Mahapadanasutta 1.2

1.2

And the Exalted One, with clear and Heavenly Ear surpassing the hearing of men, overheard this conversation among the bhikkhus 4. And arising from
1 Kareri, according to Childers, is Capparis trifoliata. The Cy. states that this tree which stood by the entrance to the cottage was a Varuwa-tree, suggestive, if true, of the superseded tree-cult into which Varuwa-worship had declined. See Rhys Davids's 'Buddhist India,' p. 235; Jat. IV, 8. There were four principal buildings in the Jeta Wood: the cottage or chamber in question, the Kosamba-tree cottage, a perfumed chamber, and the fir-tree house (sala/a = sarala-ghara). According to the commentator each cost 100,000 [? kahapawas] to build, but the ancient bas-relief on the Bharahat Tope shows clearly cottages, and apparently cottages of only one room each. In § 12 below this cottage is called a vihara; and the latter word, in the ancient texts, always means a single room or lodging-place. Anatha-pindika had built the first three, King Pasenadi the last.
2 Ma/o. Buddhaghosa describes this as a nisidana-sa la, or sitting- room, built near the cottage. At the time when this Suttanta was composed it meant a thatched roof supported by wooden pillars. There were no walls to it.
3 According to the Cy. only religious teachers, religious disciples, Pacceka-Buddhas, and the Saviour Buddhas could recall their own or other previous lives, and, of the first, only those who taught Karma. Except the memories of the great Buddhas, which have no limit what- ever, a limit is given in the case of each of these classes, past which they could not recall. This systematizing of a popular belief seems to indicate that, when Buddhaghosa lived, no claim to such transcendent memory was actually made among his contemporaries.
4 Buddhaghosa distinguishes between the ' omniscient knowledge ' by which the Buddha realizes the drift of the talk in the Brahmajala Suttanta (' Dialogues,' I, 2), and the divine hearing, as by a finer sense, operating here.
his seat he came to the pavilion in the Kareri grounds, and took his seat on the mat spread out for him. And when he had sat down he said to the brethren: — 'What is the talk on which you are engaged sitting here, and what is the subject of conversation between you? ' [And they told him all.]