Newly Revised Four-Part Monastic Precepts (新刪定四分僧戒本)

About 新刪定四分僧戒本

Tang · by 道宣刪定

11,770 · about 39 min

The Newly Revised Four-Part Monastic Code of Discipline, compiled by the eminent Tang dynasty master Vinaya Master Daoxuan, stands as one of the essential texts of the Buddhist Vinaya school. Based on the Four-Part Vinaya, Master Daoxuan systematically organized and condensed the contents of the disciplinary code in response to the needs of Buddhist development at that time, creating a text more suitable for the practice and study of monastic communities in China. This work meticulously prescribes the daily conduct norms, cultivation guidelines, and monastic community management systems for bhikkhus, encompassing both the categories of restraint and observance. It provides clear standards for upholding precepts for the monastic community in Chinese Buddhism. As a core text of the Nanshan Vinaya school, this disciplinary code has profoundly influenced the establishment and transmission of the Buddhist precept system in China since the Tang dynasty, and remains an important classic for the study of Buddhist Vinaya to this day.