BUDDHIST MONASTIC CODE I

Buddhist Monastic Code 1At any rate, to continue with the Commentary's explanations: N.O. → A.O. tradescover two possible cases, depending on whether the money was obtained properlyor improperly under the preceding rule. If improperly, the object bought with themoney is unallowable for all bhikkhus. This holds whether the bhikkhu makes thepurchase himself or a steward makes it for him. The only way the item can be madeallowable is to have an equal sum of money returned to the original donor and theitem returned to the person who sold it, and then arrange for a proper exchange asallowed under the following rule. (At first glance, it may seem strange for theCommentary to insist that the price of the A.O. be returned to the original donor ofthe N.O., as the bhikkhus are in no way in his/her debt; but this is probably theCommentary's way of ensuring that if the seller returns the purchase price of theA.O. to the bhikkhus' steward, it is not used to repurchase the A.O.)If, however, a bhikkhu engages in a N.O. → A.O. trade using money obtainedproperly under the preceding rule, the item bought is unallowable only for him, butallowable for other bhikkhus once he has forfeited it. If N.O. → A.O. exchangesreally were covered by this rule, though, this would contradict the Vibhaṅga, whichinsists that the item obtained as a result of this rule either has to be given to a layperson or thrown away. Thus it seems better to follow the Vibhaṅga in treatingcases of this sort under the following rule.The Commentary makes no mention of what should be done with items resultingfrom trades that carry a dukkaṭa here, but its discussion of how to "undo" a trade soas to make the item allowable suggests the following scheme:For a D.O → D.O. trade: Return the object bought to the person who sold it, returnthe original object to the donor, and confess the offense.For a D.O. → A.O. trade: Return the object bought to the person who sold it, returnthe original object to the donor, and confess the offense. If one wants to, one maythen approach the person who sold the allowable object and arrange a proper tradein accordance with the following rule.For an A.O. → D.O. trade: Return the object bought to the person who sold it andconfess the offense.As an intellectual exercise, the Commentary considers the question of a trade thatresults in an A.O. that can never be made allowable, and comes up with thefollowing scenario: A bhikkhu takes money improperly obtained under the precedingrule, uses it to get iron mined, smelted, and made into a bowl. Because there is noway to undo these transactions — the iron can never be returned to its state as ore— there is no way any bhikkhu may ever properly make use of the iron no matterwhat is done with it.As mentioned above, the Commentary's explanations here contradict the Vibhaṅgaon a number of points, and contain several anomalies as well. It seems preferableto treat a number of cases it mentions here — N.O. → D.O., N.O. → A.O., D.O. →D.O., D.O. → A.O., A.O. → D.O., or in other words, any trade resulting in anallowable or a dukkaṭa object — under the following rule instead.198