When chanted

Spoken to a candidate at an ordination, before he is questioned in the assembly.

A note on this chant. The book prints this chant in Pali only, with no Thai translation. The English here is a working translation prepared for this edition — it is not the book's own, and has not yet been checked by a teacher.

Historical background

The rehearsal is conducted apart from the formal questioning but in the same words. What it exists for is not secrecy but competence: a candidate should know what he will be asked.

At forty-one units it is longer than the questioning it prepares for, because it includes the answers.

Meaning and purpose

It opens with the warning the real questioning opens with, and the wording is slightly different in a way worth noticing: when they question you in the midst of the Sangha, if it is present say it is present. The rehearsal names the setting the candidate is about to stand in.

The questions then run through what has to be established, and the candidate answers each one. Nothing is left to be improvised.

The last exchange is the one that stays with a reader. What is your preceptor's name? — venerable sir, my preceptor is the venerable Sobhaṇa. A man about to be ordained is rehearsed in saying, correctly and aloud, whose responsibility he is about to become.

The chant

As the book prints it: page 293 and page 294 →

page 293 page 293 page 294 page 294