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Buddhism - Organization

The external organization of the Buddhist religion has always consisted chiefly in the institution known as the "Order" or "Congregation" (sangha), which is placed on an equality with the Buddha and the Law or Doctrine as one of the "Three Jewels," or supreme objects of veneration. The mendicant life as an aid to religious training had been recognized by the Brahmans even before Gotama's time, and it was natural that he and his disciples should gradually develop it into a regular monastic order, especially as the following of the Path to the full extent involved the renunciation of ordinary worldly pursuits. The monk is therefore the typical Buddhist, and, as a rule, only the monk may hope to attain Nirvana during this life.

Any man may enter the Order, regardless of his race or caste, unless he is disqualified physically, e.g., by a loathsome disease, or legally, e.g., by being a slave. The rules of discipline distinguish two stages in the monastic life, that of novice and that of itinerant mendicant (Sanskrit bhikshu, Pali bhikkhu). A person becomes a novice by making a profession of faith, which consists in repeating three times the formula: "I take refuge in the Buddha, I take refuge in the Law, I take refuge in the Order," and by assuming the monastic garb.

He is then bound to observe the "Ten Precepts"; namely, to abstain from taking life, from taking what is not given, from unchastity, from false speaking, from using intoxicating liquors, from eating at forbidden times (i.e., between midday and the following sunrise), from worldly amusements, from using perfumes and ornaments, from using a high or broad bed and from accepting gold or silver. The full "initiation," which could be given only to those who were 20 years of age or over, was effected by a formal vote of the chapter of monks. The rules of discipline required a monk to secure his food by begging, to possess no property but his three robes of reddishbrown or yellow rags, his alms-bowl, girdle, razor, needle and water-strainer, and to lodge either as a hermit in the forest or with a few companions in an "abode" (vihara) near but not in a village or town.

During the greater part of the year the monks usually traveled from place to place, but they were restricted to a fixed abode during the three months of the rainy season. Four times each month the monks of any given district assembled for the uposatha, a sort of sabbath-day observance, and twice a month on such occasions they listened to the recital of the Patimokkha (Sanskrit Pratimoksha), a very old code of monastic discipline. These observances, together with a yearly ceremony of begging one another's pardon at the close of the season of retreat, constituted the simple ritual of the Order. Grave breaches of discipline were punished by expulsion, minor ones . by penance or reprimand; and anyone who felt himself unequal to the monastic life might voluntarily return to the lay state.

Beside the Order or Congregation of monks stood that of the nuns (Sanskrit bhikshunis, Pali bhikkhunis), which, according to the tradition, was instituted by Gotama rather unwillingly at the request of his aunt, who desired to renounce the world. The nuns were strictly subordinated to the monks in various ways and seem always to have been inferior to them both in numbers and in importance.

Outside the two branches of the Order and in no definite connection with them was the mass of lay disciples (upasakas). No initiatory rite was required of these except the mere formula of "taking refuge" in the Buddha, the Law and the Order; and no special commandments were laid upon them except the observance of the first five of the "Ten Precepts", although it was considered meritorious for a layman to observe the sixth, seventh and eighth also, particularly on uposatha days. In practice the chief religious exercise of the laymen and laywomen consisted in supporting the monks and nuns by gifts of food, banquets, robes, dwelling-places and the like, and in listening to their preaching. The veneration of relics of the Buddhas, and of sacred trees and places, was also a form of worship on the part of the laity.