Early Monastic Buddhism v1.c12.s3.10

v1.c12.s3.10

Pasenadi of Kosala was also a great benefactor of the *sangha*, but he does not seem to have given his unqualified support like Bimbisāra. Though he supported many Brāhmaṇa teachers, yet his attention to the welfare of Buddha and his *sangha* was not less than that shown to those teachers. His anxiety to make a suitable gift to Ānanda,⁵ his joy at the conversion of the robber Aṅgulimāla who was given immunity for his past misdeeds and was promised a supply of the requisites for a monk;⁶ his earnest desire to marry a Sākya princess and his ultimate marriage with Vāsabhakhattiyā to regain the confidence of the monks lost through inattentions to them;⁷ his expression of pride at the fact that he was of the same age with Buddha and belonged to the same caste and province with him¹ amply show his love for the religion and his desire to be counted as one of its well-wishers and supporters. In the Nikāyas it is stated that he became a lay-devotee and an ardent admirer of Buddha.² The bas-relief depicting him as proceeding to meet Buddha shows that he was respected by the Buddhists of the 2nd or 3rd century B.C. as a patron of the religion.