Lzh Sarv Bi Vb Pc 111Ordaining Untrained Unmarried Girls

Exposition of the Sutta: Ordaining Untrained Maidens Who Are Not Yet Twenty

Background

This sutta is recorded in the Vinaya Piṭaka of the Pāli Canon, specifically in the Bhikkhunī Vibhaṅga, the section of discipline for bhikkhunīs. It reflects regulations concerning the ordination of laywomen as bhikkhunīs within the early Buddhist community.

According to the Vinaya Piṭaka, the Buddha established specific standards to protect the quality of the Bhikkhunī Sangha, especially in the early period when Buddhism had just been founded. These regulations are not arbitrary restrictions, but necessary conditions to ensure that those who go forth possess sufficient wisdom, maturity, and resolve for religious practice.

This sutta relates especially to two important standards: age, twenty years, and the state of having been trained (asikkhita, untrained in the Vinaya). These conditions were laid down by the Buddha to avoid psychological and social difficulties in the process of religious practice.

Main Content

According to this sutta, a laywoman who wishes to go forth as a bhikkhunī must fulfill two basic standards. First, she must have reached the age of twenty (paripuṇṇavīsativassa). Second, she must have been trained (sikkhita), that is, she must have practiced the basic precepts for a certain period before formally receiving ordination.

The sutta states that if a laywoman who has not fulfilled these two conditions is allowed to go forth as a bhikkhunī, that act constitutes a Pācittiya offense, an offense of wrongdoing that the offender must confess before the Sangha.

This does not emphasize mere formal rigidity, but rests on the understanding that youth may not possess sufficient wisdom to commit to a strict monastic way of life, and that lack of prior training may lead to difficulties in keeping the discipline.