Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t1.1

c8.s1.t1.1

From year to year the change from a period of wandering to a period of rest and retirement repeated itself for Buddha and his disciples. In the month of June when, after the dry scorching heat of the Indian summer, clouds come up in towering masses, and the rolling thunders herald the approach of the rain-bearing monsoon, the Indian to-day, as in ages past, prepares himself and his house for the time during which all usual operations are interrupted by the rain: for whole weeks long in many places the pouring torrents confine the inhabitants to their huts, or at any rate to their villages, while communication with neighbours is cut off by rapid, swollen streams, and by inundations. "The birds," says an ancient Buddhist work, "build their nests on the tops of trees: and there they nestle and hide during the damp season." And thus also it was in those days an established practice with the members of monastic orders, undoubtedly not first in Buddha's time, but since ever there was a system of religious itinerancy in India, to suspend itinerant operations during the three rainy months and to spend this time in quiet retirement in the neighbourhood of towns and villages, where sure support was to be found through the charity of believers. To this custom they adhered all the more strongly because they could not, during the rainy season, which, after the scorching heat of summer, calls everywhere into being an infinite variety of vegetable and animal life, travel about, without infringing at every step the commandment which forbids the destruction of even the lowest form of life.