The Ceremony of Confession of Buddhism: A Study Based on the Records in the book of A Record of the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Seas 《南海寄歸內法傳》

Abstract

A Record of the Inner Law Sent Home from the South Seas was written by Yijing an
eminent monk who lived in Chinese Tang dynasty including forty chapters about Buddhist
Sangha life in the seventh century in the region of India and the Malay Archipelago. Such as
Vassa, the ceremony of chanting, the ordination and so on. The ceremony of confession is
one of the chapters of this book. In this chapter, Yijing introduced the ceremony of two kinds
of confessions, including the time, regulations, procedure of confession. This study aims at
providing an overview of the ceremony of confession the Buddhist Vinaya life based on the
records of the ceremony of confession in A Record of the Inner Law Sent Home from the South
Seas《南海寄歸內法傳》 of Yijing and the related records in Buddhist Vinayapiṭaka. The
results have shown that there are different records on the time of Pavarana in different school’s
Vinaya, but all of them are depending on the time of the Summer-Retreat. Yijing’s records on the
ceremony of Uposatha have corresponded with the records in Pāli Vinaya. The advantages of
the confession to Buddhism has been discussed as well.