Six Vinayapiṭakas have come down to us: the Pāli Vinaya, Dharmaguptaka-vinaya (Sifen lü, 四分律), Mahīśāsaka-vinaya (Wufenlü, 五分律), Mahāsāṃghika-vinaya (Mohesengqi lü, 摩訶僧祇律), Sarvāstivāda-vinaya (Shisong lü, 十誦律) and Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinaya (根本説一切有部律).
The Pāli Vinaya (Buddhist monastic law codes) is comprised of three main aspects: 1) the Vibhaṅga (analyses of the rules in the pāṭimokkhasutta), 2) the Khandhaka (corporate law or transactions of the saṅgha and so on), and 3) the Parivāra (a brief review of the Vibhaṅga and Khandhaka).
The Vibhaṅgas of the four pārājika offenses of the Pāli Vinaya includes four sections, 1) nidāna (episodes that caused the rules to be made, 因縁譚), 2) sikkhāpada (the rules, 学処), 3) padabhājana (the analyses section of the sikkhāpada and offenses, 条文解釈), 4) vinītaka (the case-law pertaining to those rules, 判定事例集).
In this study, I examine the vinītaka (判定事例集) of the six extant Vinayapiṭakas. The vinītaka is a part of the Vibhaṅgas in the Pāli Vinaya and found in the Khandhaka or Parivāra in the five Chinese Vinayapiṭakas. In this paper, I notice one characteristic of vinītaka: that the episode of the nidāna reappears as a brief statement in the vinītaka. This characteristic is found in the vinītaka of the four pārājika offenses in the Pāli Vinaya, and the first and fourth pārājika offenses in the Dharmaguptaka-vinaya, and the first pārājika offence in the Mahīśāsaka- and Sarvāstivāda-vinayas, but not found in the Mahāsāṃghika- and Mūlasarvāstivāda-vinayas.
