BUDDHIST MONASTIC CODE I

Pārājika Chapter 4picks up Y's before putting his own ticket in its place, the taking is accomplishedwhen he lets go of his own. If both tickets don't appear (they've been concealed?)and X gets Y to take X's portion, the taking is accomplished when he then picks upY's portion. The underlying assumption in all this is that Y's portion belongs to himas soon as he has drawn the ticket for it. The Commentary adds that this exchangecounts as theft regardless of whether X's portion is worth more than Y's, less thanY's, or the two portions are of equal value.The Commentary to Mv.I.62 adds that if a bhikkhu claims higher seniority than isactually his in order to obtain better donations, he should be treated under this rulewhen, through this ruse, he obtains donations that should have gone to anotherbhikkhu. However, this type of action would appear to fall under Deceit, discussedbelow.b. Smuggling: A bhikkhu carrying items subject to an import duty hides them as hegoes through customs. The taking is accomplished when the item leaves thecustoms area. The Vibhaṅga calculates the value of the object here, for the purposeof determining the seriousness of the offense, by the duty owed on it, and not itsactual selling price.The Vinita-vatthu states that there is no penalty if the bhikkhu goes throughcustoms not knowing that he has an item subject to import duties among his effects.The Commentary adds that if a bhikkhu informs the customs official that he has anitem subject to customs duty and yet the official decides not to collect the duty, thebhikkhu incurs no penalty. It also states that if a bhikkhu goes through customs witha conditional intent — "If they ask to see my belongings, I'll pay the fee, but if theywave me through I won't" — then if the officials do wave him through without askingto see his belongings, he incurs no offense. At present, when people entering acountry are asked to choose different passageways through a customs area,marked "Goods to declare" and "Nothing to declare," a bhikkhu with goods todeclare who enters the "Nothing to declare" passageway cannot take advantage ofthis allowance for conditional intent, as he has already indicated an unconditionalintent through his choice of a passageway.The Vibhaṅga states that if, to avoid paying an import duty at a frontier, one crossesthe frontier in such a way as to evade the customs area (§), one incurs only adukkaṭa. At present, the civil law judges this sort of behavior as more reprehensiblethan slipping an item through customs, but from the point of view of the Vinaya thelesser penalty still holds. The Commentary says that this allowance applies only incases when one evades the customs area by a distance of more than twoleḍḍupātas — approximately 36 meters. (A leḍḍupāta is a unit of measure thatappears frequently in the Canon and is defined as the distance a man of averagestature can throw a clod of dirt underarm.)The Vibhaṅga's position here is important to understand, for it has implicationsconcerning the extent to which the evasion of other government fees and taxeswould fall under this rule. The underlying assumption here seems to be that adutiable item carried into a customs area is impounded by the king (or government).The payment of the duty is thus an act of recovering full ownership of the item. An33