Śikṣamāṇā Training

A śikṣamāṇā must study all the precepts, except those concerning taking food with her own hands and offering it to others.

T22, 756b

A śikṣamāṇā must study all the rules of a bhikṣuṇī, except taking food and offering it to a bhikṣuṇī.

T22, 924c

In the monastic career of a woman there is an intermediate step between novitiate and full ordination, namely the śikṣamāṇā stage. All Vinayas consistently require this passage, although there are differences concerning the rules that she has to study.

At the end of each rule of the Bhikṣu and Bhikṣuṇī Vibhaṇga section of the Dharmaguptaka Vinaya, the text says that “a śikṣamāṇā, a śrāmaṇera, a śrāmaṇerī incurs a duṣkṛta (wrongdoing)”. If for novice monastics – śrāmaṇeras and śrāmaṇerīs – the study of the various Prātimokṣa rules is not intrinsically part of the training and it is done occasionally when the chance presents itself, for a śikṣamāṇā this is a compulsory part of her study, as implied by the passages quoted above.

The rules of a śikṣamāṇā can be broadly divided into three categories, namely the four root precepts, the six special rules (see T22, 756 c10) and the remaining 292 rules, that group all the others bases of training of the Prātimokṣa that a śikṣamāṇā is supposed to study beside the aforementioned ten.

The manual that you can download by clicking the button below covers the first two categories, namely the four root precepts and the six special rules.