Bodhisattva Pratimoksa Sutra
Summary
The “Bodhisattva‑Pratimoksa Sūtra” article surveys newly discovered manuscripts of Buddhist monastic disciplinary texts and assesses their implications for understanding the development of the Prātimokṣa. The Prātimokṣa forms the backbone of monastic discipline, listing the rules monks and nuns must follow. For many years scholars had access only to the Pāli Patimokkha of the Theravādins, but the early twentieth century saw the discovery of Sanskrit manuscripts belonging to the Sarvāstivādins and other schools. These fragments, found in Kucha and Turfan by French and German expeditions, were edited by E. Huber, Sylvain Lévi, Przyluski, La Vallée Poussin and Ernst Waldschmidt. They included the Pratimokṣa‑sūtra itself, associated Karmavācanā (procedural texts) and portions of the Bhikṣuṇī‑Pratimokṣa and Bhikṣuṇī‑Vibhanga. Comparative study of the Sanskrit texts with Chinese and Tibetan translations demonstrates that multiple redactions existed and that the Sarvāstivādin recension differed from the Theravādin Patimokkha. The article reviews scholarly debates on whether the Pratimokṣa originated in Magadhi, Pāli or a hybrid Sanskrit and discusses how the language of the fragments—archaic Buddhist Sanskrit—supports the hypothesis that the earliest disciplinary texts were composed in a dialect intermediate between Magadhi and classical Sanskrit. The author provides transliterations of a recently examined leaf containing doctrinal exposition on the emptiness of mind (śūnyatā) that appears to be part of a Bodhisattva Prātimokṣa. He notes that the manuscript may belong to a later period or to a Mahāyāna school since it introduces bodhisattva vows alongside monastic rules. The text expounds on how mind is devoid of inherent self and how ultimate reality transcends aggregates and sense bases. The article concludes that the growing corpus of Pratimokṣa fragments allows scholars to reconstruct early monastic rules, trace the evolution of disciplinary literature among different schools, and explore the transition from monastic precepts to bodhisattva ethics.
AI-generated summary, automatically checked against the article text.
Conclusion
By collating newly found Sanskrit Pratimokṣa manuscripts with Pāli, Chinese and Tibetan versions, the article demonstrates that monastic disciplinary literature existed in multiple recensions and languages. These discoveries challenge the assumption that the Pāli Patimokkha is the sole representative of early Buddhist discipline and show that Sanskrit schools developed their own Pratimokṣa traditions. The leaf transliteration illustrating bodhisattva doctrine suggests a link between monastic and Mahāyāna ethics. Overall, the study underscores the value of manuscript finds from Central Asia for reconstructing the textual history of Buddhist vinaya.