Khuddasikkhā-mūlasikkhā

Two short manuals of training for novices, the Khuddasikkhā and the Mūlasikkhā, printed here with three subcommentaries on them — five works in one volume. They are the beginner's end of the Vinaya literature, and they know it — the standard they assume is far below Buddhadatta's Vinayavinicchaya.

The dating runs through other books, and lands inside 450–600 CE. The Khuddasikkhā is by Dhammasiri, who also wrote a ganthipada; that the two are the same man is settled by a verse of the Khuddasikkhā quoted in Vajirabuddhi's work, which places Dhammasiri after Buddhaghosa and before Ānanda of Kalasapura. The Mūlasikkhā is anonymous; an unidentified Burmese tradition gives it to a “Mahāsāmi”, which is a title, not a name.

Both books have a firm floor under them: they are named in the Parakkamabāhu-Katikāvata of 1165 CE. It rules that a monk unable to memorise the Pātimokkhasutta, the Khuddasikkhā and two Suttantas should at least learn the Sekhiya rules and the Mūlasikkhā — which shows that the Mūlasikkhā was treated as the simpler of the two. Both are arranged for use rather than for study, with the verse interrupted by prose wherever a kammavācā has to be quoted. Both also drop the rules that no longer applied: the Khuddasikkhā leaves out Saṅghādisesa X–XIII, and the Mūlasikkhā VI and VII as well, which govern the building of very primitive monasteries.

The volume holds five works, and its closing colophon belongs to the last. After the Khuddasikkhā (CST4 paragraphs 1–1618) come its old subcommentary (1619–2359), which names no author, and its new one, the Sumaṅgalappasādanī (2360–3098); then the Mūlasikkhā (3099–3479) and a short subcommentary on it (3480–3631). The new subcommentary on the Khuddasikkhā is signed, by a pupil on his teacher's behalf: its closing verses name the Mahāthera Saṅgharakkhita, who also wrote the Subodhālaṅkāra and the Vuttodaya — Saṅgharakkhitanāmena, mahātherena dhīmatā — and it opens with homage to Sāriputta Mahāsāmi. Norman places Saṅgharakkhita in Ceylon in the latter half of the twelfth century and records his subcommentary on the Khuddasikkhā (Norman 1983, p. 168). The Mūlasikkhā's subcommentary names no author plainly; it says only that it was finished within half a month, aḍḍhamāsassa accaye.