Vinaya Pitaka

After a very long search—for the purpose of Fah Hian was to seek for copies of the Vinaya Pitaka—he found his exertions to find a copy of the sacred work were useless, because, throughout the whole of Northern India, the various masters trusted to tradition only for their knowledge of the precepts, and had no written codes.

There is little doubt that it is originally Buddhistic: the late Prof. S. Beal gave the earliest known version from the Chinese translation of the Vinaya Pitaka in the Academy of Nov. 4, 1882.

A. Yes: the first line embodies the whole spirit of the Vinaya Pitaka, the second that of the Sutta, the third that of the Abhidhamma.

The first is the Vinaya Pitaka, dealing with discipline, but including the Mahavagga, a history of the first beginnings of the order as the founder gathered it around him.

In the Mahâ and Culla-vaggas of the Vinaya Pitaka we possess a large collection of regulations purporting to be issued by the Buddha for the guidance of the Order on such subjects as ceremonial, discipline, clothes, food, furniture and medicine.