The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya (MSV), which was compiled and eventually written down in Sanskrit circa the second through the sixth centuries ᴄᴇ, is the longest of all known vinayas. (See also entry on Mūlasarvāstivāda). Its length is due mainly to its “settings” or “narrative introductions” (Tib. gleng gzhi; Skt. nidāna). These “settings” introduce and illustrate the reason for new monastic rules. Many of the protagonists in these settings are anonymous, but others appear repeatedly, like the monk Upananda and the nun Sthūlananda, as personifications of “good” or “bad” monks and nuns. Most distinctively for the MSV, some of these protagonists even feature in lengthy frame stories that culminate in the Buddha explaining the protagonist’s karmic history in what is called an avadāna (Tib. rtogs brjod).

The MSV consists of a “root āgama” (the Prātimokṣā Sūtras for monks and nuns) and four “explanatory āgamas”: (1) The Chapters on Monastic Discipline (Tib. ’dul ba gzhi; Skt. Vinayavastu); (2) The Analysis of the Monks’ and Nuns’ Disciplines (Tib. ’dul ba rnam ’byed; Skt. Vinayavibhaṅga); (3) The Chapter on Minor Matters of Monastic Discipline (Tib. ’dul ba pran tshegs kya gzhi; Skt. Vinayakṣudrakavastu); and (4) The Supplementary Books (Tib. ’dul ba gzhung dam pa and ’dul ba gzhung bla ma; Skt. Uttaragrantha). Large portions of the Sanskrit MSV are still extant. A partial eighth-century Chinese translation by Yijing and a complete ninth-century Tibetan translation are also extant. See Shayne Clarke, “Vinayas,” in Brill’s Encyclopedia of Buddhism, vol. 1, Literature and Languages, ed. Jonathan Silk et al. (Leiden: Brill, 2015), 73–80.