thereby its place among the various vinayas. It could
be read as “The Root (or Original) Monastic Code of
the Group that Teaches that All Exists,” or it could be
read as “The Monastic Code of the Root (or Original)
Group that Teaches that All Exists.” However it be
taken, it is almost certain that the presence of mulain
the title reflects a polemical claim on the part of its
compilers or their group.
Although again there is some controversy, the best
available evidence would seem to indicate that, in the
form that we have it, it was probably compiled in the
first or second century C.E. in northwest India. Several
scholarly studies have suggested that, in comparison
with the other vinayas, the Mulasarvastivada-vinaya
often seems to contain some very early material or ac-
counts that are markedly undeveloped when compared
with those found elsewhere. “Very early,” however, is
relative since this vinaya, like all the surviving vinayas,
appears to have been redacted late, centuries after the
time of the Buddha, and to presuppose a fully devel-
oped and very sophisticated form of monasticism.
One of the most striking characteristics of the
Mulasarvastivada-vinayais its enormous size. It has
been called “monstrous” and has been said to be
about four times longer than any other vinaya. Its Ti-
betan version, in traditional format, fills thirteen
large volumes and consists of more than four thou-
sand leaves or eight thousand “pages.” In addition to
this Tibetan version, which appears to be complete,
the Mulasarvastivada-vinayasurvives in a partial (but
still massive) Chinese translation, and significant
parts of it have also come down to us in Sanskrit. Very
little of this monster has been translated into English;
a little more has been translated into German.
This vinaya, like all vinayas, contains a huge num-
ber of major rules and minor regulations meant to gov-
ern everything from ORDINATIONto how to use the
latrine. But this vinaya also contains rules detailing
how monks should lend money on interest or borrow
money from laymen, how they should warehouse and
sell rice, take images in procession into town, make up
parts of canonical texts, and a host of other things not
commonly presented as integral parts of Buddhist
monasticism.
Rules per se, however, take up a relatively limited
space in this huge collection. It also contains a signif-
icant number of texts that elsewhere are found in the
sutra collection. More importantly, perhaps, it is
stuffed with stories and narrative tales. On this account
one scholar has even called it “one of the masterpieces
of Sanskrit literature,” and it has certainly been a
source that later authors and artists drew on heavily
for their subjects, and that scholars will be mining for
a very long time.See also:Sarvastivada and MulasarvastivadaBibliography
Schiefner, F. Anton von. Tibetan Tales Derived from Indian
Sources,tr. W. R. S. Ralston. Boston: Osgood, 1882.
Schopen, Gregory. Buddhist Monks and Business Matters: More
Collected Papers.Honolulu: University of Hawaii Press, 2003.GREGORYSCHOPENMURAKAMI SENSHOMurakami Sensho(1851–1929) was a Jodo Shinshu,
Otani branch cleric and scholar of Buddhism. He was
born in Tanba (Hyogo prefecture) in Japan, the eldest
son of an Otani-branch Jodo Shin cleric. Murakami
received a classical Confucian and Buddhist education
at academies in Himeji and at the Higashi Honganji in
Kyoto. He took the surname Murakami when he mar-
ried into the family of Murakami Jokai, a Shin cleric
in Mikawa. Murakami went on to hold teaching posi-
tions successively at the Sotoshu Daigakurin, the
Otani Kyoko, and finally, Tokyo Imperial University,
where he became a lecturer in Indian philosophy.
In an effort to further scholarship of Buddhism that
was historically sound, pan-sectarian in scope, and
sympathetic to the tradition, Murakami, together with
Washio Junkyo (1868–1941) and Sakaino Koyo
(1871–1933), founded the important journal Bukkyo
shirin(Buddhist History), one of the earliest academic
journals devoted to the humanistic study of Buddhism
in Japan. Murakami also published the pathbreaking,
pan-sectarian study of Japanese Buddhist history,
Dainihon Bukkyoshi(History of Japanese Buddhism).
Most controversially, in his book describing the doc-
trines fundamental to all streams of Buddhism,
Bukkyotoitsu ron(The Unity of Buddhism), and more
fully in Daijo bussetsu ron hihan(Critique of the Ar-
gument that Mahayana Is the Teaching of S ́akyamuni
Buddha), Murakami advanced the radical thesis that
MAHAYANABuddhism was not the direct teaching of
S ́akyamuni Buddha. Rather, he contended that Ma-
hayana was a development of S ́akyamuni’s teaching
and that all other BUDDHASand BODHISATTVASforMURAKAMISENSHO