Abstinence from alcohol is a common legal system of Mahayana Buddhism and Hinayana Buddhism, and all four monks and nuns must abide by it. Agama, the fundamental classic of primitive Buddhism, contains the five precepts preached by the Buddha, namely, no drinking, no killing, no stealing, no Yin Xie and no lying. These are the five basic codes of conduct that Buddhists should abide by, so as to eliminate bad karma and achieve Buddha's fruit. According to the Five Commandments of Wandering Women and the Ten Recitation Law, the Buddha personally expounded and strictly stipulated the commandment of "No Drinking", which was held in Bodhi, India's donor country at that time.
There are some simple or detailed generalizations about the faults of drinking in the Sanzang Classics. According to the different objects, it can be roughly divided into two categories: one is for family members in the world, from the gains and losses of general real life, career and wealth, pros and cons, to fit their level. The other is aimed at the four disciples of believers, especially monks, who not only stop at the gains and losses of good and evil in the world, but also rise to the great harm of drinking to the ultimate liberation of the world. This paper discusses the former, and Agama's A Que Yi Jing is the representative. In the scripture, the Buddha told the wealthy businessman that there are six kinds of evil deeds in the world that can damage his wealth. The first is indulging in wine, and there are six losses: one loss of wealth, two loss of illness, three disputes, four evils of celebrities, five anger and violence, and six loss of wisdom. Only by avoiding it will wealth increase and life be happy. There are many explanations for the second category. For example, ten points and thirty-five points in>'s Theory of Great Governance and thirty-six points in the National Chronicle all list the faults caused by drinking (countless articles are not recorded, but examples are attached). In addition to analyzing and enumerating the faults of the former in more detail, Chen Qi's crimes were counted from the aspects of breeding desire, doing evil, destroying faith and obstructing practice, so as to serve as a warning to Buddhist believers. In a word, wine is an intoxicating drug, from which all serious mistakes are born. For example, Duolun's commandments are extremely heavy, which can make people commit four felonies, and can make people break all commandments and create all evils because of drunkenness. This is really the basis of delirium. Therefore, wine is often compared to poison in the classics, and there is even a teaching that drinking poison is not as good as drinking.
Wine is not only the evil source of destroying the holy and moral, but also can make all beings upside down, lose their wisdom and lead to sin. Therefore, the precepts not only prohibit people from drinking, but also prohibit people from drinking, and are not allowed to manipulate or pollute any wine industry or wine margin. For example, it is said in the "Great Love Road Bhikuni Sutra" that don't drink, don't taste wine, don't smell wine, don't sell wine, don't drink people with wine, don't lie about being sick and bully people to drink medicinal liquor, don't go to restaurants, and don't talk to people who drink wine. The first volume of Sapodupini Piposha clearly declares that laymen are not allowed to sell alcohol, which is regarded as immoral evil karma and is bound to lose fruit.
According to the early classical records, these commandments had a practical influence on India during the Buddha's time. For example, it is recorded in the Buddhist sutra of abstinence and disaster reduction that in Swat, the center of early Buddhism, there was a county that practiced five precepts and ten virtues. There is no brewer in the county, and one of the most popular children was even kicked out of the house by his parents for breaking the rules and drinking. However, Buddhists do not absolutely prohibit drinking. According to the law, it is not illegal to treat wine as medicine, or to drink it, or to put it in your mouth, or to apply wine to sores. For monks who used to be addicted to alcohol, but later became ill and emaciated because of abstinence, the Buddha did not ban them blindly, but opened the door slightly for them. "Fundamentally, everything is in order" records that the Buddha allowed monks to give up drinking and cause diseases. Scraps of roots, leaves, flowers and fruits of spilled plants are wrapped in white cloth, put in "light but not drunk" and soaked in "hastily potted and then stirred with clear water"; Or "Mash flour and bark, all kinds of spices, wrap them in cloth, beat them horizontally with a stick, and hang them in a newly cooked wine jar to stop the thirst after a night or two." It is also recorded in the fifth volume of Mother of Pinema that patients with wine are allowed to smell the wine on the urn, eat wine cakes made of wine and flour, and even collapse in the wine. However, these conveniences became controversial after the death of Buddha.
About one hundred and ten years after the death of the Buddha (276 BC), the monks who left the city were allowed to practice ten trivial things in the precepts as exceptions, which were regarded as deviant by the old system of conservative traditional ministers, so they called a meeting of the monks and sentenced them to "ten unclean things", which directly led to the famous second congress and great congress, resulting in the division of the whole Buddhist monk group. The seventh of these ten things is that the monks who left Vishe "drank water" to cure diseases, thinking that they did not break the precepts and were clean and did not commit crimes, and the ruling of senior minister was illegal. The four-point system inherited by Buddhism in the Han Dynasty allows monks to use wine as medicine, not just "drinking with water", but also drinking directly, which is more relaxed than primitive Buddhism. However, in order to prevent abuse, Nanshan Jiebenshu particularly emphasized that you can drink medicinal liquor only if you are sick, and you can only drink it if you are cured with other drugs.
To sum up, although some specific and subtle provisions of the "Don't drink" commandment are different, either wide or loose, the commandment itself has never wavered as a code of conduct, and the purpose of opposing drinking and prohibiting believers from drinking has always been the same. This distinct and firm position is probably the result of Buddhism's practice view based on ignorance and desire, purity and separation, and the ultimate value concern of building a clear, healthy, harmonious and happy panorama of ideal human beings.