* (《根本說一切有部苾芻尼毘奈耶》), trans. Yijing, Tang (700–712). CBETA T23 No. 1443. - T1450: *Mūlasarvāstivāda-saṅghabhedavastu* (《根本說一切有部毘奈耶破僧事》), trans. Yijing, Tang. CBETA T24 No. 1450. - T1451: *Mūlasarvāstivāda-kṣudrakavastu* (《根本說一切有部毘奈耶雜事》), trans. Yijing, Tang (710–711). CBETA T24 No. 1451. - T1558: *Abhidharmakośa-bhāṣya* (《阿毘達磨俱舍論》), composed by Vasubandhu (世親), trans. Xuanzang (玄奘), Tang. CBETA T29 No. 1558. - T1605: *Abhidharma-samuccaya* (《大乘阿毘達磨集論》), composed by Asaṅga (無著), trans. Xuanzang, Tang. CBETA T31 No. 1605. - T1606: *Abhidharma-samuccaya-vyākhyā* (《大乘阿毘達磨雜集論》), composed by Sthiramati (安慧), trans. Xuanzang, Tang. CBETA T31 No. 1606. - T1804: *Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshichao* (《四分律刪繁補闕行事鈔》) of Daoxuan (道宣), Tang seventh century. CBETA T40 No. 1804. - T1805: *Sifenlü xingshichao zichi ji* (《四分律行事鈔資持記》) of Yuanzhao, Song (sub-commentary on Daoxuan's *Xingshichao*). CBETA T40 No. 1805. - T2125: *Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan* (《南海寄歸內法傳》) of Yijing, Tang late seventh to early eighth century. CBETA T54 No. 2125. ### Modern Scholarship - Anālayo, Bhikkhu. *The Foundation History of the Nuns' Order*. Hamburg Buddhist Studies 6. Hamburg: Hamburg University Press, 2016. - Anālayo, Bhikkhu. "On the Bhikkhunī Ordination Controversy." *Sri Lanka International Journal of Buddhist Studies* 3 (2014). - Anālayo, Bhikkhu. "The Cullavagga on Bhikkhunī Ordination." *Journal of Buddhist Ethics* 22 (2015): 1–34. - Anālayo, Bhikkhu. "Theravāda Vinaya and *bhikkhunī* Ordination." *Journal of Buddhist Ethics* 24 (2017): 1–32. - Clarke, Shayne. *Family Matters in Indian Buddhist Monasticisms*. Honolulu: University of Hawai'i Press, 2014. - Clarke, Shayne. "Lost in Tibet, Found in Bhutan: The Unique Nature of the Mūlasarvāstivādin Law Code for Nuns." *Buddhism, Law & Society* 2 (2016–17): 199–292. - Heirman, Ann. *Rules for Nuns according to the Dharmaguptakavinaya*. Buddhist Tradition Series 47–49. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 2002, three volumes. - Heirman, Ann. "Where is the Probationer in the Chinese Buddhist Nunneries?" *Zeitschrift der Deutschen Morgenländischen Gesellschaft* 158:1 (2008): 105–137. - von Hinüber, Oskar. *A Handbook of Pāli Literature*. Indian Philology and South Asian Studies vol. 2. Berlin and New York: Walter de Gruyter, 1996. - Pachow, W. *A Comparative Study of the Prātimokṣa*. Sino-Indian Studies V. Santiniketan: Sino-Indian Cultural Society, 1955. - Sujato, Bhikkhu. *Bhikkhunī Vibhaṅga: A Translation of the Bhikkhunī Vibhaṅga Section of the Pali Vinaya*. SuttaCentral, 2014. --- ## Cross-References ### Within-volume back-links (SĪLA earlier papers) - **SĪLA-P09** (Part III #1, immediately prior): *Architecture of the Pāṭimokkha — A Self-Legislating Casuistic Case Law*. The single-tradition architectural reading of the *Pāṭimokkha* as a self-legislating casuistic case law. The present paper extends that reading from single-tradition architecture to the cross-tradition synchronic comparison at the five-recension array. P09's *Suttavibhaṅga*-versus-*Pāṭimokkha* intra-tradition split corresponds, in the present paper, to the T1451-versus-T1443 intra-tradition register-split within Mūlasarvāstivāda (§3.2). - **SĪLA-P08** (Part II SEALED): *Sīla-gandha — The Fragrance That Travels Against the Wind*. AN 4.245 / AN 11.1 cross-paper anchor carry. The outward social-domain framing of *sīla* at the lay–*saṅgha* interface is the complement to the inward monastic-internal frame of the *Vinaya* explored here. - **SĪLA-P07** (Part II): *Uposatha and the Genius of Intermittent Monasticism*. AN 11.1 cross-paper anchor carry; the fortnightly-recitation institutional frame. - **SĪLA-P01** (Part I opener): *What Sīla Actually Means*. The three-axis (Pāli / Sanskrit / Chinese) reading foundation on which the present paper's five-recension comparison rests. ### Within-volume forward links (SĪLA later papers) - **SĪLA-P11** (Part III #3, immediately next): *The Second Council and the Devadatta Episodes*. The present paper focuses on synchronic structure; P11 turns to the diachronic narrative axis — the Second Council at Vaiśālī and the Mūlasarvāstivāda–Pāli inversion of the fifth of Devadatta's five demands (T1450 fascicle 10 "dwelling in village dwellings" against the Pāli forest-only requirement). - **SĪLA-P12** (Part IV opener): *The Threefold Pure Precept-Collection*. The three-restraint architecture (*saṃvara-śīla* / *kuśaladharma-saṃgrāhaka-śīla* / *sattvārthakriyā-śīla*); P09's eightfold *prātimokṣa-saṃvara* and the present paper's cross-recension *prātimokṣa* stability together form the *saṃvara-śīla* foundation rung. - **SĪLA-P17** (Part V): *Daoxuan's Sifenlü Xingshichao Unfolded*. The present paper engages Daoxuan only at the cross-recension comparative-method layer; P17 is the venue for Daoxuan's full *Vinaya*-compendium exegesis. ### Cross-volume polyphony anchors - **SAMĀDHI volume forward-link**: AN 11.1's eleven-link chain from *sīla* through *paññā* is acknowledged here as cross-paper anchor; its full developmental treatment is the venue of the SAMĀDHI volume (P24 in particular). - **NIAN volume cross-reference**: the *Pāṭimokkha*'s recursive self-reference at the recitation event (P09 §V; here §2.1) bears on NIAN's treatment of *anussati* as a recursive recollective mode; the venue for that cross-mirror is the NIAN volume. ### Recurring cross-paper anchors - **AN 4.245 *Sikkhānisaṃsa-sutta***: cross-paper recurrence anchor, carried in SĪLA-P01, P07, P09, and the present paper. - **AN 11.1 *Kimatthiya-sutta***: cross-paper recurrence anchor, carried in SĪLA-P02, P07, P08, P09, and the present paper. --- *CBETA collation:* The three principal Chinese-translation *Vinaya* anchors of this paper are *Mahīśāsaka-vinaya* (T1421 Mahīśāsaka · trans. Buddhajīva and Zhu Daosheng · Liu-Song 423–424 · fascicle 29 consolidated *garudharma* block), *Mahāsāṅghika-vinaya* (T1425 Mahāsāṅghika · trans. Buddhabhadra and Faxian · Eastern Jin 416–418 · fascicle 30 *garudharma* + fascicle 32 nine-heading sequence with the ninth rubric *dharma-anudharma*), *Dharmaguptaka-vinaya* (T1428 Dharmaguptaka · trans. Buddhayaśas and Zhu Fonian · Later Qin Hongshi 410–413 · fascicles 48–49 *Bhikṣuṇī-khandhaka* consolidated *garudharma* block + fascicle 54 dual-council eight-category recitation), *Dharmaguptaka-bhikṣu-prātimokṣa* (T1429 Dharmaguptaka *Prātimokṣa* · Later Qin · the 半月半月說、戒經中來 framing-formula at nine occurrences), *Sarvāstivāda-vinaya* (T1435 Sarvāstivāda · trans. Puṇyatara with Kumārajīva · Later Qin 404–409 · fascicles 42–47 *Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* doubled consolidation), *Mūlasarvāstivāda-bhikṣu-vinaya* (T1442 *Bhikṣu-vinaya* · trans. Yijing · Tang 700–712 · rule-form register), *Mūlasarvāstivāda-bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* (T1443 *Bhikṣuṇī-vinaya* · trans. Yijing · fascicle 19 *śikṣāpada* 126–129 dispersed-rule *pāyantika* numbering · dispersed-rule principal anchor), *Mūlasarvāstivāda-saṅghabhedavastu* (T1450 · trans. Yijing), and *Mūlasarvāstivāda-kṣudrakavastu* (T1451 · trans. Yijing · fascicles 29–30 *garudharma* narrative form · narrative-register principal anchor · corrected from fascicle 40). All citations have been collated against the CBETA Electronic Tripiṭaka Collection 2024. The Chinese-commentary anchors *Sifenlü Shanfan Buque Xingshichao* (T1804 · Daoxuan · seventh-century Tang · fascicle 1 pt1 "six authentic recensions" classification + "six kinds of *Vinaya*-holders in the world" typology), *Sifenlü xingshichao zichi ji* (T1805 · Yuanzhao · Song · sub-commentary on Daoxuan's *Xingshichao* · "Mahīśāsaka–*Daśa-bhāṇavāra* general agreement" + *Mingliao lun* time-and-place + "these two characters refer to the two schools" word-level cross-recension collation · extending Daoxuan's comparison · NB T40n1805 = Yuanzhao's *Zichiji*, not Daoxuan's *Hanzhu jieben shu* [the latter is X0714]), and *Nanhai jigui neifa zhuan* (T2125 · Yijing · Tang 691–712 · collated against the CBETA XML edition (T54n2125) · the three indigenous-awareness segments: geographical distribution of four *Vinaya* recensions in Tang China, Yijing's self-disclosed Mūlasarvāstivāda standpoint with the *Daśa-bhāṇavāra*-disambiguation, and the "tangled and disorderly" indigenous critique) have also been collated against CBETA. The Pāli principal anchors — *Cullavagga* XI's First Council eight-category *Pāṭimokkha* recitation and Mahākassapa's *apaññattaṁ nappaññapeyya paññattaṁ na samucchindeyya* transmission discipline; the *Suttavibhaṅga* *Pācittiya* 72 *Vilekhanasikkhāpada* recursive self-reference (P09 carry) — are cited by PTS reference, with the SuttaCentral Brahmali/Sujato edition of the Mahāsaṅgīti recension (CC0) as the reading edition. The *Cullavagga* X *Bhikkhunī-khandhaka* eight *garudhammas* Pāli baseline is a segment, supplied from SuttaCentral CC0 (UID `pli-tv-kd20` segments 1.4.1–1.4.21 · PTS Vin ii 253–258 · Brahmali CC0 English + Mahāsaṅgīti CC0 Pāli). The *Aṅguttara-nikāya* 4.245 *Sikkhānisaṃsa-sutta* and 11.1 *Kimatthiya-sutta* serve as cross-paper recurrence anchors (carried in SĪLA-P01 / P02 / P07 / P08 / P09). The *śāstra*-stratum *Abhidharmakośa* (T1558 fascicle 14), *Abhidharma-samuccaya* (T1605), and *Abhidharma-samuccaya-vyākhyā* (T1606) appear here as P09 carry only and are not expanded in the present paper. *指月 Six Practice Gates · SĪLA Volume · Paper P10 · May 2026* **Author:** 釋慧鏡 (Shi Huijing) **Project:** 指月 Point-to-the-moon · 六行門 Six Practice Gates **License:** CC BY-NC-SA 4.0 **Repository:** github.com/pointing-at-the-moon/six-practice-gates