of the type that characterize Western monastic groups
are unknown, at least in the Indian Buddhist world.
Having undertaken the formal act of ordination, an in-
dividual becomes a bhiksu (male) or bhiksun(female),
and the vinaya, strictly speaking, applies only to
bhiksus and bhiksuns, although there are also rules for
“novices.”
Bhiksuliterally means a beggar or mendicant, but it
is clear from their contents that by the time the vinaya
texts that we have were compiled, many, perhaps most,
bhiksus did not beg for their food. This and the kind
of commitment required by Buddhist ordination is
nicely illustrated by the section in an ordination cere-
mony dealing with food. The officiant says to the indi-
vidual seeking ordination: “Are you, named so-and-so,
able to subsist, for as long as you live, with alms food?”
The newly ordained must say: “I am able.” Then the
officiant immediately says: “Extra allowable acquisi-
tions are boiled rice or porridge made from flour, wa-
ter, melted butter, and pomegranate, etc., or made
from milk, or soup made from cream, etc., or food
provided on the fifth day festival, or the eighth or the
fourteenth or the fifteenth day festival, or food regu-
larly provided by donors... or again any other allow-
able alms food that might arise from the religious
community itself or an individual—in regard to your
acceptance of that, due measure must be practiced.
Will you be fully and completely cognizant of such a
condition?” The newly ordained must say: “I will be
fully and completely cognizant.”
Since all extant vinayas appear to have similar pro-
visions, it must be obvious that Buddhist bhiksus need
not be—by virtue of their own rules—beggars. They
had, or were allowed, rich foods, permanent provisions
offered by the LAITY, and their religious community
could also provide their food. In fact, both Buddhist
vinaya texts and non-Buddhist literary sources indicate
that Buddhist bhiksus had a reputation for eating very
well indeed. In the former there are stories of more
than one Buddhist MONK dying as a result of
overindulging in rich foods, and even accounts that
suggest that the group’s fine fare could motivate out-
siders to seek admission. In the Pravrajyavastuof the
MULASARVASTIVADA-VINAYA, for example, a text be-
gins, “A member of another religious group came to
the Jetavana monastery. He saw that lovely seats had
been arranged there and excellent food and drink
had been prepared. He thought to himself: ‘The en-
joyment of worldly things by these Buddhist s ́ramanas
is lovely.... I am going to enter their order too.’” The
text goes on to make a rule against admitting someone
who also belonged to another religious group, but does
not deny or criticize the characterization of Buddhist
facilities as well appointed and possessed of “excellent
food and drink.” (The diet of most Western Christian
monks also appears to have been far superior to that
of ordinary people.)
But if a Buddhist bhiksu was not—at least in the pe-
riod of the vinaya texts—what he was called (e.g., a
beggar), the question of what he was still remains. The
term bhiksuis usually, and conventionally, translated
into English as “monk,” and this rendering should help
in understanding what a bhiksu was, but it does so only
with the addition of clear qualifications, in part, at
least, because even in the West there has never been
agreement on what a monk was—the entire history of
Western monasticism can be viewed as a long, some-
times acrimonious, and unresolved debate about just
this question. Moreover, most MONKSin the West were
also not what they were called. The English word monk
is derived from a Greek word that meant “(living)
singly or alone,” and yet almost all Western monks
lived collectively in ordered, formally structured
groups. In spite of that—and this is a particularly im-
portant obstacle to understanding the Buddhist
bhiksu—the figure of the monk in the modern West
has been almost hopelessly romanticized as a simple,
solitary figure given up to deep contemplation. The
possibilities for misunderstanding here are very great.
Western monks—insofar as one can generalize—
not only lived communally in usually well-endowed,
permanent, and architecturally sophisticated com-
plexes with an assured and usually abundant diet, they
were also almost exclusively occupied with commu-
nally chanting or singing religious texts for the reli-
gious benefits or “merit” of their living and deceased
donors and benefactors. If this is what a monk is un-
derstood to be, then a Buddhist bhiksu might indeed
be called a kind of monk. Certainly their vinayas are
almost obsessed with avoiding any behavior that might
alienate lay followers and donors, and they are satu-
rated with rules designed, it seems, to make bhiksus
acceptable to donors as worthy objects of support and,
consequently, as reliable means for donors to make
merit. These “monks” too are in the service of the laity.
Indeed, all Buddhist vinayas, it seems, contain detailed
rules about a bhiksu’s obligations to the laity, one of
which is to recite daily, both communally and indi-
vidually, religious verses for the merit of their bene-
factors. Much to the chagrin of those modern scholars
who want to maintain that MEDITATIONwas an im-
portant part of Buddhist monastic practice, moreover,VINAYA