Vinaya Pitaka (3): Khandhaka
by I. B. Horner | 2014 | 386,194 words | ISBN-13: 9781921842160
The English translation of the Khandhaka: the second book of the Pali Vinaya Pitaka, one of the three major ‘baskets’ of Therevada canonical literature. It is a collection of various narratives. The English translation of the Vinaya-pitaka (third part, khandhaka) contains many Pali original words, but transliterated using a system similar to the I...
On a pair of Siveyyaka cloths
Now at that time there accrued to King Pajjota a pair of Siveyyaka cloths[1] which were the chief and best and foremost and most excellent and loveliest of many cloths, of many pairs BD.4.394 of cloths, of many hundred pairs of cloths, of many thousand pairs of cloths, of many hundred thousand pairs of cloths. Then King Pajjota sent this pair of Siveyyaka cloths to Jīvaka Komārabhacca. Then it occurred to Jīvaka Komārabhacca:
“This pair of Siveyyaka cloths, sent me by King Pajjota, is the most excellent and loveliest of many cloths …; no one else is worthy of it but the Lord, the perfected one, the wholly awakened one, or King Seniya Bimbisāra of Magadha.”
Footnotes and references:
[1]:
Siveyyaka dussayuga. Vin-a.1117 gives two explanations of Siveyyaka: either it means the cloths used in the Uttarakuru country for covering the dead bodies brought to the cemeteries, sīvatthika, in which case a certain kind of bird taking a piece of flesh to the Himalayas, eats it and throws aside the cloth; then a forest-wanderer seeing the cloth brings it to the king; this cloth was obtained by Pajjota in this way. Or, Siveyyaka means that the good women of the Sivi kingdom think, ‘thread is spun from these filicules’ and they speak of a cloth woven of this thread by this name. “Because of this siveyyaka means cemetery-cloth in the Uttarakuru country, and cloth produced in the Sivi kingdom”. Vinaya Texts ii.190 says “No doubt the latter explication is the right one”. Cf. Pāvā, Pāveyyaka, above, BD.4.31, n.2 and Bārāṇasī, Bārāṇaseyyaka, above, BD.4.389, n.1.
Dussayuga means the two cloths, the loin-cloth or dhoti, and the upper cloth, which are usually worn by laymen.