BUDDHIST MONASTIC CODE I

Pārājika Chapter 4a pārājika. According to the Commentary, any bhikkhus who assist a bhikkhu in afraudulent case also incur the same offense he does: a pārājika if he wins, athullaccaya if he loses. This judgment, however, must be qualified by noting that theassistant incurs these penalties only if he perceives the case to be fraudulent.Special cases. As mentioned above, the notion of stealing covers a wide range ofactions. To delineate this range, the texts discuss a variety of actions that border onstealing, some of them coming under this rule, some of them not.Belongings of the Saṅgha. According to the Commentary to NP 30, an item belongsto the Saṅgha when donors, intending for it to be Saṅgha property, offer it to one ormore bhikkhus representing the Saṅgha, and those bhikkhus receive it, although notnecessarily into their hands. Saṅgha property thus counts as "what is not given" asfar as individual bhikkhus are concerned, for it has an owner — the Saṅgha of alltimes and places — and is guarded by the individual Community of bhikkhus.Saṅgha property is divided into two sorts: light/inexpensive (lahu-bhaṇḍa) andheavy/expensive (garu-bhaṇḍa). Light property includes such things as robes,bowls, medicine, and food; heavy property, such things as monastery land,buildings, and furnishings (see BMC2, Chapter 7). The Buddha gave permission forindividual Communities to appoint officials to be responsible for the proper use ofSaṅgha property. The officials responsible for light property are to distribute itamong the members of the Community, following set procedures to ensure that thedistribution is fair (see BMC2, Chapter 18). Once an individual member has receivedsuch property, he may regard it as his own and use it as he sees fit.In the case of heavy property, though, the officials are responsible for seeing that itis allotted for proper use in the Community, but the individual bhikkhus allowed touse it may not regard it as their own personal property. This is an important point. Atmost, such items may be taken on loan or exchanged — with the approval of theCommunity — for other heavy property of equal value. A bhikkhu who gives suchitems away to anyone — ordained or not — perceiving it as his to give, incurs athullaccaya no matter what the value of the object (Cv.VI.15.2 — see BMC2,Chapter 7). Of course, if he knows that it is not his to give or take, then inappropriating it as his own he incurs the penalty for stealing.The Buddha was highly critical of any bhikkhu who gives away heavy property of theSaṅgha. In the origin story to Pr 4, he cites the case of a bhikkhu who, hoping tofind favor with a lay person, gives that person some of the Saṅgha's heavy property.Such a bhikkhu, he says, is one of the five great thieves of the world.However, the Vinita-vatthu includes a case where bhikkhus visiting a monasteryarrange for a lay person to pick and give them some of the fruit growing in themonastery. The Buddha, in judging the case, states that they committed no offenseas they were taking the fruit just for their own consumption. This implies that if theywere to take the fruit for other purposes — to have it sold, for instance — theywould be guilty of an offense. The Commentary adds that visiting bhikkhus have thisright only if the resident bhikkhus are not caring for the fruit trees, if the trees hadnot been donated to provide funds for a particular purpose in the monastery, or if41