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प्रव्रज्यान्तरायसूत्र
Pravrajyāntarāyasūtra
རབ་ཏུ་བྱུང་བའི་བར་དུ་གཅོད་པའི་མདོ།
rab tu byung ba'i bar du gcod pa'i mdo
The Sūtra on Obstacles to Ordination
Text
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Description
The Pravrajyāntarāyasūtra ("Sūtra on the Obstacles to Ordination") is a Sanskrit Buddhist sūtra otherwise unknown outside of a single quotation preserved in Śāntideva's Śikṣāsamuccaya. The text is not found in the Tibetan Kangyur. The passage, addressed to a figure named Mahānaman, concerns the karmic consequences suffered by laypeople who commit any of four harmful acts: creating obstacles for beings who have served previous Buddhas by obstructing their intention to renounce the world, take ordination, or follow the noble path; using a position of family authority — motivated by eagerness for wealth or children and lacking faith in the law of karma — to obstruct the ordination of a son, daughter, wife, or relative; rejecting the holy Dharma; and hostility toward religious wanderers and Brahmins. The first two acts directly concern obstruction of ordination, while the latter two reflect broader hostility toward the religious life and those who pursue it. The consequences of such actions include rebirth as a blind person, one profoundly intellectually disabled, one without a tongue, an untouchable (caṇḍāla), a severely depressed person, one universally reviled, a ṣaṇḍaka or paṇḍaka (persons of indeterminate or anomalous sex, categories which constitute traditional disqualifications for ordination), a lifelong servant, a woman, or as various animals including dogs, pigs, donkeys, camels, and poisonous snakes. The sūtra's title and content place it within Vinaya-adjacent Mahāyāna literature concerned with conduct and eligibility for monastic ordination. It is among the numerous texts cited by Śāntideva that appear to have circulated in Sanskrit at Nālandā but were never transmitted to Tibet or otherwise preserved.
References:
- Cecil Bendall, ed., Śikṣāsamuccaya, Bibliotheca Buddhica 1 (St. Petersburg, 1897–1902), 69.5–7; Cambridge MS Add. 1478, fol. 40a3.
- Charles Goodman, The Training Anthology of Śāntideva: A Translation of the Śikṣā-samuccaya (Oxford University Press, 2016).
- Jonathan A. Silk, "Indian Buddhist Attitudes toward Outcastes: Rhetoric around caṇḍālas" Indo-Iranian Journal 63, no. 2 (2020): 153n70, https://doi.org/10.1163/15728536-06302003.
Quoted in the aligned translations
Reference
pravrajyāntarāyasūtra [प्रव्रज्यान्तरायसूत्र]. rab tu byung ba'i bar du gcod pa'i mdo [རབ་ཏུ་བྱུང་བའི་བར་དུ་གཅོད་པའི་མདོ།]. [The Sūtra on Obstacles to Ordination].
Interconnections
