Prātimokṣasaṃvara
| Key Term | prātimokṣasaṃvara |
|---|---|
| In Tibetan Script | སོ་སོར་ཐར་པའི་སྡོམ་པ་ |
| Wylie Tibetan Transliteration | so sor thar pa'i sdom pa |
| Devanagari Sanskrit Script | प्रातिमोक्षसंवर |
| Romanized Sanskrit | prātimokṣasaṃvara |
| Sanskrit Phonetic Rendering | pratimoksha samvara |
| English Standard | vow of individual liberation |
| Jeffrey Hopkin's English Term | vow of individual liberation |
| Ives Waldo's English Term | individual liberation vow |
| Term Type | Noun |
| Source Language | Sanskrit |
| Basic Meaning | In the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya that was preserved in Tibet, this refers to a set of seven types of vows of individual liberation that constitute formal ordination according to the precepts of the vinaya, or disciplinary code, of the fundamental vehicle. This set of seven is divided by gender and includes the vows for fully ordained monastics, novice monastics, and lay people, as well as specifc vows for novice nuns actively training for full ordination. Sometimes included as an eighth type of vow are the single day lay vows associated with the practice of sojong, "mending and purification" (gso sbyong), which is observed twice a month. |
| Has the Sense of | Moral-ethical disciplinary rules that act as a restraint on one's behavior due to their requirements to abide by a specific code of conduct. |
| Did you know? | Until very recently the highest level ordination available to nuns in the Tibetan was that of a śikṣamāṇā (dge slob ma) as the lineage of the vow for fully ordained nuns bhikṣuṇī (dge slong ma) in the Mūlasarvāstivāda vinaya was never established in Tibet and therefore had fallen out of use and was lost. It has since been revived |
| Definitions | |
| Princeton Dictionary of Buddhism | See page 667: In Sanskrit, “restraint proffered by the disciplinary code” (prātimokṣa); one of the three types of restraint (saṃvara) mentioned in the Vaibhāṣika school of Sarvāstivāda abhidharma, which are associated with “unmanifest material force” or “hidden imprints” (avijñaptirūpa)... The restraint inherent in the disciplinary code creates a special kind of “force field” that automatically protects and dissuades monks and nuns from unwholesome activity, even when they are not consciously aware that they are following the precepts or when they are asleep. This specific type of restraint is what makes a person a monk or a nun, since just wearing robes and following an ascetic way of life would not in themselves be enough to instill in him or her the protective power offered by the prātimokṣa. |
| Rangjung Yeshe's English Term | The seven sets of precepts one of which should be kept by a Hinayana practitioner |
| Wikipedia | An overview of the prātimokṣa as it pertains to various Buddhist vinaya traditions |
| RigpaWiki |
There are seven types of pratimoksha vows, the vows of:
There are sometimes said to be eight types of pratimoksha vows if you add the one day lay vows. More on RigpaWiki |