Tribes in Ancient India c33.123

c33.123

In the Buddha’s time, there were four establishments or settlements of the Order in or near Kauśāmbī, each of them having a group of huts under trees. Buddhaghosa informs us that the three banker friends, Ghosita, Kukkuṭa and Pāvārika, were the great business magnates of Kauśāmbī in the Buddha’s time. All of them went on elephant-back from Kauśāmbī to Śrāvastī to wait upon the Buddha at Jetavana, and it was at their invitation that the Buddha agreed to visit Kauśāmbī. Each of the bankers built a suitable retreat for the Buddha in the neighbourhood of the city. Regarding Ghositārāma, Hsüan Tsang tells us that it was situated ‘outside the city on the south-east side with an Aśoka tope over 200 feet high’.¹ Within the city, at the south-east angle of it, there were the ruins of an old habitation, the house of Ghosita (Ghosira) the nobleman. In the middle there was a vihāra of the Buddha and a stūpa containing hair and nail relics. There were also ruins of the Tathāgata’s bathing-house.² The pilgrim has also left hints as to the location of the remaining two ārāmas. Kukkuṭārāma was situated to the south-east of Ghositārāma. At the time of his visit, it was ‘a two-storeyed building with an old brick upper chamber’.³ Pāvārika’s mango-grove was situated to the east of Ghositārāma, where the old foundations of a building were visible.⁴