ABSTRACT
The Vinaya: Legal System or Performance-Enhancing Drug? Vinaya because the nature of the Vinaya is poised halfway between the medical and the legal model. In the first half of this paper I shall examine this proposition in four of its aspects. In the second half, I shall offer an account of the institutional rivalry in which the Piili approach to the Vinaya was honed. I derive my account from an analysis of three familiar texts which discuss the implications of the Buddha's death.
