Dear Sayadaw Paññadīpa ( @Panna )
Thank you for joining the forum. It will be a great help to many people having a bhikkhu with your expertise to explain these difficult points.
I have a question now ( i can move to its own thread later).
What is the lowest amount- monetary wise- that if a bhikkhu stole an item would be parajika?
With respect
Robert
{The price of 5.105-milligram gold, which has to be paid on the day when a monk commits a crime, equals one-kyat money at the time of the Buddha. One quarter of that one-kyat money is the least amount of money that causes a Pārājika offense.
Therefore, if the price of 5.105-milligram gold is divided by four, there’ll appear result that shows that least amount of money. Two fifths to four fifths of that least amount of money cause the Thullaccaya offense. One fifth causes the Dukkaṭa offense.}
Bhante @Panna
What does Bhante think of this from the BMC1
The value of the object.
As stated above, any case of stealing counts as an offense, but the gravity of the offense is determined by the value of the object. This is the point of the phrase in the rule reading, “just as when there is the taking of what is
not given, kings… would banish him, saying… ‘You are a thief.’” In other words, for a theft to entail a pārājika it must be a criminal case, which in the time of the Buddha meant that the goods involved were worth at least five māsakas, a unit of money used at the time. Goods valued collectively at more than one māsaka but less than five are grounds for a thullaccaya; goods valued collectively at one māsaka or less, grounds for a dukkaṭa. As the Commentary notes, the value of the articles is determined by the price they would have fetched at the time and place of the theft. As stated above, in the case of smuggling the Vibhaṅga measures the value of the object, for the purpose of this rule, as the duty owed on it, not the value of the object itself.
This leaves us with the question of how a māsaka would translate into current monetary rates. No one can answer this question with any certainty, for the oldest attempt to peg the māsaka to the gold standard dates from the V/Sub-commentary, which sets one māsaka as equal to 4 rice grains’ weight of gold. At this rate, the theft of an item worth 20 rice grains’ (1/24 troy ounce) weight of gold or more would be a pārājika offense.
One objection to this method of calculation is that some of the items mentioned in the Vinita-vatthu as grounds for a pārājika when stolen — e.g., a pillow, a bundle of laundry, a raft, a handful of rice during a famine — would seem to be worth much less than 1/24 troy ounce of gold. However, we must remember that many items regarded as commonplace now may have been viewed as expensive luxuries at the time.
page 35, Buddhist Monastic Code 1
In addition, there is one very good reason for adopting the standard set by the V/Sub-commentary: It sets a high value for the least article whose theft would result in a pārājika. Thus when a bhikkhu steals an item worth 1/24 troy ounce of gold or more, there can be no doubt that he has committed the full offense. When the item is of lesser value, there will be inescapable doubt — and when there is any doubt concerning a pārājika, the tradition of the Vinaya consistently gives the bhikkhu the benefit of the doubt: He is not expelled. A basic principle operating throughout the texts is that it is better to risk letting an offender go unpunished than to risk punishing an innocent bhikkhu.