Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c29.29

c29.29

The monasteries were maintained by the endowments of the laity, including kings and merchant-princes, "the heads of the Vaiśyas." They "built Vihāras for the priests and endowed them with fields, houses, gardens, and orchards, along with the resident populations and their cattle". These grants were "engraved on plates of metal" and were "handed down from king to king without anyone daring to annul them" (p. 43). The gifts of the laity also included other necessaries such as food, for instance. "When the kings make their offerings to a community of monks, they take off their royal caps, and along with their relatives and ministers, supply them with food with their own hands" (p. 42). This reminds us of the several Vinaya instances, cited above, of kings serving the Buddha and his Order with food with their own hands. With reference to another monastery we read thus of the gifts of the laity: "The families of their people around supply the societies of these monks with an abundant sufficiency of what they require, so that there is no lack or stint" (p. 89). The usual season for the making of these gifts was "a month after the annual season of rest" (*i.e.* Vassa) when "the families which are looking out for blessing stimulate one another to make offerings to the monks and send round to them the liquid food which may be taken out of the ordinary hours" (p. 45). In another place (p. 47) Fa-Hien refers to "the annual tribute (from the harvests)" paid to the monks and the gifts of "clothes and such other articles as the monks require for use" which they afterwards share among themselves. The donors of these gifts included not merely "the heads of the Vaiśyas" but also Brahmans (*ib.*).