Home›Open Questions›Were the eight rules of respect laid down at the founding of the order of nuns, or composed later?Open QuestionsWere the eight rules of respect laid down at the founding of the order of nuns, or composed later?Citation FormatsGeneral ReferenceGeneral Reference Citation TextDivinity Atlas. "Were the eight rules of respect laid down at the founding of the order of nuns, or composed later?." Accessed August 30, 2026. https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/were-the-eight-rules-of-respect-laid-down-at-the-founding-of-the-order-of-nuns-or-composed-later.Copy General ReferenceAPA StyleAPA Style Citation TextDivinity Atlas. (n.d.). Were the eight rules of respect laid down at the founding of the order of nuns, or composed later?. Retrieved August 30, 2026, from https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/were-the-eight-rules-of-respect-laid-down-at-the-founding-of-the-order-of-nuns-or-composed-laterCopy APA StyleBibTeXBibTeX Citation Text@misc{divinityatlas-were-the-eight-rules-of-respect-laid-dow, author = {Divinity Atlas}, title = {Were the eight rules of respect laid down at the founding of the order of nuns, or composed later?}, year = {2026}, url = {https://divinity.interactivelion.com/open-questions-index/were-the-eight-rules-of-respect-laid-down-at-the-founding-of-the-order-of-nuns-or-composed-later}, note = {Accessed August 30, 2026} }Copy BibTeXOpen QuestionCross-Tradition ConnectionsSourcesComments (0)Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)Open QuestionSeveral of the eight presuppose an order of nuns that already exists and has its own procedure, which they cannot have had at the moment of foundation. The sixth requires ordination from both communities, which is impossible for the first generation and is contradicted within the same collections. Six of the eight appear elsewhere in the discipline as ordinary rules, each with its own account of the incident that occasioned it. The Pali, Chinese and Tibetan recensions differ in wording and in order. Tradition places the rules at the founding of the bhikkhuni order during the Buddha's own ministry, but the Buddha's own dates are themselves unsettled and no source assigns the rules a specific year within it.What would resolve this Comparative work across all surviving recensions of the foundation account, including those preserved only in Chinese and Tibetan translation, with attention to which items are stable across lineages that separated early. Bhikkhu Analayo and Ute Husken have carried this a long way and the field has not converged. Independently, a firmer scholarly resolution of the Buddha's own chronology, or textual evidence dating the rules apart from the ordination narrative that carries them, would settle the date even where the recension question remains open.OpenBuddhist studies; Pali, Chinese and Tibetan vinaya philologyBhikkhu Analayo, The Foundation History of the Nuns' OrderCross-Tradition ConnectionsQuestion OnThe Eight Garudhammas, Religious Legal Instruments Well-attested Source The Foundation History of the Nuns' OrderBhikkhu Analayotier 1SourcesThe Foundation History of the Nuns' Ordertier 1Bhikkhu Analayo, Hamburg Buddhist Studies, projekt verlag, 2016Comments (0)No comments yet. Be the first to share a thought.Sign in to join the discussion.Reader Challenges (0 open reader challenges)No disputes yet. Spotted an error or a better source? Open the first one.Sign in to dispute this or suggest a correction.View At A Past YearThe atlas records no dated fact of its own for this entry, so there is no other year to choose.Show This Year