Buddha: His Life, his Doctrine, his Order c8.s1.t1.5

c8.s1.t1.5

The territory through which these wandering excursions generally extended was the circuit of the "Eastern Land," i.e., chiefly the old kingdoms of Kàsi-Kosala and Magadha, with the neighbouring free states, the territories known to-day as Oudh and Bihar. Contrasted with this were the kingdoms of "Western Hindostan," the ancient seat of Vedic culture and of the exclusive power of a Brahman order strongly opposed to the religious influences of the East, affected, it is true, if tradition rightly inform us, by the itinerant ministrations of Buddha, but still only seldom and superficially. The most important headquarters during these wanderings, at the same time the approximately extreme points, to the north-west and south-east, of the area, in which Buddha's pilgrim-life was passed, are the capital cities of the kings of Kosala and and Magadha, Sâvatthi (now Sahet Mahet on the Rapti) and Râjagaha (now Rajgir, south of Bihar).* In the immediate neighbourhood of these towns the community possessed numerous pleasant gardens, in which structures of various kinds were erected for the requirements of the members. "Not too far from, nor yet too near the town," thus runs the standard description of such a park given in the sacred texts, "well provided with entrances and exits, easily accessible to all people who inquire after it, with not too much of the bustle of life by day, quiet by night, far from commotion and the crowds of men, a place of retirement, a good spot for solitary meditation." Such a garden was the Veluvana ("Bambu-grove"), once a pleasure ground of king Bimbisâra and presented by him to Buddha and the Church: another was the still more renowned Jetavana (at Sâvatthi), a gift made by Buddha's most liberal admirer, the great merchant Anâthapindika. Not alone the sacred texts, but equally also the monumental records, the reliefs of the great Stupa of Bharhut, recently explored, show how highly celebrated this gift of Anâthapindika's was from the earliest days in the Buddhist Church. It is narrated how Anâthapindika was in search of a spot which should be worthy to serve as a place of sojourn for Buddha and his disciples: the garden of the prince Jeta alone appeared to him to unite in itself all requirements, but the prince declined to sell it to him. After protracted negotiations Anâthapindika obtained the garden for as much gold as sufficed to cover the surface of the ground of the whole Jetavana. He gave it to Buddha, whose favourite place of sojourn it thenceforward was. Numberless passages of the sacred texts, in which the subject-matter consists of addresses and sayings of Buddha, begin: "At this time the holy Buddha was sojourning at Sâvatthi, in the Jetavana, the garden of Anâthapindika."