Around the first century BCE, Buddhist monks formed monasteries and established relationships with kings and lay people. The rules monks live by, the Vinaya, are a pivotal source of meaning for them and their dealings with society and form the basis of multiple monasticisms across geographical regions and throughout history. The ways in which the Vinaya is understood and practiced, therefore, must take into account the kind of monasticism that emerges from it. In Living with the Vinaya, Ryosuke Kuramoto examines the process of creating monasticism in contemporary Myanmar by focusing on how monks acquire, possess, and consume material goods. To live as a monk means to obtain resources from society and to own and use these according to monastic rules. Over the centuries, as monks interacted more with the world beyond the monastery, the question of what a monk “should be” became a concern for not only monks, but also government authorities and lay people. How monks interpreted and observed the Vinaya became a question of legitimacy and power. Kuramoto’s ethnographic analysis reveals the constant (re)creation of monasticism in Myanmar resulting from the interactions between monks and these groups in response to this question. He identifies some of the key mechanisms by which monasticism and broader Buddhist institutions are created and transformed and concludes that monastic governance is inseparable from the Buddhist state and the society that surrounds it.

This is a subset of F. Max Mullers great collection The Sacred Books of the East.

Although historically marginalized, Buddhist nuns are taking their place in modern Buddhism. Like the monks, Buddhist nuns live by an ancient system of monastic law, the Vinaya. This work investigates various areas of uncertainty and controversy in how the Vinaya is to be understood and applied today.

This volume explores the role played by monastic discipline in the emergence and evolution of modern Chinese Buddhism. A central feature of the Buddhist tradition, monastic discipline has received growing attention in the contemporary Buddhist world, but little from scholars. Adopting a diachronic perspective and a multidisciplinary approach, contributions by leading scholars investigate relevant Vinaya-related practices in twentieth and twenty-first centuries China and Taiwan, including issues of monastic identity and authenticity, updated ordination procedures, recent variations of Mahāyāna precepts and rules, and original perspectives on body movement and related sport activities. The restoration and renewal of Vinaya practices and standards within Chinese Buddhist practices shed new light on the response of Buddhist leaders and communities to the challenges of modernity. Contributors are: Ester Bianchi, Raoul Birnbaum, Daniela Campo, Tzu-Lung Chiu, Ann Heirman, Zhe Ji, Yu-chen Li, Pei-ying Lin, and Jiang Wu.

These books constitute that part of the sacred literature of the Buddhists which contains the regulations for the outward life of the members of the Buddhist Samgha--nearly the oldest, and probably the most influential, of all Fraternities of monks. It is impossible to frame any narrower definition of the Vinaya than this, since the gradual change of circumstances in the Fraternity resulted in a gradual change also in the Vinaya itself. To give any more detailed account of what the Vinaya is, it will be necessary to trace what can be at present ascertained of its history; to show that is, so far as it is yet possible to do so--the causes which led to the establishment of the oldest Rules and Ceremonies of the Order, and to follow step by step the accretions of new literary work around this older nucleus. For this purpose we propose to consider first the Rules of the work called the Pâtimokkha; for the later texts presuppose its existence. It is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, of all Buddhist text-books; and it has been p. x inserted in its entirety into the first part of the Vinaya, the Vibhanga1. The Pâtimokkha--the meaning of the name will be discussed later on--seems to have owed its existence to the ancient Indian custom of holding sacred two periods in each month, the times of the Full Moon and of the New Moon. The Vedic ceremonies of the Darsapûrnamâsa sacrifice, and of the feast or sacred day (Upavasatha) connected with it, are known to have been very old, and the custom of celebrating these days would naturally be handed on from the Brâhmans to the different Samanas, and be modified and simplified (though, as it seems, sometimes increased in number) by them, in accordance with their creeds and their views of religious duty. According to Buddhist tradition2--and we see no sufficient reason for doubting the correctness of the account--the monks of other, that is, of non-Buddhistic sects, used to meet together at the middle and at the close of every half-month, and were accustomed then to proclaim their new teaching in public. At such times the people would crowd together; and the different sects found an opportunity of increasing their numbers and their influence.

Reprint of the original, first published in 1881.