Ancient Indian Education (Brahmanical and Buddhist) c31.62

c31.62

**What Monasteries can lawfully own.** I-tsing describes the properties which the monasteries could or could not lawfully possess. The gifts of "quadrupeds, elephants, horses, mules, asses for riding are to be offered to the royal household". So also helmets, coats of arms, etc But bulls and sheep are lawful property. Gifts of precious stones, gems, etc., are acceptable for meeting the cost of copying the scriptures and of building or decorating the Siṁhāsana. Chairs inlaid with jewels are to be sold and their proceeds utilized by the monasteries (p. 191). The monks, even in I-tsing's time, did not handle gold or silver or any money according to the Vinaya prohibition, because we find it stated that they were provided with extra cloth as means of procuring medicines (p. 56).