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In Buddhism, the Eight Precepts (, ) is a list of moral precepts that are observed by Nuns, or Upāsakas and Upasikās (Upasaka) on Uposatha (Uposatha) and special occasions. They are considered to support meditation practice, and are often observed when staying in monasteries and temples.
They include ethical precepts such as refraining from killing any living being, but also more specific ones, such as abstaining from entertainments. The tradition of keeping the Eight Precepts on weekly observance days is still widely practiced in all Theravadin Buddhist countries and communities worldwide. Based on pre-Buddhist sramana practices, the eight precepts are often upheld on the Buddhist uposatha (, ), and in such context called the uposatha vows or one-day precepts. In some periods and places the precepts were widely observed, such as in 7th–10th-century China by government officials. In modern times, there have been revival movements and important political figures that have observed them continuously.
To summarise, following anthropologist Barend Jan Terwiel's translation from the Pali language used in Thai ceremonies:
In Thailand, when the eight precepts are taken, it is believed that if one of them is broken, they are all broken. In the Pāli tradition, the precepts are described in the Dhammika Sutta, part of the Sutta Nipata. In many medieval Chinese texts, the order of the last three items is different, with numbers 6 and 8 switched.
Observance does not need to be temporary, however: some lay devotees choose to undertake the eight precepts continuously to improve themselves in morality. The eight precepts are also undertaken by people preparing for upasampada as a monk, sometimes called anagarika in Pāli or pha khao in Thai. Furthermore, many nuns in Buddhist countries, such as the mae chi in Thailand or the dasa sil mata in Sri Lanka, observe the eight or ten precepts all the time as part of their way of life.
Among the eight precepts, the first precept is about not killing animals. As recorded in the Edicts of Aśoka, there was a custom that he had established not to kill animals on the uposatha days, which indicates that by this time observance of Buddhist uposatha had become a state institution in India. The custom was most strictly observed on the full moon and the day following. The third precept is about maintaining chastity. Buddhist tradition therefore requires lay people to be chaste on observance days, which is similar to the historical Indian tradition of being chaste on parvan days. As for the sixth rule, this means not having food after midday, with an allowance for fluids, in imitation of a nearly identical rule for monks. Physician Ming-Jun Hung and his co-authors have analyzed early and medieval Chinese Buddhist Texts and argue that the main purposes of the half-day fast is to lessen desire, improve fitness and strength, and decrease sleepiness. Historically, Chinese Buddhists have interpreted the eight precepts as including vegetarianism.
The seventh precept is sometimes also interpreted to mean not wearing colorful clothes, which has led to a tradition for people to wear plain white when observing the eight precepts. This does not necessarily mean, however, that a Buddhist devotee dressed in white is observing the eight precepts all the time. As for the eighth precept, not sitting or sleeping on luxurious seats or beds, this usually comes down to sleeping on a mat on the floor. Though not specified in the precepts themselves, in Thailand and China, people observing the precepts usually stay in the temple overnight. This is to prevent temptations at home to break the eight precepts, and helps foster the community effort in upholding the precepts.
Religion scholar J. H. Bateson and Pāli scholar Shundō Tachibana have argued that the eight precepts may be partly based on pre-Buddhist brahmanical practices ( vrata) during the fast on the full and new moon, but more recent scholarship has suggested that early Buddhist and Jain uposatha practices did not originate in Brahmanism. The brahmin poṣadha was held in preparation for a sacrifice, whereas the Buddhist and Jain practices were not. Also, according to some scholars, Brahmanism did not migrate to the early Buddhist region till some time after the advent of Buddhism. Instead, Asian religion scholar Benjamin Schonthal and religion scholar Christian Haskett suggest that the Buddhist and Jain practice originate from a common, informal sāmaṇa culture, sāmaṇa (Pāli; ) referring to the non-Veda religious movement current at the time of early Buddhism and Jainism. They base their argument on textual evidence that Jain and other samana also upheld uposatha practices. Finally, an earlier, less well-known theory by Indologist Jean Przyluski proposes a Babylonian origin. Przyluski argued that the lunar calendar followed in Buddhist uposatha practice was more likely to be based on Neo-Babylonian influence than Vedic, based on the distribution of observance days.
Early Buddhist texts relate that the Buddhist uposatha originated as a response to other contemporary mendicant sects. Specifically, in the Pāli texts of Vinaya, King Bimbisara requests the Buddha to establish an uposatha practice, to keep up with competing sects. The Buddha then has the monks assemble every fortnight, and later he also has the monks teach lay people and recite the Patimokkha on the same days. Many of these practices were consciously borrowed from other sāmaṇa sects, as the uposatha ceremony became part of a wide program by the Buddha to make the spiritual practice of his followers "unique, disciplined and sincere".
In 6th-century Korea, the eight precepts came to be associated with worship of Maitreya, due to the work of Hyeryang, a Korean monk that wrote a tract about these matters. In 7th–10th-century China, government officials would often observe the eight precepts for one or more months a year, during which they often invited monks to teach them at home. On the same months that were designated for such religious observance, called the chai, the government also refrained from executing death penalties.
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target="_blank" rel="nofollow"> archived from the original on 4 December 2018
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