San Sarv Bu Pm Finot Pc 25Travelling on a Boat With a Nun
Pāli / Sanskrit:Nāvābhiruhana
Save your scripture progress
Create a free account to save scriptures, track progress, and continue your daily learning path.
Nāvābhiruhana Discourse — Caution When Travelling by Boat with a Nun
Background
This discourse is recorded in the Vinaya Piṭaka, specifically in the Pātimokkha section, the code for bhikkhus. These are rules concerning offenses that the Buddha Gotama laid down to protect the Sangha and maintain the discipline of practice.
The background of this rule arose from specific events in the earliest history of Buddhism. As the Buddha-Dharma developed, with both bhikkhus and bhikkhunis entering the Sangha organization, the Buddha needed to establish rules of conduct to avoid circumstances that might cause misunderstanding or moral decline. The Nāvābhiruhana discourse, meaning “Going Up onto a Boat” or “Boarding a Boat,” concerns one of the everyday situations to which bhikkhus needed to be attentive.
The Vinaya Piṭaka is not merely a set of dry decrees, but also a practice that secures well-being, a profound means of training that helps practitioners remove the causes of affliction and impurity.
Main Content
This discourse warns bhikkhus about travelling by boat alone with a bhikkhuni. This rule falls within the domain of things to be avoided (veramaṇī), in order to prevent suspicion, unnecessary conversations, or situations leading to carelessness in conduct.
The deeper reason for this rule is not that travelling by boat is bad in itself, but that it involves privacy and isolation. On a boat in the middle of the water, bhikkhus and bhikkhunis are in a confined space, removed from the community and from others who might witness their conduct. This is a condition in which the indriyas, the sense faculties, may easily become heedless, and it may allow improper actions to occur without supervision.
This rule also protects the reputation of the Sangha in the eyes of the public.
🌏 The Buddhist canon is vast — some sūtras (such as comparative Vinaya across schools, or untranslated Tibetan-canon texts) have to this day NEVER been translated into Vietnamese or English by anyone, scholars included. Rather than leave it blank, Inti AI offers a FAITHFUL summary grounded in the tradition — from the sūtra's title, origin and essence — so you can still reach this rare part of the treasury. Whenever an original translation exists, the app shows the original first.
Translations belong to the translator/source credited above. The bilingual compilation, presentation, and AI translations compiled by Inti are © Inti Foundation. Please attribute when quoting; do not bulk-copy or use commercially without permission.