Tribes in Ancient India c50.380

c50.380

After the *nirvāṇa* of the Buddha, five kings, named Śakrāditya, Buddhagupta, Tathāgatagupta, Bālāditya and Vajra, built five *saṅghārāmas* or monasteries at Nālandā.⁷ In the Buddha’s time, Nālandā was one of the halting stations on the high road connecting Rājagṛha with Pāṭaligāma, Koṭigāma, Vaiśālī, etc. Buddhaghosa knew it as a town at a distance of one yojana (about 7 miles) from Rājagṛha.¹ Cunningham identifies the ancient site with the modern village of Baragaon which lies at the northern end of the precincts of the Nālandā Mahāvihāra. The Pāli texts, however, refer not so much to Nālandā itself as to Pāvārika’s mango-grove in its vicinity, as the real place of importance both to the Buddhists and the Jainas.² According to the tradition recorded by Hsüan Tsang, ‘in a Mango Wood to the south of this monastery was a tank the dragon of which was called Nālandā, and the name was given to the monastery. But the facts of the case were that Ju-lai (Buddha) as a P’usa (Bodhisattva) had once been a king with his capital here, that as king he had been honoured by the epithet Nālandā or ‘Insatiable in giving’ on account of his kindness and liberality, and that this epithet was given as its name to this monastery’. The grounds of the establishment were originally a mango park bought by 500 merchants for ten koṭis of gold coins and presented by them to the Buddha.³