Bi Pc 3939. Wandering during the rainy season
Pāli / Sanskrit:Antovassa
A nun who goes wandering during the rainy season must confess the offense.
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Theravāda Collection on Monastic Law The Nuns’ Analysis
The chapter on offenses entailing confession The subchapter on lying down 39. Wandering during the rainy season
Origin story
At one time when the Buddha was staying at Rājagaha in the Bamboo Grove, the squirrel sanctuary, the nuns went wandering during the rainy season. People complained and criticized them, “How can the nuns go wandering during the rainy season? They are trampling down the green grass, harming one-sensed life, and destroying many small beings.”
The nuns heard the complaints of those people, and the nuns of few desires complained and criticized them, “How can nuns go wandering during the rainy season?” … “Is it true, monks, that nuns do this?”
“It’s true, sir.”
The Buddha rebuked them … “How can nuns do this? This will affect people’s confidence …” … “And, monks, the nuns should recite this training rule like this:
Final ruling
‘If a nun goes wandering during the rainy season, she commits an offense entailing confession.’”
Definitions
A: whoever … Nun: … The nun who has been given the full ordination in unanimity by both Sanghas through a legal procedure consisting of one motion and three announcements that is irreversible and fit to stand—this sort of nun is meant in this case. During the rainy season: not having stayed put for the first three or the last three months of the rainy season. Goes wandering: when the inhabited areas are a chicken’s flight apart, then for every next inhabited area she commits an offense entailing confession. When it is an uninhabited area, a wilderness, then for every six kilometers she commits an offense entailing confession.
Non-offenses
There is no offense: if she goes on seven-day business; if she goes because something is disturbing her; if there is an emergency; if she is insane; if she is the first offender.
The ninth training rule is finished.
The “…” is an abbreviation carried over from the Pāli original itself, called peyyāla. The early canon was memorized and recited, so passages repeated verbatim from a preceding discourse were commonly contracted to an elision mark rather than written out in full. Venerable Thích Minh Châu's translation preserves this convention. Some texts therefore look short — but that is the canonical form, not missing content or a truncated translation. The elided passages can be read in full in the preceding discourses of the same chapter.
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