Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c24.35

c24.35

**Vihāra as a School of Arts and Crafts.** These offices show that the monks had to engage in various kinds of practical, secular work instead of being constantly or exclusively occupied in purely religious or spiritual exercises. In fact, the monasteries opened up ample opportunities for business training or education in the practical arts and crafts for their inmates. Thus we frequently read of instances when the Bhikkhus are deputed to serve as "building overseers" to take charge of building operations on behalf of a lay donor constructing a Vihāra for the purposes of the Saṁgha [ib., vi, 17], so that the buildings might be in accordance with "the rules of the Order as to size, form, and object of the various apartments". Such an overseer was called *Navakammika*. The appointment was formally made by a Resolution of the Order [ib., vi, 5, 3]. The Bhikkhus who superintended building works were of course provided with requisite clothes, food, lodging, and medicines at the cost of the donor of the building [ib.]. We read of a Bhikkhu taking advantage of such hospitality by demanding a special dish at a particular meal—tila seed cake—and, on his conduct being reported to the Buddha, he was rebuked [ib., i, 18]. Bhikkhus had to superintend not merely new constructions but also repair works [ib., vi, 5, 2]. Sometimes what with superintending new works or repairs to old works the Bhikkhus managed to assign these offices to one another for terms of twenty or thirty years or even for life. This abuse called for a rule whereby the period of *Navakamma* was fixed according to the character of the construction concerned. Thus "with reference to the work on a small *Vihāra* it may be given in charge as a *Navakamma* for a period of five or six years, that on an *Aḍḍhayoga* for a period of seven or eight years, that on a large *Vihāra* or a *Pāsāda* for ten or twelve years" [ib., vi, 17].