Geography of Early Buddhism c6.9

c6.9

It is interesting to note that merchants made sea-voyages for trade from Jambudīpa.¹ Once a dreadful famine visited it (Dh.C., III, pp. 368, 370 and 374). There were heretics and bhikkhus here and the unruliness of the heretics was so very great that the bhikkhus stopped holding uposatha ceremony in Jambudipa for seven years (Mv., p. 51). The importance of Jambudipa is very great as it was often visited by Gautama Buddha besides Mahinda who paid a visit to it with an assembly of bhikkhus (Dv., p. 65). The whole of Jambudipa was stirred up by Sānu, the only son of a female lay disciple, who mastered the Tripitaka and lived one hundred and twenty years (Dh.C., IV, p. 25). The Kathāvatthu informs us that the people of Jambudipa led a virtuous life (p. 99). There is a reference to the great Bo-tree at Jambudipa (Cv., Vol. I, p. 36).