monastic law; vinicchaya (regulation or judgment); sīmā (boundary); sāsana (religion); sīmāvipatti (failure in the formation of a boundary); parisavipatti (failure in the formation of a quorum either agreeing on, or using, such a boundary); Kalyāṇī inscriptions; King Rāmādhipati/Dhammacetī/Dhammazedi
摘要
This paper examines certain aspects of Buddhist law in 15th century Rāmaññadesa, a region in what is now lower Myanmar. Specifically, it studies the structure and content of a legal judgment (vinicchaya) concerning sīmās (boundaries for acts of the community) by the Mon king, Rāmādhipati, and learned monks. This judgment formed the backdrop to the establishment of what became the famous Kalyāṇī Sīmā, a religious site still active today. The king was disturbed by the amount of monastic fragmentation and ritual impropriety in his domain and was intent upon correcting the situation. He accomplished this through a boundary (sīmā) case that rested on a technical appeal to a range of Pali language source materials and by applying ideas and definitions from those sources to the purported boundary practices in his land. As such, the boundary case exemplifies a pattern within some of the historically dominant legal cultures of Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia, wherein the responsible Buddhist king is expected to inject state authority into monastic affairs when appropriate. In exploring Rāmādhipati’s boundary case, the paper first attends to basic vocabulary and ideas about monastic boundaries and briefly highlights the profound historical legacy of the case. Then, from the perspective of Rāmādhipati’s boundary case, the paper presents detailed information of how to establish a boundary, on land or on water, and with what kinds of methods. Ultimately, the paper shows how Rāmādhipati’s efforts to de-legitimize many, if not most, of the monks in his realm was articulated in the midst of his efforts to centralize the monastic community. Not he, but the various monastic communities in and of themselves had impugned their own validity, because they had not adhered to the legal parameters of proper monastic ritual activity and succession. By delineating the rules for creating boundaries for acts of the monastic community, Rāmādhipati pointed out that the laxities in his domain had created lineage problems with most if not all ordinations. If there is one basic legal premise underpinning Rāmādhipati’s boundary case, perhaps it is that the monks are not protected by their ignorance of ritual errors, wherever or whenever such errors may be lurking in their ordination past. The conclusion to the paper draws attention to how Rāmādhipati’s boundary case helps us to understand certain aspects of the Buddhist legal world of Sri Lanka and mainland Southeast Asia.
目次
Abstract 105 I. Introduction 106 Additional Basic Ideas and Vocabulary 108 The Historical Legacy of the Legal Case 110 The Organization of This Paper 112 II. The Boundary Case: Text and Law 113 The Inscriptions as a Buddhist Historiographic Text 114 The Inscriptions as a Text Concerning Buddhist Law 115 III. The Boundary Case 120 Historical Frame 120 The Five Scenarios 122 Ruling of the Disciplinary Code 127 The Five Scenarios, Revisited 140 The New Sīmā 145 Agreement for Rules of the Community 149 IV. Conclusions 150 Appendix 156 Bibliography 160
