[1][2] The word Vinaya is derived from a Sanskrit verb that can mean to lead, take away, train, tame, or guide, or alternately to educate or teach.
[3] It is often translated as 'discipline', with Dhamma-vinaya, 'doctrine and discipline', used by the Buddha to refer to his complete teachings, suggesting its integral role in Buddhist practice.
After thirteen years[1] and as the sangha expanded, situations arose which the Buddha and the lay community felt were inappropriate for mendicants.
[3] While the early Buddhist community seems to have lived primarily as wandering monks who begged for alms, many Vinaya rules in every tradition assume settled monasticism to be the norm, along with regular collective meals organized by lay donors or funded by monastic wealth.
[3] The earliest established dates of the Theravada Vinaya stem from the composition of Buddhaghosa's commentaries in the 5th century, and became known to Western scholarship through 17th- and 18th-century manuscripts.
[3] The Mulasarvastivada Vinaya was brought to Tibet by Khenpo Shantarakshita[7] by c. 763, when the first Tibetan Buddhist monks were ordained, and was translated into Chinese by the 8th century.
[3] Scholarly consensus places the composition of the Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya in the early centuries of the first millennium, though all the manuscripts and translations are relatively late.
Each section of these texts deals with a specific aspect of monastic life, containing, for instance, procedures and regulations related to ordination, obtaining and storing medical supplies, and the procurement and distribution of robes.
The Pali Vinaya includes a text known as the Parivāra that contains a question-and-answer format that recapitulates various rules in different groupings, as well as a variety of analyses.
Buddhism in Myanmar, Cambodia, Laos, Sri Lanka, and Thailand followed the Theravadin Vinaya, which has 227 rules[14] for bhikkhus and 311[15] for bhikkhunis.
Such women appears as maechi in Thai Buddhism, dasa sil mata in Sri Lanka, thilashin in Burma and siladharas at Amaravati Buddhist Monastery in England.