What Is the Sin of Destroying the Harmonious Saṅgha?

Destroying the Saṅgha includes both breaking apart a Saṅgha community and destroying monks who are not part of a Saṅgha community. A group composed of four or more monastics is called a Saṅgha community, and these four monastics must all be monks who have received full ordination (upasaṃpadā) and possess the monastic precept-body. If strife is stirred up within a Saṅgha community until only three monks remain, it no longer constitutes a Saṅgha community, and thus the Saṅgha is dispersed. Those who break apart a Saṅgha community in this way have committed the offense of the Avīci hell, and at the end of their lives they will reap the retribution of the Avīci hell.

Monastics numbering three or fewer, though they cannot be called a Saṅgha community, are still called the monastic assembly (Saṅgha). If one also stirs up conflicts and disputes among them, sowing discord and division, this is called disrupting the monastic assembly, and the offense is likewise a hellish offense. When one monastic leads a group of disciples, although they cannot form a Saṅgha community, if that monastic plays a considerable role for Buddhism, then sowing discord between the master and the disciples, splitting apart the teacher and the disciples, is also an extremely grave offense. If this monastic holds an especially exceptional position, wielding a decisive influence on the future and development of Buddhism and possessing great power to gather and guide sentient beings, and someone slanders such a monastic and splits apart their disciples, the offense is extremely, extremely grave—greater than the offense of destroying other Saṅgha communities, and certainly it is a karma of the Avīci hell.