On Some Curious Cases Where the Buddha Did Not Make a Rule: Palliative Care, Assisted Suicide, and Abortion in an Indian Buddhist Monastic Law Code

Abstract

This paper examines a series of six curious narratives that appear in the section dealing with the third pārājika, the rule addressing monastic involvement in various acts of homicide (including abortion), in the Bhikṣu-vibhaṅga of the Mūlasarvāstivādavinaya. These tales purport to record the Buddha’s legislative reaction to (1) an offhand remark made to a seriously ill monk by his brother-in-the-dharma in response to which the sick monk foolishly and fatally consumed poison, (2) a monk under whose care a gravely ill monk convinced his co-religionist’s nephews to cut off his head in order to put an end to his suffering, (3–4) two monks who hope to receive the possessions of dying monks, (5) the famous arhat Upasena’s consent to a former doctor’s offer of an abortive preparation for his brother’s wife whom he got pregnant before becoming a monk, and (6) an ill father who decides to trick his female servant into squeezing the very life out of him after his son, a monk, tells him that as a lay Buddhist he will be reborn in a good destiny. What is curious about these stories, all delivered before the formal establishment of the third pārājika, is that at the end of each tale, the Buddha is said not to have established a rule-of-training. These tales thus run counter to the general function of narratives that precede the formal promulgation of Prātimokṣa rules in the extant vibhaṅgas. This paper seeks to throw light on the role of these curious stories.