THE DEVELOPMENT OF EARLY INDIAN BUDDHISM 77first generation, and modern scholars have often assumed that this silence is a
sign that the formal subordination of nuns to the monks had undermined their
ability to attract material support and large followings of students. However,
stone inscriptions list nuns among the major donors to the building of such
centers as the great stiipa at Sanchi, which would have been possible only if
the nuns had had followings of their own. Thus a more likely cause for the si-
lence of the texts is that the important nun teachers focused primarily on med-
itation practice and for that reason, as with monk practitioners, they were not
recorded in the early Buddhist histories, which tended to focus more on po-
litically influential scholars and missionaries.
Although the Bhik~utft Sangha does not seem to have flourished, it lasted
in India for sixteen centuries, a remarkable time span for any human institu-
tion. Mter the demise of Buddhism in India in the thirteenth century c.E., the
Buddhist world-with the exception of China, Korea, and Vietnam-gradu-
ally lost all valid ordination lineages for nuns as a result of wars and invasions.
In Theravada countries, the nuns' lineages ended near the turn of the first
millennium when Cola forces laid waste to Sri Lanka. Given the facts that
both assemblies were required for ordination and that no quorum of elder
nuns was available, an ad hoc arrangement developed whereby women could
ordain as lay renunciates following 8 or 10 precepts, but with only minimal
formal communal organization. This is the arrangement that still holds in
Theravadin countries today.
3.4.4 The Laity
Buddhist adherents who did not opt for the monastic life were taught a level
of Dharma appropriate to their duties as married householders. In their search
for happiness in this life, they were advised to be diligent in their work, to
care for their possessions, to keep their expenditures at a balanced level-
avoiding the periodic splurges that normally characterize peasant life-and to
associate with good people. For happiness in the next life, they were to de-
velop conviction in the law of karma, generosity, virtue, and discernment.
These last four qualities boil down to the three means for acquiring putJya
(karmic merit)-generosity, virtue, and meditation-that have formed the
basic framework for lay Buddhist practice to the present day.
Although lay people were encouraged to be generous with one another,
they were also taught that generosity to the ]3hik~u and Bhik~utft Sanghas paid
the highest dividends in terms of the merit earned. Without the generosity of
the laity, the monastic orders would not have survived. In return, the monas-
tics instructed the laity in Dharma, both by word and by example, assuring
them in part that their generosity would win them an increase of wealth and
the love of their fellow living beings both in this life and in the next.
As for virtue, both men and women householders were encouraged to
take five .saa (precepts) as a constant practice. saa is defined as abstaining from
unskillful conduct of body and speech in line with a personal resolution. The
first precept is to refrain from killing living beings, meaning all sorts of animals