[Buddha-l] Vinaya in Japan

[Wong Weng Fai]

I believe Saicho was not happy that the Vinaya was essentially Hinayana 
Vinaya. He sort to establish his own Mahayana Vinaya and met a lot of 
resistance from the Nara Hinayanists. Eventually I think he got his way 
and established his own system - which eventually became the nationally 
accepted way of doing things - until Shinran did away with the vinaya 
with his "neither monk nor lay" deal which included allowing "monks" to 
marry.

I hope the experts can comment on this.

W.F. Wong

On Sun, 3 Feb 2008, Bankei wrote:

> Could someone please assist me in understanding the history of the vinaya in
> Japan?
>
>
>
> My understanding is that Japanese monks initially followed the vinaya but it
> was quickly bypassed for various reasons. I think Saicho, the founder of
> Tendai, wanted his monks to be ordained under the Bodhisattva precepts only
> and not under the vinaya. There may be various reasons for this, the major
> one possibly being the hold the big Nara schools had on admitting monks
> because they controlled the ordinations.
>
>
>
> But there were still monks ordained under the vinaya, including monks of the
> more older schools. But discipline became lax. Some of the reasons Dogen,
> Eisai etc went to China was to bring back texts, knowledge and proper vinaya
> lineages.
>
>
>
> Some of my questions are:
>
>
>
> Were Dogen Æ»¸µ (founder of Soto) and Eisai ±ÉÀ¾ (founder of Rinzai) properly
> ordained under the vinaya in China?
>
>
>
> Did they start ordaining monks on their return to Japan? If so, how did they
> fill the property quorum?
>
>
>
> And generally, what happened to the vinaya ordination tradition in Japan?
>
>
>
> Thanks
>
>
>
> Bankei
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