Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c30.60

c30.60

**Jetavana Vihāra.** We may notice in this connection the past history of the Jetavana Vihāra and university as recovered from the Chinese texts by Watters (p. 386): "The original Jetavana monastery, which was probably neither very large nor substantial and was not well protected, was destroyed by fire in the Buddha's lifetime. After the death of Sudatta, the place was neglected as there was no one to look after the grounds and buildings. A new Vihāra was afterwards built on a greater scale, but this also was burnt to the ground. At one time, we read, the place was utterly abandoned by the Buddhist Brethren and was used as the king's stables, but the buildings were again rebuilt and reoccupied by Buddhist monks. In its palmy days before its final destruction and abandonment, the Jetavana monastery must have been a very large and magnificent establishment," with the extent of its Park given as 130 square acres and with 120 buildings of various kinds: "There were chapels for preaching and halls for meditation, messrooms and chambers for the monks, bath houses, a hospital, libraries, and reading rooms, with pleasant shady tanks and a great wall encompassing all. The libraries were richly furnished not only with orthodox literature but also with Vedic and other non-Buddhistic works, and with treatises on the arts and sciences taught in India at the time."