BUDDHIST MONASTIC CODE I

Buddhist Monastic Code IChapter 7.3Nissaggiya Pācittiya: The Bowl Chapter21. An extra alms bowl may be kept ten days at most. Beyond that, it is to beforfeited and confessed.The offense under this rule involves two factors.1) Object: an alms bowl fit to be determined for use.2) Effort: One keeps it for more than ten days without determining it for use,placing it under shared ownership, abandoning it (giving or throwing itaway); and without its being lost, destroyed, burnt, snatched away, or takenby someone else on trust within that time.Alms bowls. According to the Commentary, an alms bowl fit to be determined foruse must be —1) made of the proper material;2) the proper size;3) fully paid for;4) properly fired; and5) not damaged beyond repair.Material. Cv.V.8.2 allows two kinds of alms bowls: made either of clay or of iron.Cv.V.9.1 forbids eleven: made either of wood, gold, silver, pearl, beryl, crystal,bronze, glass, tin, lead, or copper. Using the Great Standards, the Council of Eldersin Thailand has recently decided that stainless steel bowls are allowable — because,after all, they are steel — but aluminum bowls not, because they share some of thedangers of tin. In the time of the Buddha, clay bowls were the more common. Atpresent, iron and steel bowls are.Size. The Vibhaṅga contains a discussion of three proper sizes for a bowl — themedium size containing twice the volume of the small, and the large twice thevolume of the medium — but they are based on measurements that are not knownwith any precision at present. The author of the Vinaya-mukha reports havingexperimented with various sizes of bowls based on a passage in the story ofMeṇḍaka in the Dhammapada Commentary. His conclusion: A small bowl is just alittle larger than a human skull, and a medium bowl approximately 27 1/2 Englishinches (70 cm.) in circumference, or about 8.75 inches (22.5 cm.) in diameter. Hedid not try making a large bowl. Any size larger than the large size or smaller thanthe small is inappropriate; any size between them falls under this rule.Fully paid for. According to the Commentary, if a bowl-maker makes a gift of abowl, it counts as fully paid for. If a bowl has been delivered to a bhikkhu but has205