But the most interesting, and probably decisive, consideration is whether an arahant can emit semen. The idea is expressed in different ways, probably partly due to the obscure nature of the summary verse in which the 5 theses are expressed, and partly due to a doomed attempt at discretion. But the basic idea is that an emission need not be a matter of mental defilement. The ‘conveyance’ is evidently the conveyance of the semen to the arahant by non-human beings, especially those associated with Māra.
While this idea seems bizarre to us, it has substantial correlations in early thought. The notorious Malleus Maleficarum alleges that unclean devils such as incubi and succubi ‘… busy themselves by interfering with the process of normal copulation and conception by obtaining human semen, and themselves transferring it…’. The discussion there really deserves a detailed comparison with the Kathāvatthu, but alas, we must defer that pleasure to another time. We will consider the other Vinayas say on this matter first, then see how the Mahāsaṅghika compares.
As so often in Buddhist controversies, the problem arises because of a grey area in the canonical texts, in this case the first bhikkhu saṅghādisesa. Saṅghādisesa is the second most serious class of offence in the Vinaya. While the most serious class of offences, the pārājikas, entail immediate and permanent expulsion from the Sangha, saṅghādisesa requires a period of rehabilitation involving loss of status, confession of the offence to all bhikkhus, and similar mild but embarassing penances.
The basic rule for saṅghādisesa 1 is identical in all existing pāṭimokkhas: ‘Intentional emission of semen, except in a dream, is a saṅghādisesa’. In the Pali, the background is this. First the rule was laid down simply for ‘intentional emission of semen’. Then a number of bhikkhus had gone to sleep after eating delicious food, without mindfulness, and had wet dreams. They were afraid they had committed an offence. The Buddha said: ‘There is intention, but it is negligible.’ Thus there is no offence for a wet dream, but this is a practical concession for Vinaya purposes, not an admission that there is no ethical content to wet dreams. The point is made clear in Kathāvatthu 22.6, where the Mahāvihāravāsin specifically refutes the proposition (attributed by the commentary to the Uttarapāthakas) that dream consciousness is always ethically neutral.
The Pali rather curiously repeats the story of the mindless, greedy monks emitting semen as a pretext for making an allowance for using a sitting cloth in order to prevent the dwelling from being soiled. Why such a cloth should be called a ‘sitting cloth’ (nisīdana) is unclear, and the use of such a small cloth rapidly proves inadequate, so the Buddha allows a sleeping-cloth ‘as large as you like’. But this passage, which appears to spring from the same origin as the saṅghādisesa story, adds some emphatic messages.
‘Those, Ānanda, who fall asleep with mindfulness established and clearly comprehending do not emit impurity. Even those ordinary people who are free from lust for sensual pleasures, they do not emit impurity. It is impossible, Ānanda, it cannot happen, that an arahant should emit impurity.’
The text goes on to list five dangers of falling asleep unmindfully: One sleeps badly, wakes badly, has nightmares, devas don’t protect one, and one emits semen. Those who sleep mindfully may expect the corresponding five benefits.
This list of five dangers/benefits occurs in similar contexts in the Sarvāstivāda, Dharmaguptaka, and Mahīśāsaka Vinayas. The Sarvāstivāda moreover adds the following: ‘Even if a bhikkhu who is not free of greed, hatred, and delusion sleeps with unconfused mindfulness and unified mind he will not emit semen; still more a person free from lust.’ The Mahīśāsaka adds a similar statement: ‘If one who is not free from greed, hatred, and delusion goes to sleep with mind distracted and confused, they will emit semen; even if unable to be free, going to sleep with established mindfulness, one will not commit that fault.’ I have not found similar statements in other Vinayas. These are similar to the statements found in the Pali Vinaya, but I have found nowhere else that declares so emphatically that it is impossible for an arahant to emit semen in a dream.
The Mūlasarvāstivāda Vinaya, while preserving an identical saṅghādisesa rule, gives only a brief, formulaic origin story, and no statement that one emits after falling asleep mindlessly, although it does speak of having sensual desire while in the dream. This suggests that nocturnal emissions are a product of defilements, but is much less explicit than the other Vinayas on this point. The whole rule is dealt with relatively briefly, but this is typical of this section of this Vinaya, so the brevity is more likely to be a mere literary characteristic than a sectarian difference.
Thus all the Vinayas preserve the same rule against emitting semen. With the exception of the Mūlasarvāstivāda, the Sthavira schools all contain strong admonitions emphasizing that wet dreams occur because one goes to sleep unmindfully. The Mahāvihāravāsin, Sarvāstivādin, and Mahīśāsaka in addition say even an unenlightened person can prevent wet dreams by mindful sleeping, still more an enlightened one. The Mahāvihāravāsin alone explicitly declares that it is impossible for an arahant to emit semen.
In the Mahāsaṅghika Vinaya the origin story is quite different to the Mahāvihāravāsin. After the initial laying down of the rule, there were two trainees (i.e. ariyas but not arahants) and two ordinary people who had wet dreams. They doubted and told Sāriputta, who told the Buddha. The Buddha said:
‘Dreams are unreal, not true. If dreams were real, one who practiced the holy life in my Dhamma would not find liberation. But because all dreams are untrue, therefore, Sāriputta, those who practice the holy life in my Dhamma reach the end of suffering.’
Then it lists (and defines) five kinds of dream: true dreams (such as the 5 dreams of the Bodhisattva before his awakening); false dreams (when one sees in a dream what is not true when awake); unrealized dreams (having woken, one does not remember); a dream inside a dream; dreams born of thinking (one plans and imagines during the day, then dreams about it at night).
Then the text gives us 5 causes of erections: sensual desire; excrement; urine; wind disorder; contact with non-humans. A similar list is found in the Pali cases for the first pārājika, in the context of affirming that an arahant can have an erection:
‘There are, monks, these five causes of erections: lust, excrement, urine, wind, or insect bite. These are the five causes for an erection. It is impossible, monks, it cannot happen that that bhikkhu could have an erection out of lust. Monks, that bhikkhu is an arahant.’
The last point is crucial: in the Pali it clearly refers to ‘bites of caterpillars and little creatures’, whereas the Mahāsaṅghika speaks of ‘non-humans’, a term widely used of spirit beings, and thus inclusive of the idea of ‘conveyance by Māra’.
So the Mahāsaṅghika does not contain any statement condemning wet dreams, or attributing them to mindlessness. While the Mūlasarvāstivāda is also silent on the topic, in that case it is a mere omission, whereas the Mahāsaṅghika appears to be deliberately justifying wet dreams with the curious doctrine about the unreality of dreams (which is contradicted immediately below!) Similarly, they appear to have rephrased the five causes of erections to suggest the possibility of Māra’s involvement.
On this basis, we are justified in seeing a sectarian divergence in this Vinaya issue. All the Vinayas are concerned about wet dreams. The Sthavira schools, with the dubious exception of the Mūlasarvāstivāda, condemn them with varying degrees of stridency, while the Mahāsaṅghika are concerned to excuse them. There seems little doubt that this difference is connected with the root cause of the separation between the schools on the basis of the ‘five points’. Since this Vinaya was found in Pāṭaliputra, it should be seen as relevant to the central or mainstream Mahāsaṅghika, not just to their later sub-schools.
As with so many doctrinal points that are theoretically ‘Theravādin’, there is no unity on this question in contemporary Theravāda. The question is usually discussed out of the public arena, but has made its way into at least one contemporary publication. Some modern Theravādins hold that nocturnal emissions can be a purely natural occurrence, saying: ‘When the pot’s full, it overflows’. The question has sometimes arisen due to circumstances identical with those depicted in the story of Mahādeva: an attendant washes the robes of a revered monk and discovers unexpected evidence of ‘outflows’. While not wishing to pass judgement on whether an arahant can have an emission, we can say that some monks who have said this in modern times are genuinely well-practiced meditation masters. Whether correct or incorrect, they are nothing like the corrupt Mahādeva who lurches forth out of the feverish imagination of the Mahāvibhāṣā.