On the Question of “ Discipline ” ( Vinaya ) and Nuns in Theravāda Buddhism

This article centers on the relationship of rules (nīti) to the monastic form of life of contemporary Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka. A genealogy of scholarship focusing on the rules of Buddhist monks and nuns led scholars to affirm a clear-cut distinction between nuns who have the higher ordination (bhikkhunῑs) and those who do not have it. However, that distinction is not selfevident, because bhikkhunῑs and other nuns lead lives that do not foreground a juridical notion of rules. The lives of nuns focus on disciplinary practices of self-restraint within a tradition of debate about their recent higher ordinations. Whether or not they are bhikkhunῑs, nuns today refer to rules in ways that are different from that which dominant Vinaya scholarship assumes. This article proposes that it is misleading to differentiate Buddhist nuns based on an enumeration of their rules and argues that nuns’ attitudes to rules say more about attempts to authorize claims to power in current debates about their ordination than about their disciplinary practice as a communal form of


Introduction
This article raises questions about ideas of monastic discipline (vinaya) and (nīti) rules in Theravada Buddhism with some focus on the relationship of rules to the monastic life of contemporary nuns in Sri Lanka, and in the context of current debates about their higher ordination. 1 Firstly, I argue that a genealogy of scholarship on the Pali Vinaya and a translation of disciplinary practice centering on rules limits our understanding of monastic conduct. 2 Secondly, I demonstrate that the discipline of nuns entails practices of self -discipline more than adherence to rules, and suggest that monastics' attitudes to rules per se speak to a claim to power and its authorization in particular discourse and debates.Thirdly, I argue that it is misleading to center on a juridical notion of enumerated rules in order to differentiate between bhikkhunιs, who have the higher ordination, and Ten Precept Mothers (dasa sil matas) who do not. 3he question of "discipline" (vinaya) plays a crucial part in the debates about the authenticity of the higher ordination and lineage of nuns in Theravada Buddhism.4 In Theravada Buddhism, the Vinaya is used as a touchstone to differentiate between fully ordained nuns (associated with 311 rules in the Pali Vinaya texts) from other nuns (such as dasa sil matas, identified with ten rules).5 Though scholars of Theravada Buddhist monasticism continue to focus on the Pali Vinaya as the authoritative and canonical code of rules governing Theravada Buddhist monks and nuns, monastic discipline is not simply an exercise in observing a collection of rules.The practice of vinaya in contemporary monastic communities does not always follow the structure of an unchanging set of textual rules.This is not merely to suggest that texts and practices differ, but that the relationship between rule and life in monastic practices has to be thought differently.I make some suggestions toward that end by noting how the history of scholarship has misconstrued questions of monastic discipline by considering them in terms of juridical rules and injunctions.The recurring assumptions that Vinaya stipulations are either rules or laws, 6 and that the communal life of monastics can be captured in a number of discrete injunctions reinforces the faulty notion about self-evident distinctions of monastic identities themselves (in terms of bhikkhunι and non-bhikkhunι nuns in this case).7 In this essay, I begin by examining some of the ways in which ideas about Buddhist monasticism get configured in monastic debates to note the limitations of understanding monastic discipline as observing iterations of rules.I discuss how the dominant scholarship associates monastic discipline with rules, missing the connection between the monastic practice of vinaya and a "form of life."8I elaborate on this point by drawing on research on current vinaya practices found in communities of nuns in Sri Lanka. Amonastic form of life constitutes a communal existence that aims at a constant awareness of every activity that monks and nuns do.It can neither be reduced to individual rules, nor be regulated by them.My point is that the practice of Buddhist nuns is not grounded in a notion of rules.When nuns do speak of rules (nīti), they generally do so in terms of disciplinary practices of power that seek to authorize a coherent and common form of life in a monastic community.
Over the past four years, my research has focused on understanding the practice of discipline in terms of distinct programs and techniques of training novices in monastic communities. 9My particular interest is in examining the relationships between what are called "rules" (nīti) and vinaya (monastic discipline).Nīti, which literally translates as "rules" or "laws," is commonly used by government officials and lawmakers.Among contemporary monastics, the notion of this juridical sense of a rule (nīti), when used in conjunction with disciplinary practice, is treated with some circumspection.10 4 For discussions about the lineage, see (Analayo 2013; Kabilsingh 1991, p. 52; Kawanami 2007, pp.226-44;  Lindberg Falk 2007, p. 243; Mrozik 2009, pp.360-78).Although there were attempts to compare the place of lineage in the Theravada and Tibetan Buddhist traditions vis-à-vis the ordination debate (e.g., see (Mohr and Tsedroen 2010)), as I point out elsewhere, such a comparison is questionable since there are significant differences in the history of female renunciation in the two traditions (Salgado 2013, pp.213-33).5 See, for example, the distinction made between sil matas and bhikkhunιs in (Sasson 2007, p. 62; Collins and McDaniel 2010,  p. 1378).The specifics, including the number of rules recognized by fully ordained nuns varies according to the Vinaya tradition to which they belong, as indicated by (Heirman 1997; Kusuma 2015, pp.141-71).While this article centers on Theravada Buddhism and the Pali Vinaya, the problematic conceptualization of Vinaya texts as a collection of rules has relevance to other Buddhist traditions.

6
The terms rules and laws are often used without distinction by Vinaya scholars even though they have different connotations in English.Bhikkhunιs were known to live in communities in Sri Lanka from the third century before Common Era (BCE) until about the 10th century CE.Although information about them since the 10th century is lacking, female renunciants in Sri Lanka are mentioned in late 19th and early 20th century records (Bartholomeusz 1994, pp.24-88; Kusuma 2010, pp.99-120).It is possible that Buddhist nuns were present in Sri Lanka long before records about them were kept.According to my research, many dasa sil matas in Sri Lanka today can trace their lineage back to the pioneering Sri Lankan nun, Sudharmachari, who was known to establish nunneries in Sri Lanka in the early 20th century.
When I asked monks and nuns about the relevance of nīti to their institutions, I encountered varying responses.Those who used the term generally did so in relation to what one might call the gatekeeping of a monastic community.Institutional gatekeeping was evidenced in regulations of activities involving admission to and exit from a nunnery and a nun's full acceptance in the communal activities of the institution. 11It also differentiated between those who were deemed to have the capacity to live disciplined lives, and those who were not. 12Some bhikkhunιs and sil matas who referred to Vinaya stipulations as nīti or vinayanīti did so in affirming a state recognition of monastic rules or in authorizing their position vis-à-vis the higher ordination.Others rejected the nomenclature outright.However, those differing points of view are not revelatory in themselves; the monastic use of nīti or vinayanīti is made possible by the present social conditions of the lives of monastics and does not correlate with assumptions about monastic rules articulated in most Vinaya scholarship.In other words, how concepts like rule and discipline are used depends on how they operate in distinct forms of language and power within a tradition.Appeals to such concepts are appeals to particular modes of power-that is, the ability to authorize distinct modes of conduct.
One might be tempted to infer that there is an unmistakable difference between the identity of fully ordained monks and nuns and that of sil matas.The former are seen to be associated more closely with the Pali Vinaya text and the observance of its rules than sil matas, who are not bound by them. 13However, my research indicates that positing such a clear distinction is not useful, since even fully ordained monks and nuns are quick to assert that the Vinaya text does not center on rules (nīti).Monks and nuns rarely refer to rules when speaking about discipline within community, where community includes those who already have the capacity to lead a disciplined life and, thus, do not need to observe rules. 14In such a community of nuns, what matters is not whether they have the higher ordination, but rather their commitment to living a monastic form of life that goes beyond discrete rules. 15Teacher monastics today want to assume that novice monastics' desire for correction, bound as it is with their moral transformation in community, renders the need for harsh punishment (dan .d .uvama) gratuitous. 16When punishment is enforced, it assumes a defiant novice, (Bourdieu 1977, p. 19).How rules are conceptualized and translated in the Vinaya needs to be rethought, especially as Vinaya stipulations are named (and grouped) differently.Despite the distinctions made in their nomenclature in the Pali, scholars often refer to them uniformly as rules.Throughout this article, my use of the English word "rule" coincides with the concept of nīti as it is used today in the Sinhalese. 11Such regulations may be listed in the constitution (nītivyavastava) of a monastic center.As nuns' constitutions (if they indeed have such a thing) generally state, rules become meaningful only insofar as they address a broader idea of vinaya. 12The latter were seen to need rules and punishments, unlike the former who might only need advice.The distinction between punishment and advice is present in the correction of lapsed novices.Novices who continue to misbehave despite repeated attempts to correct them through advice and penance may incur the ultimate punishment-being asked to leave the community.In contrast, a novice who admits a transgression, is contrite in penance, and heeds advice may remain in community, where she continues to be trained and corrected. 13One might think of the sa ňgha as the fully ordained community of monks and nuns, and might claim that, unlike bhikkhunιs, sil matas are not members of the sangha.However, it is important to note that sa ňgha has a broader meaning that can refer to other kinds of communities in Buddhism (Perry and Ratnayaka 1982). 14One monk pointed out that Vinaya stipulations might be seen as rules or nīti depending on the severity of the punishment for breaking them.For instance, he included the parajikas (entailing defeats) and sa ňghadisesas (entailing a formal meeting of the sangha community) as rules, both of which involve more serious transgressions that can result in excluding a monk from the community.However, he added that rules in that sense still center on self-discipline.He proceeded to state that other Vinaya stipulations for fully ordained monastics ought not to be considered as rules, as they did not involve punishment (dan .d .uvama), but rather minor correction.It is perhaps not surprising that, when I asked about the rules of their institutions, head nuns often denied that they had any.Stating that they had rules (nīti) would be not only an admission of the need to enforce rules (and execute punishment), but also an affirmation that their nuns were not capable of self-discipline-something that no head nun would want to admit. 15What does mark a significant distinction between bhikkhunιs and sil matas is the different networks of power to which they belong.For example, in Sri Lanka, district and national meetings of sil matas, as well as some educational and religious projects, are sponsored by the state, but those held by bhikkhunιs are not.That difference may bear some comparison with distinctions among nuns living in Myanmar (Burma) or Thailand where the upasampada is not legally recognized. 16The commonly used Sinhalese word for punishment (dan .d .uvama), associated as it is with the idea of beating with a rod (dan .d .a), implies a severity that is not present in English.It carries with it a specific notion of corporal pain that may be absent in the English term punishment.While most monks and nuns reject the use of corporal punishment to correct novices, hitting novices (or school children) as a means of punishment is not unheard of in Sri Lanka.
involves authorizing her exclusion from community, and is associated with the transgression of a rule.
In such instances where monastics are empowered as gatekeepers of a community and can exclude those who transgress, monks and nuns may speak of rules. 17Yet, those same monks and nuns reject a notion of individual rules that may seemingly constitute a communal form of life.In The Highest Poverty: Monastic Rules and Form-of-Life, Giorgio Agamben argues that the rule was inseparable from life in medieval Christianity.That indistinction, he suggests, is not easily comprehensible to modernity.He shows how the Franciscans in particular questioned "the very substance of the rule as a set of norms separate from life," and, citing Hugh of Digne's commentary on the Franciscan rule, he writes that the Franciscan "promises according to the formula of the rule and, therefore, is not obligated to observe either the individual norms or the three principle vows (obedience, poverty, and chastity), but all of them indistinctly in such a way that the monk's very form of life (forma vivendi) falls 'under the efficacy of the vow.'" 18 In other words, not only are seemingly discrete rules not discrete, 19 but the very presupposition that rules can somehow be abstracted from the life of monastics is questionable.

Toward a Genealogy of the Idea of Vinaya/vinaya
Let me first discuss how some scholarship represents the relationship between discipline and rule, and why I think that my research speaks to the limitations of that representation, as nuns understand that relationship very differently.Rules (and laws), in addition to often being viewed as state-sanctioned, often presuppose an abstract and universal juridical subject who risks punishment in transgressing rules.Vinaya stipulations, however, do not, for the most part, presuppose such a subject and are not universally applicable. 20Moreover, the idea that the Vinaya is a set of laws readily available for analysis is misleading because it effectively assumes that the text may be abstracted from a living tradition.However, it is just such a tradition that consistently gives meaning to the text. 21What this kind of interpretation ignores is that nuns and monks live lives of continuous moral training in which they are not expected to be free from the possibility of lapses in discipline.However, the very lapses in certain forms of conduct do not simply constitute occasions for punishments, but also opportunities for learning what constitutes proper modes of conduct.
Nevertheless, the juridical language that scholars use to interpret rules of the Vinaya continues to influence how we think about monastic discipline to this day.It seeks to demarcate and reconcile putative differences between original monastic stipulations and historical practices, thereby always having to reconcile the past with the present.Such scholarship tends to employ a cryptographer's approach, attempting to decipher a supposed coding of the text (where the Buddha is a codifier) or to advance new readings of it to account for the text's seeming elisions and inconsistencies. 22Take Maurice Winternitz, who thinks of the Vinaya as a code of rules with strict regulations.Consequently, he is puzzled by what he finds to be inconsistencies in it, referring to a "liberality, if not laxity in the 17 It is increasingly common for young girls and women who are uncommitted to the monastic life to be sent to nunneries by their parents or guardians, and that is why some head nuns refuse to admit women under the age of 18 or 20.Barring instances of uncommitted nuns who refuse to be corrected and are, therefore, asked to leave, nuns generally wish to lead a monastic life in community and, hence, seek to meet communal expectations.The expectation that nuns have the capability to lead a monastic life even before they are admitted to the nunnery is present not just in Sri Lanka, but also in Myanmar (Burma) and Thailand. 18(Agamben 2013, p. 60). 19The Renunciant Ten Training Precepts are a good example of this.If a novice monk or nun neglects any one of these, their observance of all ten precepts is considered invalidated.A novice nun is given advice and corrected until senior nuns are convinced that she is willing to discipline herself.Until such a time, and depending on how strict the head nun is, the novice may not be fully restored to her place in the community.A novice can be integrated into the community only after it is clear that she has made a commitment to a form of life that does not center on rules. 20We need to keep in mind that the formulation of Vinaya stipulations and their subsequent interpretation always relate to unique individuals and specific contingencies. 21A monastic text about the Vinaya, even while referring to "rules" that are part of a "code," emphasizes the circumstances in which prescriptions arose, stating that the Buddha "formulated rules one at a time in response to events" (Mahamakut .a  Educational Council 1993, p. 6). 22For example, see (Horner 1992; Dhirasekera 1970).rules," since "the monk is to live only on what he obtains by begging, but he is also allowed to accept invitations to meals.He is to clothe himself in cast-off rags, but he may also wear garments of linen, cotton, and even silk.He is to live at the foot of a tree, but he may also seek a more comfortable lodging in houses, huts, or caves." 23This is hardly an outdated example.
More recently, in his study, Mohan Wijayaratna refers to a "precise judicial system" of Buddhist monastics in which a "final version of the rule" becomes consistent with a "code of law." 24 While contributing important and timely studies on Buddhist monks and nuns, Wijayaratna presents a narrative about Vinaya stipulations that consistently refers to them as quasi-juridical rules.This is problematic, since it is crucial to recognize that the Pali does not refer to Vinaya stipulations collectively and uniformly as "rules." 25Nevertheless, scholarly narratives about the Vinaya, like those of Winternitz and Wijayaratna, continue to refer to an essentialist and abstract notion of rules that were established in early Buddhism.However, Vinaya stipulations are always contingent on the conditions in which they are learned and practiced.In other words, their formulation is subject to specific contingent conjunctures and debates. 26n translating Vinaya prescriptions as rules or laws, scholars ascribe a rigidity to the formulation and practice of the Vinaya stipulations that is inaccurate.Another example of how Vinaya stipulations may be misunderstood as fixed rules is present in some scholarly accounts of the at .t . hagarudhamma, which center on an interpretation of the Eight Conditions as rules that must be followed.As I indicate elsewhere, "the multivalent connotations and denotations of dhamma as 'truth', 'reality', 'building block of reality', and 'factor of existence' or simply 'thing' perhaps provide more scope for the meaning of at .t .hagarudhamma . . .Translating garudhamma as 'rule' can be misleading" and the at .t .hagarudhamma would be better translated as the Eight Conditions. 27According to Nancy Auer Falk, these Eight Conditions were "imposed on the women as a price for allowing them to found their order" and ensured their subordination. 28Falk proceeds to assume that these stipulations are rigid rules, stating that "the discriminatory provisions meant that women would never be leaders in the life of the whole community." 29Rita Gross, who finding recourse in the at .t . hagarudhamma as rules in a similar vein, seeks to demonstrate that "regarding the major issue of how the women's order would rank vis-à-vis the men's order, there was far less flexibility." 30and that they "mandated institutional subordination." 31 Here again, we see how the notion of the flexibility of rules has become a concern in scholarly narratives.Unsurprisingly, interpretations of the Eight Conditions as rules has led to the publication of several studies on them that focus primarily on how and why their very existence should be challenged.Yet, scholarly engagement of the at .t .hagarudhamma would be better served by thinking differently about the Eight Conditions.
In his article on Buddhist nuns in Sri Lanka, Lowell Bloss, refers to a distinction between the ten "rules" of the Ten Precept Mothers and the Vinaya "rules" of fully ordained monastics. 32Similarly, in their 2010 publication on Buddhist nuns in Thailand, Steven Collins and Justin McDaniel discriminate between nuns on the basis of the number of precepts that they observe and that are distinguished from the so-called rules of the Vinaya. 33Likewise, Tessa Bartholomeusz, who conducted research 23 (Winternitz 1993, p. 26). 24(Wijayaratna 2001, p. 3). 25 In his own appendices which include the Pali original, as well as a translation of the bhikkhunι pat .imokkha, he provides a subtitle for different categories of Vinaya stipulations.These are untranslated and remain in the Pali. 26By "contingent conjunctures," I refer to Abeysekara's notion of a "period of a few years, if not months or days, in which competing narratives and debates conjoin (and converge) to make centrally visible particular authoritative knowledges about what can and cannot count as Buddhism" (p. 4). 27(Salgado 2013, pp.80-81). 28 (Falk 1989, p. 159). 29 (Ibid., p. 160). 30(Gross 1993, p. 36). 31(Ibid., p. 37). 32(Bloss 1987, pp.(Collins andMcDaniel 2010, pp. 1378-79).
in Sri Lanka in 1988-1989, also refers to Vinaya stipulations as rules which might differentiate some Sri Lankan nuns from others who do not follow them. 34Nuns are of course fully aware of the number of monastic stipulations that they may have undertaken to formally observe.However, they do not limit their practice to a specific number of stipulations.Their renunciant everyday is not grounded in discrete lists such as the Ten Training Precepts or the 311 Vinaya stipulations. 35What is important is that even nuns who are not fully ordained observe most Vinaya stipulations.Hence, it is not surprising, that some maechii in Thailand, like some sil matas in Sri Lanka, find no reason to seek the upasampada. 36Additionally, householders (in Sri Lanka, in particular,) generally do not (or sometimes cannot) differentiate between bhikkhunιs and sil matas. 37One reason for Theravada Buddhist nuns' ambivalence toward the upasampada, and for the inability of most Sri Lankan householders to differentiate between nuns who are fully-ordained or not, is that, regardless of their supposed ordination status and their formal observances of monastic stipulations, nuns' form of life is strikingly similar.That is why scholars' persistent categorization of nuns according to a rigid notion of rules remains questionable.
Likening the Vinaya to a strict legal code of rules and regulations leads to the kind of bafflement that Winternitz expresses about the so-called laxity of the rules.Some scholars have compared Vinaya recommendations to state laws.However, the monastic form of life that all nuns live, grounded as it is on vinaya practices rather than a book of rules, is significantly different.By considering Vinaya recommendations as rules, rather than as stipulations that are formed in a discursive tradition that constantly affirms, questions, and reinterprets them, scholars cannot but be perplexed by the seeming inconsistencies of Vinaya practice.The "liberality, if not laxity" that confuses Winternitz would not be an issue if Vinaya stipulations and other monastic precepts were understood not as rigid rules that are imposed on abstract monastic subjects, but rather as prescriptions whose individual contexts cannot be separated from the lives of those specific monastics who live them at particular moments in time.The cultivation of self-discipline as a form of life is grounded in such particular moments.
All too often, studies of the Vinaya in European languages assume that it constitutes a legal system of penalties for transgressions, whereby monastic life can be uniformly maintained through regulations. 38Characteristically, scholars view Vinaya prescriptions tautologically, as regulations that Buddhist monastics must observe, because monastics are observers of rules.However, monastics whose form of life is shaped by programs of discipline, do not use Vinaya prescriptions as rules in the ways that such scholarship seems to assume. 39While many scholars point out the importance of reconsidering the tendency to reconstruct monastic realities on the basis of texts, 40 my interest is not in differentiating between text and practice per se, but rather in thinking through the inadequacy of translating monastic discipline as rules in both text and practice.The focus on the techniques of training young novice nuns gives us clues as to how Buddhist monastics engage vinaya.That is why, following such scholars as Asad, Agamben, and Abeysekara, I argue that discipline constitutes a form 34 (Bartholomeusz 1994, p. 122). 35By "the renunciant everyday," I refer to "nuns' everyday concerns, which center on duties such as maintaining and running a hermitage, cooking, cleaning, meditating, accepting alms from supporters, counseling, performing religious services, and teaching," as mentioned in (Salgado 2013, p. 2). 36See (Collins and McDaniel 2010, pp.1390-96; Cheng 2007, p. 172; Salgado 2013, pp.161-65). 37(Mrozik 2014, p. 61; Cheng 2007, p. 172). 38(Analayo 2017, p. 7; Bechert 1988, pp. 10-13; Kieffer-Pülz 2007, pp.2-3; von Hinüber 1995, pp.8-12; Wijayaratna 1990,  p. 145). 39It makes some sense to consider Vinaya stipulations as laws when they are acknowledged as state regulations.Sukumar Dutt, for example, indicated that the "laws" of the Vinaya "enjoyed some sort of state recognition and were to that extent a part of civil law" (Dutt 1924, p. 175).However, my focus here is on the cultivation of vinaya among nuns rather than on state regulation of it. 40See, for example, (Clarke 2014, pp.166-69; Schopen 1997, pp.1-3; Blackburn 1999, pp.281-309), which seek to explore the difference between a "formal canon" and a "practical canon" as do others who were influenced by her work.Though her work attempts to distinguish between texts and the realities of their use, it still focuses on texts, rather than on a monastic mode of life that is a complete program of discipline.
of life, not simply a set of rules governing conduct.In the latter formulation, form already stands separated from life.This in turn has implications for reconsidering the place of Vinaya prescriptions as rules, whereby scholarship makes distinctions between ordinands within the communities of nuns (e.g., between bhikkhunιs and sil matas).41At times, Buddhist monastics do indeed find recourse in the Vinaya to mark such differentiation of monastic statuses, but that is made possible by the social conditions of their lives and specific relationships of power; such differentiations become a form of ability to perform particular tasks in monastic life.
The term vinaya, often used in conjunction with the word dhamma (Buddhist teaching), is inseparable from the notion of sasana/śasana, the Buddhist dispensation it is said to uphold.However, vinaya concerns an entire mode of life that is already generally assumed among ordained monastics. 43uns see no need to talk about that life unless queried about it.In effect, it evokes an existential reality that defies translation. 43Essaying the impossible is not my labor here.On the contrary, I consider how studies of monastic practice that discuss communal discipline in terms of juridical notions of rules and laws, since such a focus on rules has implications for how scholars continue to differentiate bhikkhunιs and their novices (saman .erιs) from sil matas and their novices, where the former seemingly observe Vinaya rules, and the latter do not.My point is that nuns' observance of stipulations in the Vinaya is not always seen to define a distinct form of practice, because their practice concerns a much broader understanding of vinaya.
Although some works on Buddhist nuns see training precepts (and other Vinaya prescriptions) as expressions of the cultivation of sιla (moral dispositions), they continue to equate them with rules. 44y research suggests that such works can distort how training precepts and vinaya inform the lives of nuns.Sιla speaks to an ability to cultivate particular sets of dispositions and sensibilities that are not reducible to observations of manifest precepts and rules.That is to say, the cultivation of moral dispositions does not amount to the nuns' observation of precepts; rather, it forms part of a discursive domain, constituting a tradition of training.As such, one cannot take for granted that such dispositions are self-evidently available for appropriation. 45Moreover, that is why a monastic training presupposes an existential process of becoming, which is underscored in the daily training and education of young novices.That initial training segues into an ongoing cultivation of sιla practiced by all nuns, whether fully ordained or not. 46What nuns are expected to do changes as they age, as do the demands and needs of their hermitages, underscoring how continual processes of self-discipline and becoming persist well beyond novitiate training and the notion of unchanging rules.Those processes are a form of life that cannot be understood in terms of individual precepts or juridical prescriptions.

Translating Disciplinary Practice
I now turn to discussing in more detail why some scholarly studies that translate vinaya as monastic rules or laws are limited, and what that means for the study of Buddhist nuns.Both novice sil matas and saman .erιs observe the Ten Training Precepts 47 and live in communities under the authority of senior nuns.While admission to a bhikkhunι training center demands a certain level of literacy, and access to bhikkhunι ordination requires passing examinations after a rigorous course of studies in Vinaya and other texts, no such requirements apply to sil mata ordinations.Nevertheless, teacher-nuns at bhikkhunι and sil mata training centers train novices in ways that cannot be significantly distinguished.For the most part, the stipulations in the Vinaya text, which one might assume apply only to bhikkhunιs, are also observed by sil matas.One may find prescriptions in the Vinaya that are reserved only for monks and nuns who have the upasampada.For example, only bhikkhus and bhikkhunιs participate in certain rituals such as those associated with the rains' retreat and the pat .imokkha recitation. 48However, that ritual engagement primarily serves to affirm certain power relations within a discursive tradition and authorizes their status as monastics who have the upasampada among monks, nuns, and state officials at large.It is mistaken to assume that participation in such rituals is essential in marking a distinction between the form of life bhikkhunιs lead and the form of life of sil matas lead.That is precisely why training centers for sil matas and bhikkhunιs are strikingly similar, and even some householders today see little difference between bhikkhunιs and sil matas. 49Framing the identity of a monk or a nun in terms of a juridical idea of rules belongs to a genealogy of scholarship that continues to create divisions between disciplinary practices and a form of life. 50mong most scholars, the Vinaya prescriptions, including the training precepts (sikkhapadas/śiks .apadas), are invariably defined as rules and regulations or as laws, 51 and the Vinaya in general is viewed as the "highest legal authority." 52The claim was also made that "in every Vinaya scholars have examined, the Buddha is depicted as the lawgiver." 53However, the monks and nuns with whom I conversed do not think of the Buddha as a lawgiver, nor do they consider Vinaya prescriptions or training precepts as laws.Moreover, present as those precepts are within a discursive tradition, their very interpretation is subject to dispute. 54We should remember that the Ten Training Precepts are usually observed by novices prior to their becoming novice nuns; thus, it is not always possible to differentiate practitioners according to the training precepts they observe. 55Vinaya should 47 For the most part, the Ten Training Precepts of sil matas and those of novice bhikkhunιs (saman .erιs) are identical, although there are a few sil matas who recite them differently.For more details on how these training precepts might differ, see (Bartholomeusz 1994, pp.73-74; Salgado 2013, pp.108-13). 48There is little agreement on a definitive translation of the word pat .imokkha.According to the The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary (PTSD), it may refer to "a name given to a collection of various precepts contained in the Vinaya" s.v."pat .imokkha."Some monastics in Sri Lanka agree with this rendition, as does Horner, who contrasts it with Oldenberg's rendition as a freedom from a "list of those offences which deserved punishment" (Horner 1996b, vol. 1, p. xii).Some monks and nuns in Sri Lanka also translate pat .imokkha as "attaining Nibbana."When possible, bhikkhunιs gather about once a month for a ritual recitation of the pat .imokkha. 49The perceptions of householders may possibly change with time as bhikkhunιs today continue to educate their householder-supporters about Vinaya practices that are unique to them as fully ordained nuns. 50In the case of nuns, the separation of rules from life also lends itself to pervasive liberal interpretations about the empowerment of nuns.According to a liberal feminist interpretation, bhikkhunιs would be identified as having a higher status than sil matas, akin to that of monks and, thus, would be considered more empowered than sil matas.Yet, in a country such as Sri Lanka which does not legally recognize bhikkhunιs, sil matas may be considered empowered in ways that bhikkhunιs are not, since they receive state support that is denied to bhikkhunιs. 51(Heirman 2000a, 2000b).Also see (von Hinüber 1995, p. 7). 52(Kieffer-Pülz 2014, p. 46). 53(French and Nathan 2014, p. 9). 54The training precept stating the willingness to refrain from handling gold and silver (money) is a case in point.Though it is listed as a training precept that is observed by sil matas and bhikkhunιs alike, as well as by monks, it is seldom understood literally.Most sil matas, bhikkhunιs, and monks do handle money, much to the consternation of scholars who do not expect them to "break the rule" by doing so. 55Observance of eight or ten training precepts is generally expected even before a young person becomes a monastic and enters a community as a novice.
be equated not with training precepts or rules, but rather with the cultivation of self-discipline.This is clearly stated in Oliver Abeynayaka's Vinaya Pit .akaya, which is currently used as a training manual for nuns: "Vinaya means restraint (sa ṅvara).It concerns the overcoming of the kleśas (moral impurities).It is about bodily and verbal restraint; 'vinaya' does not mean 'śiks .apada'.The śiks .apada were introduced for the purpose of protecting/observing vinaya." 56When translated as a form of restraint, vinaya points to an entire mode of life in which the elimination of unwholesome attitudes is emphasized.Such a life cannot be achieved by simply following rules that are imposed by others.
The problem with translating training precepts or Vinaya stipulations as rules is seldom explicitly recognized by scholars of Buddhism. 57Nevertheless, the pitfalls of translating them as such were intimated by some scholars even as they seem to be mired in that very terminology.Daniel A. Getz, in his entry on Buddhist "Precepts" in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, refers to them as "rules and guidelines intended to properly shape the mind and its manifestations in physical and verbal behavior so as to facilitate progress on the path to liberation."Having referred to precepts as rules, Getz proceeds to focus on them more as moral guidelines, indicating that they refer to sιla yet cannot be "seen as ends in themselves, but rather as necessary steps in training for awakening."Hence, precepts, ostensibly seen as "moral obligations," demarcate "different levels of progress and commitment in religious life."Getz qualifies what the "rules" mean by putting them in the context of religious life, claiming that, whereas "the five and eight precepts pertain to the moral training of lay persons, the category of ten precepts sets forth a basic moral vision for Buddhist monastics."Although this categorization of the precept listings is not as strictly differentiated as he suggests-moral training and moral vision are relevant to all Buddhist practitioners-Getz hints at how training precepts constitute a practice and a moral process that cannot be satisfactorily subsumed under the terminology of rules. 58Like Getz, Jotiya Dhirasekera, in his study of monastic discipline, refers to the training precepts as rules, and emphasizes that they indicate an ongoing training of monastics to eliminate dukkha (dis-ease).Having researched both canonical and commentarial sources, he notes that the term sιla was often used interchangeably with sikkhapada. 59Dhirasekera's study consistently refers to monastic stipulations in terms of their legality; 60 however, his study of the disciplinary literature often reminds us that vinaya practice responded to new demands even after the time of the Buddha.Dhirasekera, though circumscribed by the terminology he uses, seeks, like Getz, to contextualize how monastic stipulations may be practiced within a discursive tradition.
It is not uncommon for Vinaya scholars seeking an overarching Buddhist framework to anchor Vinaya prescriptions in an ideal or normative monastic community.John Holt, for example, posits such a framework, disputing that the Pali Vinaya is based either on sιla or on law. 61He asserts that "if we are to argue that the basis of Buddhist discipline consists of the primary concerns of sιla, we would have to admit that the basis of Buddhist discipline is not exclusively Buddhistic nor even monastic for that matter." 62Holt's assertion that the Vinaya does not concern sιla is puzzling.Indeed, bhikkhunιs unequivocally state that the Vinaya is about an immeasurable sιla of restraint (kot .iyak sa ṅvara sιla).It is well known that training in the cultivation of sιla as a form of restraint is crucial to monastic life. 63olt proceeds to state that the Vinaya, "rather than being merely a legal code enforced by sovereign authority or rather than being only an elaboration of sιla, represents the effective behavioral expression 56 (Abeynayaka 1983, p. 5). 57An exception to this is the recent work by (Voyce 2017). 58(Getz 2004). 59(Dhirasekera 1982, pp.43-54). 60As others often do, he also uses terms such as "disciplinary code," "codified law," and "regulations." 61(Holt 1983, p. 66). 62(Ibid., p. 65). 63The Śasanavataran .aya, a manual used by monks and nuns, states that the sιla of restraint (sa ṅvara) for both novices and fully ordained monks is fourfold: sιla of restraint in the pat .imokkha, the senses, livelihood, and the requisites (Chandawimala 2014,  pp.116-18).
which became normative for the path leading to the final spiritual goal of the religion.The basis of the discipline is, therefore, to be found in the fact that it represents an ideal realization of the teaching of the Dhamma." 64Holt's rendering of the Vinaya as a representation-that is, as something different from practice-and the discursive tradition to which it belongs is problematic.His conceptualization of the Vinaya as a normative expression for the path of spiritual realization promotes an idealization and orientalization of Buddhist monasticism that has long permeated scholarship in the field. 65s the anthropologist David Here, Scott not only questions the privileging of particular texts as normative or ideal on their own terms, but also indicates that the search for an all-encompassing norm, rooted as it is in a panoptic Western discourse, downplays the extent to which competing discourses constitute tradition. 67As we will see, nuns' reference to rules has little to do with discipline within a community in the way that most scholarship assumes. 68However, rules are invoked when they instantiate a position in particular discourses.What becomes important when thinking about nuns is not that they should be defined according to the number of rules they supposedly observe, but that, when they recognize rules, they do so as a way of appealing to certain relationships of power that enable their authorization of a specific mode of conduct.
It is not accurate to assume that the Vinaya is the code of conduct of the ideal monastic and a form of jurisprudence whereby monastics must always be evaluated.For monks and nuns, vinaya as a form of discipline informs a lifelong training of monastics who, like any other people, make mistakes.Scholars seeking in the Vinaya texts and commentaries some original truth or basing their analysis on the assumption of an ideal monastic are engaging in an endeavor that sets the texts apart from the discourses to which they belong.It is tempting to seek an underlying norm in Vinaya prescriptions, not just because of the end-of-the rainbow coherence such a norm might bring to Vinaya texts, but also because vinaya frequently occurs with the term dharma, which is sometimes translated as "norm." 69Charles Willemen (2004) underscores how vinaya and dharma are interrelated even while couching his observations in juridical language: "The practice of dharma is found in the Vinaya, the monastic instructions.The practical application of dharma [involves] the rules and regulations and their sanctions.Each of these rules is also called dharma.Dharma and vinaya together constitute the teachings of the Buddha; what in the West is called Buddhism, the Buddhists themselves call the Dharmavinaya" (p.218). 70Any separation of vinaya from dharma is conducive to thinking not about coherence in a tradition, but rather about how vinaya is different from dharma (to which it ought to be connected), and detachable from the life in which it is lived. 71More attention could yet be given to how ideas about dharmavinaya/dhammavinaya are sought to establish coherence within particular traditions of monastic discipline; however, such coherence should be seen not as an objective essence that is somehow subject to change, but rather as that which involves a claim to power where practitioners might seek authority to establish one form of coherence over another at a particular moment in time. 72 closer look at how terms such as vinaya and nīti are used is relevant to understanding the training practices of Buddhist nuns.Though the definitions of such terms may appear to change with time, it is more important to recognize how monks' and nuns' use of those terms authorizes particular relations of power today.The Pali Text Society's Pali-English Dictionary (PTSD) defines vinaya as a "norm of conduct, ethics, morality, good behavior" and also as a "code of ethics, monastic discipline, rule, rules of morality, or canon law." 73The PTSD indicates that the verb vineti, also connected to vinaya, means "to lead, guide, instruct, train, educate." 74That use of vinaya has received little attention in most scholarship, which tends to see the Vinaya as a comprising a set of rules that need decoding.The term vinaya shares the same semantic field as the nouns netti and netta and nιti.Netti is glossed as "a guide, conductor, support," 75 whereas netta (from Sanskrit netra) refers to "guidance, anything that guides, a conductor, (figuratively) the eye." 76Gregory Schopen's sense of vinaya as a guide is in keeping with these connotations of vinaya. 77In his entry on "Vinaya" in the Encyclopedia of Buddhism, he draws attention to the meaning of vinaya as Buddhist "teachings" and behavior, and explains that vinaya is "derived from a Sanskrit word that can mean to lead, or take away; remove, to train, tame, or guide (as a horse) or to educate, instruct, direct.All these meanings or shades of meaning intermingle in the Buddhist use of the term, where it refers to both specific teachings of the Buddha that bear on behavior, and to the literary sources in which those teachings are found."Though the notion of vinaya as a guide was affirmed by monks and nuns with whom I conversed, the term nιti, which appears to have had similar connotations to vinaya at one time, is now used differently.It is not a term that contemporary nuns and monks generally equate with vinaya. 78he use of nιti to mean "guide" is well established in Pali.Indeed, the Pali term can refer to "guidance; rules; conduct; prudent behavior; policy; moral philosophy; political science." 79The translation of the Pali term nιti as "guide" is affirmed by Oskar von Hinüber (even though he does not shy away from using legal terminology in his discussion of Vinaya texts) in his reference to the "nιtisuttadhara" as "the one, who is an expert in the guidelines." 80George Bond, in his study of the Netti-Pakaran .a, or Guide-Treatise (also called the Netti or Guide), notes that "the Netti was intended as a guide for all those in the Sangha . . .The commentary on the Netti supports this view, for it says that the work is called Netti (guide) because it is a guide for expositors." 81We might suppose that the currency of the term nιti as "guide," either for interpretation of the dhamma or as a guide for moral conduct, was once prevalent among monastic circles; however, that is not the case now.In contemporary Sri Lanka, the term nιti refers primarily to a law or rule, akin to the dictates of a state.
My concern with thinking about the provenance of the terms vinaya and nιti stems from a need to better understand how much these concepts and their usage may overlap, how they are articulated by monks and nuns today, and what that might mean for a monastic form of life.The Sinhala term nιti, referring either to vinaya prescriptions or to life at hermitages, was rarely used by the monastics I interviewed.In common parlance, nιti refers to civil and state regulations-an understanding of the term that seemed to resonate best with my informants.Whereas some nuns I met were willing to entertain my use of nιti in describing training practices, they tended to prefer invoking such terms as vinaya, sa ṅvara ("restraint"), or hikmιma ("discipline") rather than nιti.When I introduced the term vinayanιti to them, monks and nuns generally dismissed it, as if rejecting the very idea of rules (nιti) in relation to vinaya.Some did refer to monastic prescriptions as vinayanιti ("Vinaya rules"), or buddhanιti ("Buddha rules"), but they also shied away from using the term in relation to a complete program of monastic discipline.Their discussions about the training processes and the cultivation of moral dispositions at training centers indicate that the idea of a rule as a punitive regulation that controls the lives monastics lead is hardly present in their vinaya practice. 82ince the establishment of the bhikkhunι order, leading members of the national sil mata committee became increasingly active in proposing state regulations that differentiate between sil matas (who continue to receive some state funding) and bhikkhunιs (who do not).Vinayanιti, bound as it is to the current debates regarding the acceptance of the bhikkhunι upasampada, is inseparable from articulations of power, identity, and religious status. 83When I asked monastics about their use of the terms vinayanιti and buddhanιti, some pointed out that they are of recent coinage, but others said they were unaware of such terms. 84It is only since the full ordination of nuns was introduced to Sri Lanka that certain Vinaya practices expected only of fully ordained monastics became relevant to Sri Lankan nuns.Some bhikkhunιs, seeking to legitimate their status vis-à-vis other nuns, state that vinayanιti are obligatory for them and irrelevant or unnecessary for sil matas.In that context, the use of the term vinayanιti in reference to stipulations in the Vinaya text is invoked to sanction a bid for power and authority, especially in privileging one form of ordination over another. 85Interestingly, one bhikkhunι who used the terms vinayanιti and buddhanιti interchangeably as a means of differentiating bhikkhunιs from sil matas in terms of their ordination, later stated that that vinaya concerned not individual rules, but rather the development of correct monastic attitudes.Here again, we see how notions of rules are affirmed in the context of power relations, rather than as instruments governing communal discipline in a nunnery.
81 (Bond 1982, pp.40-41). 82(Walser 2005) refers to "house rules" that monastics are expected to follow and that supplement the Vinaya.The transgression of such rules may incur punishment (pp.91-93).Young nuns who do not comply with the expectations of their head nun (e.g., by repeatedly failing to complete homework or by continually neglecting daily tasks) may also be subject to punitive actions.Interestingly, in my conversations with nuns about such instances, the term nιti did not surface, even though they spoke of punishment.That may reflect how the focus in monastic discipline tends to be on the monastic who is still training, rather than on some abstract and universal notion of an enforceable rule. 83For an account of how monastic discipline is inseparable from questions of power, see (Salgado 2017). 84Some scholar-monastics indicated to me that the use of the term vinayanιti became more prevalent only in the past two decades, possibly reflecting the distinctions some may want to make between bhikkhunιs and sil matas. 85For other instances of how power may play out in relation to Vinaya, see (Schonthal 2016, pp.85-90, 209).Schonthal's  interest is in the intersection of Vinaya and state law.However, my focus here is on the practice of nuns who generally do not seek state intervention to maintain communal discipline at their centers.
A leading sil mata who, like the aforementioned bhikkhunι referred to nīti in a bid for state recognition and power, spoke to me of the need to obtain the support of the national sil mata organization and the state in order to establish their acceptance of a Vinaya prescription for all sil matas.The Vinaya prescription in question concerned the two-year waiting period required of a trainee nun who is expected to train under the tutelage of a bhikkhunι prior to receiving her ordination.What is important in this case is not so much that this leading sil mata sought to affirm for all sil matas a Vinaya prescription meant for trainee bhikkhunιs and not sil matas, but that she used the term nιti to refer to the possibility of a state regulation that she wished were established, as though it were law.My point is that senior sil matas are similar to senior bhikkhunιs in the way that they refer to rules.They both tend to do so when asserting a claim to power, rather than when speaking about vinaya practices.
Hitherto I have discussed why focusing on a juridical notion of rules (implying by the term nīti), as dominant scholars of the Vinaya do, is questionable.Though nuns may mention nīti when authority is at stake in defining who may be considered a nun in particular discourses of power, asking senior nuns about the rules of their nunnery to find out how their lives are governed is not useful because their focus in communal life is on the cultivation of self-discipline rather than on enforcing punitive regulations.Such self-discipline becomes a form of life that cannot be understood in terms of rules.Moreover, it is not useful to focus on a notion of enumerated rules in order to discriminate between nuns.I pursue these points further in the next two sections on the disciplinary practices of habit and on how nuns make use of the term nīti.Firstly, I discuss nuns' daily schedules, since their use of schedules shows how they might think about nunnery rules.

The Virtue of Habit
When I initially asked nuns about the rules of their nunnery, they generally told me that they did not have any.After some hesitation and further pondering, they would either make mention of a constitution (if they had one) or a daily schedule.The daily schedule would be presented to me orally.Yet nuns' schedules, even though they outline what nuns should do throughout the day, do not constitute a list of rules. 86Monks and nuns speak about them not as regulations that require enforcement and punishment, but only as guidelines for daily practice that help develop self-discipline.Though specific activities are to be done at particular times, it became evident that things tend to happen differently in practice.In fact, monastic timetables or schedules are not what they appear to be.
What emerged from conversations with monks and nuns is that the cultivation of moral dispositions as a habit, though centered on seemingly routine activities, does not always entail strict adherence to a set timetable.When asked about timetables, nuns detailed their daily activities from their awakening at about 4:30 a.m. to their retirement at night, describing when they are to bathe, sweep, clean, partake of alms, rest, observe ritual devotions, study, and meditate.Interestingly, a schedule, even when hung up, is seldom posted in a prominent place where nuns can refer to it daily.The nunnery training centers I visited neither display clocks to assist trainee nuns in keeping time nor allow trainees to wear watches.Although a center may have a wall clock or use a gong to mark communal activities, chronometric timekeeping is not emphasized.Yet, senior nuns insisted that communal participation in all activities at the center is intrinsic to the training of all nuns, as it is central to the development of sιla.Nuns must show up when they are expected to and perform their ritual and monastic duties in a proper sequence and within a particular time frame. 87While bhikkhunιs and sil matas referred to their daily schedules when I asked them about the rules they follow, they 86 Schopen's observations about the Mυlasarvastivada Vinaya used by Tibetan monks are of interest here.He notes that the only evidence of something like a daily work schedule in the Mυlasarvastivada Vinaya was made either because of "some Mυlasarvastivada monks who got into serious trouble or the redactors of their Vinaya who thought they would" (Schopen 2004a, p. 260).In other words, the need for something like a daily schedule arose only because of (the possibility of) erring monks. 87When they fail to do so, a senior teacher-nun engages them in a conversation.Often, the lapse is the result of sickness.If a novice persists in neglecting her assigned tasks despite repeated counseling, she is asked to leave the nunnery.
were often perplexed or dismissive when I requested a written version of their schedules.If a written version existed, nuns often could not locate it.This had less to do with their reliance on oral tradition than with their having naturalized the sequence of their individual and communal responsibilities so thoroughly that they did not need a written schedule.In other words, what nuns do every day is inseparable from a habitual and communal program that requires no explanation-unless an outsider makes queries about it.I visited a remote training center that was home to thirty nuns who observe the ten training precepts and do not consider themselves bhikkhunīs.Their center provides occasional meditation retreats to interested householders.When I first visited, two householder-renunciants, together with select senior nuns, were primarily responsible for attending to the administration and discipline of the center.On successive visits, I spoke with one of the householder-renunciants, Saro, as well as with senior nuns. 88When I questioned Saro about the nīti at the center, she responded, The nuns have no "big" nīti.They do work according to a timetable that has been set; they do things from dawn to dusk according to the timetable.They do not go out on their own.It is dharma kat .ayutu (things that ought to be done according to the dharma) that they do; there is no other list of rules or a constitution.The nuns have considerable discipline (hikmīma).
Here again, we see how vinaya and dharma are inseparable.The idea of "'big' nīti" was an unsurprising response to my query about nīti.What Saro and the nuns indicated was that the very idea of extraneous or "big" rules did not resonate with them.What mattered was the kat .ayutu-"things that ought to be done" according to the dharma-and those things were to be done as vinaya so as to inculcate correct habits and dispositions.A senior teacher-nun at a bhikkhunī training center about the same size as the training center where Saro lived spoke about nīti in a similar manner.While including among nīti some gatekeeping procedures, she too emphasized that nuns were expected to do the work that ought to be done (väd .a kat .ayutu) in a disciplined manner, which is what shaped the renunciant life (pävidi jīvitaya), adding that "there is no need for any amutu ('strange' or 'new') nīti." "Work that ought to be done" is a blanket way of referring to whatever nuns should do, given their capabilities according to seniority, age, and health.That could vary, depending on the everyday needs of a center and the expectations of the senior monastics.Nevertheless, what needed to be done daily at the different training centers tended to be done by sil matas and bhikkhunis alike.
Monks seem to perceive schedules similarly to nuns.A senior scholar-monk (A) whom I (Q) interviewed told me how monastics became attuned to a communal sense of habit that cannot be coded by a timetable: A. Using a timetable is not something we do.The reason for that is that [the timetable] must be kept in our thoughts.

Q. Do you generally use a gong?
A. In earlier times, a gong was sounded, but even that is not there now.That is not needed now.If you are going to sweep, you get up at the time you are to sweep and you sweep.

Q. How do you know when to do it?
A. There really is no such thing as beginning to do some specific thing at some specific time.You get up at dawn, and when it is time to sweep you sweep.
Q. How do you know when to do something? 88Names of informants were changed to preserve their anonymity.
A. Having awoken in the morning, then at a time when you can do the sweeping, you go outside and sweep.

Q. That is a communal activity?
A. Yes, yes.
Q. How do you know when to do something at a certain time?
A. You just do it; it just happens.
Q. What about partaking in alms (dana) on time?
A. Usually, if there is a very big group going for dana, a bell is rung.The bell is rung only because there is a very big group.But generally, the custom is like this: having done the sweeping at dawn, one washes, pays respects to the Buddha, and then goes to the refectory for alms.

Q. Is there a clock there?
A. There is no need for something such as a clock.Yes, there is a clock.But we do not do the work by watching a clock.

Q. Do you watch the sun?
A. No, it is like doing things without thinking; we are just aware of when to do things.This monk offered an insightful take on time vis-à-vis the interrelationship of all phenomena arising in the process of Dependent Origination (pat .iccasamuppada).My questions tended to seek a causal relationship between specific times and the activities related to them, whereas his responses pointed out that the chronometric scansion of monastic activity is just not possible.In other words, as he indicated in this discussion, nothing can begin at some abstractly defined moment, and there is no temporal stand-point outside the "being-time" of a practitioner and her activities.In effect, monastics are immersed in a causal field within a play of relations in which time cannot be abstracted as something different from who you are when you do something, because you are what you do.As this monk indicated, what monastics do elides the timekeeping of the rigid schedules most of us observe.Senior monks, bhikkhunīs, and sil matas all intimated in different ways that time is causally inseparable from the performance of monastic duties-duties that evoke the dependent co-arising of duties and time.Analogously, one cannot create a division between rule and life.A monastic's consistent focus on mindfulness and restraint, while possibly referencing a timetable, is not subject to it.
How nuns sequence their responsibilities may alter according to the demands made of them on any given day.They must attend to visitors who come unannounced, to medical or other emergencies within or outside the nunnery, and to pre-arranged duties and appointments.Such communal demands are not subject to timetables or rules, but unfold in the broader cultivation of communal habits and daily practices that correlate with nuns doing monastic things in a particular sequence.
Schedules that seem to define nuns' practice, which were often presented in response to my inquiries about nιti, may be what nuns ostensibly observe.However, they do not observe schedules as such, because their schedules do not correspond to chronometric timekeeping. 89That was evident in 89 Such timekeeping is also absent in the passage, Pauranika Dina Cariyava, ("Ancient Daily Routine") found in the Śasanavataran .aya, which is well known to nuns.The text provides an outline for monastic conduct and mentions activities that ought to be done throughout the day at monasteries that are home to large numbers of monks.Those activities are not measured in the way non-monastics measure time, but they do follow a general sequence.It is noteworthy that, in Sinhalese, the word cariyava meaning "routine" and included in "dina cariyava" meaning "daily routine" is identical to the word for "conduct." my conversation with Karun .a sil mata.During my most recent visits to her training center, located in the hub of the city, Karun .a was a senior nun who, while sitting for monastic exams, supervised the education and training of junior nuns.I spoke with her in the middle of a busy day, when she had just returned from a distant journey in the heavy rain after reciting all-night pirit (protective stanzas).
When I asked her about her daily program, she responded that her timetable was variable: "I plan to do specific things on certain days, but if the head nun asks us to do something, we cannot say no."I noticed a timetable hanging in the room where guests would meet the head nun.The timetable indicated a sequence of activities that was almost identical to that of other training centers.When I asked her about it, she said, "that is not what takes place; for the most part, it changes;" however, she then added, "some nuns do follow that."She then proceeded to detail a sequence of activities that nuns followed at the center, and that seemed to mirror the listing framed on the wall.However, her description (excluding the time for awakening (4:00 a.m.) and for partaking of alms (noon)) omitted the times when things were done. 90When I asked about specific times when things were done, it became evident that those were of little consequence to her.In effect, her timetable, if she had one, hardly reflected an iteration of conventional timekeeping.Karun .a's listing of activities indicated that nuns were "doing what ought to be done" in their daily life.Such phraseology was frequently given in response to my queries.Parsing and regulating monastic activities according to a daily schedule is simply unhelpful.While segueing into an example of how she was unable to keep to a specific schedule, Karun .a provided the details of her immediate situation.She had stayed up the previous night with several other nuns, reciting all-night pirit.The home the nuns had visited was on the summit of a hill.Since there was no proper road, the nuns had climbed the hill with difficulty, all the while combating an incessant downpour that muddied the path they walked.Though she and the other nuns had been invited to wash at the home, the facilities there were so unsanitary that they felt unable to do so.Upon returning to her center, she had felt obliged to spend some pre-arranged time with a guest (me), but was due to leave to visit a funeral home.Even though she was exhausted, and her head nun was unwell, they were planning to visit that home to honor a deceased teacher of her head nun.When I suggested that I leave to afford her time to wash, she insisted I not do so, since she now felt that it was unnecessary to wash.She said she was fully awake (despite having had no sleep the night before), and was due to leave for the funeral home. 91Being short on time, and needing to bathe after the upcoming visit anyway, she wished to delay bathing until she returned.
Karun .a described to me a life apparently governed by neither time nor rules-a renunciant everyday calibrated to the particular contingencies of the given day.That is not to say that the nuns at her center neglected doing the usual kinds of things that nuns ought to do, including obeying the head nun, making offerings to the Buddha, meditating, cleaning the nunnery, and studying.Yet, their monastic practice cannot be disassociated from attending to the needs of the householders they knew who were a part of the larger communal network to which they belonged.Traveling away from the hermitage, performing ritual services at homes, and attending to visitors constituted a necessary part 90 Some monks and nuns stated that partaking of the noon meal before noon is not essential-unless householders are present.
I noticed that it is not uncommon for monastics to eat the meal after noon if they cannot do so earlier, but that would not be done in the presence of householders.Attitudes to eating after noon may vary among nuns, as some are stricter than others; eating a meal after noon is not always seen as a reason for chiding a nun.Important here is that, just as the Ten Training Precepts do not adequately define a nun's identity, the training precept about the noon meal cannot be viewed in the juridical sense of a rule.Nevertheless, certain eating habits, such as eating together within community and not snacking during the day, are considered necessary in the practice of self-discipline. 91Adjusting her bathing schedule was not a main concern for her.Bathing is viewed as an aid to awakening in the morning (she already felt no need to awaken), and bathing after visiting a funeral home and before paying respects to the Buddha is necessary.She saw no need to bathe at that moment.In describing the conditions of the previous day and her present situation, she referred to the renunciant life as one that necessarily involves difficulties.For her, those difficulties were no different from the routine duties or observances of renunciants (pävidi pil .ivet).
of what Karun .a did.Here, we can see how the virtue of habit might best be seen as the cultivation of a habit of virtue in which adherence to a fixed schedule is not essential.I have indicated how timetables are less about observing rules than about following guidelines of a monastic program that are inseparable from a communal form of life.Such a mode of life, in which rules do not rule, cannot make clear distinctions between the life of bhikkhunιs and that of sil matas.Nuns' daily life is less about a division between time and the activities with which it supposedly correlates, than about how nuns go about being nuns as they cultivate self-discipline and mindfully do the tasks that they need to do.92I now turn to conversations with monks and nuns that say something more about training precepts, since scholars continue to equate training precepts and Vinaya stipulations with rules.I proceed to argue that, just as a precise chronometric scansion of time lacks significance in determining the minutiae of what is done when, and in regulating the life of a nunnery in terms of rules, it is problematic to assume that discrete Vinaya stipulations and training precepts are rules that can govern the cultivation of self-discipline in monastic life.

Renouncing Rules
As we can see, monastics do not focus on Vinaya stipulations or training precepts as rules, or nīti.
In my discussions about what a training center expected of novice nuns, monastics often centered less on the kinds of punitive regulations generally associated with rules and more, as with our conversations about schedules, on developing the daily awareness of vinaya as discipline.A communal program of training among nuns may be understood as the cultivation of a habit of virtue that defies the observation of schedules and rules, as they are generally understood.
I now wish to focus on how nuns maintain discipline at their institutions.When I asked senior nuns about the communal cohesion of their centers, bhikkhunīs and sil matas alike talked about the importance of vinaya and hikmīma, both used to mean "discipline," as well as sa ṅvara.What they talked about was not a discipline that senior nuns expected to enforce, but rather a form or self-discipline that had to be cultivated.Even though some nuns referred to nīti as a means of attempting to authorize a particular relationship of power, the idea that nīti correlates with vinaya was rarely entertained by them.
One bhikkhunī who trains novice nuns for the higher ordination, said that the word vinayanīti lacks accuracy, for "there is a distinction between vinaya and nīti.Vinaya refers to discipline, restraint, and behavior, as practiced in the practice of the Path in the spiritual sense, whereas nīti refers to rules and regulations in minute detail concerning that discipline that is recommended for the sa ňgha (community of monastics).For instance, what is there so spiritual about not having a night meal?When we see the evolution of the rule (about the night meal), we see that the regulation came about because of certain circumstances and contingencies.My point is that vinaya and nīti have two distinct meanings."93Noting that a putative rule was not spiritual, this bhikkhunī, like others I met, echoed the sil matas in affirming the importance of upholding discipline (vinaya)-rather than observing rules.
Tappa, a senior sil mata I interviewed at another training center, addressed my queries about nīti in a similar way.Tappa heads a training institute for sil matas of all ages that provides a monastic education akin to that of monks.Her training center is home to sixteen sil matas, ten of whom come from other hermitages.When I asked her about nīti at her center, she asserted, "yes, there are nīti-that is, a nīti paddatiya (list of rules), a constitution-for example, that nuns cannot stay overnight at the home of a householder."After my asking her for it, she showed me a list of rules constituting a written "constitution."The rules include injunctions about gatekeeping at the monastery. 94Though the constitution reads as a list of rules to be followed, those apparent nīti occur in the context of Buddhist disciplinary practice.Prefacing the list is a statement confirming that, in addition to providing a Buddhist education for the nuns, the nunnery aims to "increase religious knowledge and Buddhist education in order to establish a retinue that could work for the sasana and according to the vinaya."The document also states that, if a sil mata did not comply with the list or "acted in opposition to vinaya," she could be asked to leave the institution.When I asked Tappa precisely what she meant by vinaya (since the Vinaya text is primarily associated with fully ordained monastics rather than with sil matas), she responded that "sil matas must have a vinaya; we cannot do without a vinaya.It is like this: even though we do not in fact have the upasampada, we (sil matas) too must have a vinaya."Her reference was not to the Vinaya Pit .aka but rather to the vinaya as a disciplinary practice intrinsic to moral cultivation.She proceeded to cite a passage, known well among monks and nuns, in which vinaya and sasana (Buddhist dispensation) are considered inseparable: "Vinaya and sasana have a coexistence.If vinaya is present, the sasana is present.When the sasana is present, vinaya is necessarily present.The sasana itself is protected/observed because of vinaya.Those two are inseparable." 95or Tappa, the focus of life at her training center is not on the observance of rules or nīti per se, but rather on cultivating a disciplinary foundation for life.Though she acknowledged some nīti, she also asserted that the relevant rules apply only within a framework of vinaya and sasana.Notably, the Ten Training Precepts are not among the listed regulations.Indeed, none of the training centers for sil matas that I visited display a listing of the Ten Training Precepts.Some nuns told me that only those who can follow nīti are accepted into their communities.However, such nīti are generally gatekeeping regulations, which reflect the assumption that nuns are already observing training precepts and prepared to do what nuns ought to do in the communal life of the center even before they formally join it.
Mitta, who leads a meditation center for about thirty adult sil matas, affirmed Tappa's perspective on nīti, even suggesting that the Ten Training Precepts alone are of little relevance.In accord with the previously cited bhikkhunι, she noted that the training precepts were introduced by the Buddha to facilitate the cultivation of sīla and the elimination of wrongdoing.In our discussion about Buddha nīti, she said, "one cannot protect the sasana without nīti, no?You cannot do that without vinaya, no?" Seemingly equating nīti with vinaya, she eschewed the conventional meaning of nīti as "law" and elaborated on how the cultivation of sīla and the Ten Training Precepts relates to vinayanīti.In stressing that her practice is not ruled by the training precepts, she downplayed their relevance in seeking to cultivate a deeper and more extensive meditative practice.Even though sιla is sometimes equated with the training precepts, she pointed out that it is not meaningful to parse the precepts (in differentiating bhikkhunιs from sil matas) when it comes to the development of sιla.
I (Q) began the following discussion by asking her (A) how the Ten Training Precepts (dasa sil) relate to vinayanīti, which we had already discussed as being the nīti introduced by the Buddha: Q. Can the dasa sil be considered vinayanīti?
A. There is no such thing as dasa sil; if one marks regular observances (pil .ivet), the necessary duties of the sasana, even if one has no understanding of nīti or that which we call nīti, meditative cultivation (bhavana) is fulfilled.It is sīla, samadhi, and pa ň ňa [moral cultivation; concentration {meditation}; wisdom] that one must have, no?If one can observe sιlaya [sιla], if one can develop samadhi, and if one can do one's work with pa ň ňa-that is all a part of Buddha nīti.
Q.So we cannot say that the Vinaya book is about nīti alone?A. It is useless just to study and read the Vinaya book.By developing sīla, samadhi, and pa ň ňa (alone), one can also be observing the dasa sil and Buddha nīti and all that.There is no issue with sιlaya, even though one might divide it up (e.g., into eight or ten training precepts).It is gun .a (virtue) that one wants; it is the virtue of the dharma (gun .a dharma) that we must observe.Even if one were to (formally) take all the śiks .apadas, but were not really to observe them, there is no use in that, no?It is not possible to proceed in the dharma in that way, is [it]?Would sīla, samadhi, and pa ň ňa develop in that way?
Although at one point she was willing to entertain the relevance of nīti to vinaya and sasana, she now qualified her use of nīti and focused on the cultivation of a contemplative life in terms of following the Eightfold Path comprising sīla, samadhi, and pa ň ňa.Mitta's comments on the training precepts are not unlike those of the bhikkhunι mentioned earlier who questioned the "spirituality" of the training precept concerning the noon meal.In sum, precepts guide practice; they do not rule.
In a similar vein, even a senior bhikkhunι, who occasionally used the terms Buddha nīti and vinayanīti to differentiate the identity and status of bhikkhunιs from those of sil matas, indicated that monastic discipline cannot be limited to observing a collection Vinaya rules.When I asked her how she could possibly even remember all 311 Vinaya observances that she was expected to keep as a bhikkhunι, she responded with the following account of a conversation purportedly dating to the time of the Buddha: A monk told the Buddha, "I cannot keep to all those numerous Vinaya rules (nīti), so I am going to disrobe and leave."Then the Buddha asked him, "Can you cultivate your thought?"The monk responded, "Yes."Then the Buddha said, "That is all that you need to do."Later, that monk became enlightened.
Even while finding recourse to the term nīti in reference to the Vinaya, this bhikkhunι, commenting on a well-known textual account, added that "observing training precepts is about observing vinaya.Vinaya means 'discipline' (hikmιma).It is about the discipline of the eyes, ears, nose, tongue, and body; that is what is called vinaya.That is what the Buddha has said."This bhikkhunι, like the other nuns I conversed with, centered on how living the renunciant life can defy the idea of observing rules.Rules (nīti) may relate to schedules or gatekeeping procedures, but they fail to distinguish adequately between the monastic life of bhikkhunιs and that of sil matas.The discipline that matters to all nuns concerns a discipline of self-restraint rather than rules.Some monastic teachers I interviewed rejected any likening of the training precepts to nīti.A senior monk who serves as a teacher and consultant at several nunnery training centers said, "the Buddha did not impose rules (nīti).What he said was, this was good and that was bad, and he would say why one thing was good and another bad.He said that we would benefit from avoiding what was bad if we followed some basic things."Referring to Vinaya stipulations as śiks .a, the monk responded, "none of them are rules (nīti).Where is the word nīti used?Those are śiks .a (trainings).Nīti is about punishment (dan .d .uvama).But here there is no punishment.Rather, there needs to be an effort (among monastics) to follow the path of the various vinaya śiks .a (disciplinary trainings)."That monk, like the nuns mentioned above, emphasized that the prescriptions of the Vinaya texts focus on training monastics, not punishing them.
My conversations with senior monastic teachers indicated that rules are not central to governing the moral training of nuns in ways that have been thought.Nuns do not talk about their lives in terms of rules, but rather in terms of the practice of self-discipline and duties that must be done while cultivating particular moral dispositions and sensibilities.I propose that the relationship between rules and a monastic mode of life needs to be thought about differently.Rules might well determine who may or may not join a community of nuns or might be invoked in specific discourses of power.However, it is misleading to think that the vinaya of nuns concerns a juridical idea of rules, as scholars often assume.

Concluding Remarks
In this article, I have argued that the dominant scholarly focus on Buddhist monastic discipline as if it were a set of rules is misguided.A genealogy of scholarship on the Vinaya has misled us into thinking that it is the enumerated Vinaya rules or "laws" that are central in governing the life of Buddhist monks and nuns.That scholarship assumes monastic regulation to be juridical and fails to see monastic vinaya practice as a form of life.I have demonstrated that the practice of monks and nuns generally foregrounds vinaya as the exercise of self-discipline and self-restraint and not as the enumeration of rules to be followed.That does not mean that ideas about nīti or rules are always completely rejected, but rather that they are not central in the ways they are thought to be.More specifically, nuns' reference to enumerated rules, far from being constitutive of monastic life, is context-dependent.Nīti do become relevant for nuns in the context of gatekeeping procedures and who may or may not remain in their community.Nevertheless, even the bhikkhunιs, who occasionally refer to Vinayanīti that should be observed, assert that they are not of much significance.Most often, when nuns resort to talking about rules, they do so in the context of affirming particular authoritative discourses and power relations more than in the practice of monastic discipline per se.I have indicated that training centers for bhikkhunιs and sil matas alike focus on developing a shared understanding of vinaya in daily practice and argued that, contrary to what is generally assumed, rules are not helpful in differentiating between the mode of life of bhikkhunιs and that of sil matas.Though there is some distinction between the formal education of bhikkhunιs and that of sil matas, and though bhikkhunιs and sil matas may participate in different rituals, what matters most to them both is forming a habit of virtue as they develop moral dispositions grounded in the daily activities of a nunnery.It is noteworthy that householders in Sri Lanka generally do not differentiate between bhikkhunιs and sil matas.Nevertheless, the scholarship on Buddhist nuns continues to highlight differences between bhikkhunιs and sil matas and often focuses on monastic rules and questions of status in order to emphasize that some nuns are lacking certain rights and privileges.Such scholarship promotes the ideals of liberal feminism and overlooks the renunciant everyday of nuns.There is, thus, a disconnect between the way that nuns talk about vinaya and the ways that some scholars discuss their practice in terms of "rules." I contend that distinctions based on an idea of rules comes into play primarily when monastics make claims to particular authoritative discourses, e.g., in relation to state recognition.Distinctions based on an idea of rules are not of particular significance in differentiating between the general everyday life of bhikkhunιs and sil matas.In Buddhist texts, vinaya is often juxtaposed with, and seen as inseparable from the dhamma.Monastics today, echoing what is stated in early texts, affirm that the Buddhist dispensation cannot survive without vinaya. 96The practice of vinaya and the maintenance of the dispensation are interdependent.Bhikkhunιs and sil matas agree that vinaya grounds a consistent practice of monastic life based on sīla, which has Nirvana as its goal.To assume that monastics have rules that are readily available for representation and analysis, and to posit divisions between nuns on the basis of their observation of collections of rules or on whether they have the higher ordination is to misconstrue the everyday life that nuns lead.Just as a life cannot be reduced to law,97 monastic training precepts cannot be reduced to rules.Rather, they are guideposts for the development of moral dispositions and a lifelong training in accordance with the dhamma.Although dhamma is translated as "norm," a norm may not "refer to single acts and events but to the entire existence of an individual, to his forma vivendi.It is no longer easily recognizable as a law, just as a life that is founded in its totality in the form of a rule is no longer truly life."98Likewise, vinaya, grounded as it is in a life of virtue, is no longer easily recognizable as a law. 7

Funding:
I gratefully acknowledge the funding for this research given by the Robert H. N. Ho Family Foundation Collaborative Research Grant in 2014, an Augustana College Freistat In-Country Research Grant in 2016, an Augustana College Faculty Research Grant in 2017 and a David E. Nudd Fund Grant from the Department of Religion at Augustana College in 2017.
Scott has observed,The Western misinterpretation of Buddhism is shaped not only by a colonial misreading, but by the selective and biased account in the authoritative texts themselves.However, what is curious about this view is that it presumes that Western interpretive discourse occupies the same conceptual relation to Buddhist tradition that any Buddhist texts do.Canonical texts do not present "a view from nowhere;" they are employed to make claims for what the dhamma is, how it is to be interpreted, and so on.It is this internal argument as a discursive-if nonunitary-whole that should form the object of the anthropological investigation.The texts form part of a tradition and, as such, are integral to arguments within that tradition, and to positions regarding what correct views and practices are.The Western dilemma arises only insofar as its discourses seek to adjudicate what the truth of that tradition is.66