Jaswinder Singh

Student Id-201910058

Buddhist Monastic Order: From Wandering to Settled life

Introduction

Buddhism in its beginning was religion 'for The Monkhood' and that the laity was on
its fringe. Whereas in other religions monasticism is only of secondary importance to their
faith, Buddhist monasticism is generally seen as primary to Buddhism 1 . The monastic
Community in Buddhism is made up of two groups respectively bhikkhu-sangha (the order
of monks) and bhikkhuni-sangha (the order of nuns), together they are called
ubhatosangha, and “the twofold community”2.These monks and nuns of Buddha lived in
an organized system called Sangha. The sangha said to have an early group of paribbajika
(wanderer). However at first the Buddha and his disciples had no fixed abode and they
never stayed long in the same place but during the monsoons in parts of southern Asia,
heavy rains and flood made it impossible for the bhikshus and bhikshuni to wander and
beg. Thus, from the very time of Buddha Sakayamuni, tracts of land, parks, and buildings
were donated by the laity to accommodate the monastic community 3 . When people
started to donate places and built monasteries for them the sangha started to dwell in
sedentary life. Wherever Buddhism spread and the monks came and settled monasteries
were built for them. The Monasteries had to function differently, therefore, the order of
the Sangha developed, and new rules were originated from time by time. Some scholars
think that the institution of the rainy season retreat served as a bridge between two
periods in the history of Buddhist monkhood from wandering to a sedentary life. The
primary scriptural source for this information is the Vinaya Pitaka, one of the three parts
that make up the Tripitaka, which presents most clearly how this development took place
and the reason for it4. In this paper, we will try to see how the Sangha separated itself
from the parent community by its modification and specialization of General customs and
developed into an order.

1
Jansen, Berthe. "Introduction." In The Monastery Rules: Buddhist Monastic Organization in Pre-Modern Tibet, 1-
13. Oakland, California: University of California Press, 2018. Accessed April 22, 2020.
www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv941wdq.5.
2
Wijayaratna, Mohan, Buddhist monastic life: According to the text of the theravada tradition, translated by
Grangier, Claude and Steven collins, {New York: Cambridge university press, 1990}, 1.
3
Johnson, William M., Encyclopaedia of monasticism, {Chicago: Fitzroy Dearborn publishers,2000}, 65.
4
Winters, Dennis A. "The First Buddhist Monasteries." The Tibet Journal 13, no. 2 (1988): 12-22. Accessed April 22,
2020. www.jstor.org/stable/43300289.

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1.1 Early Group of Paribbajika (Wanderer)

According to the Pali Canon, the monastic community was first established in Benares,
in the Deer Park, after the first discourse of the Buddha to the five ascetics. As time passes,
people who were renouncers, members of one or another sect or religious group, and
people who were living in the house gradually became the disciple of the Buddha and
abandoned their early order of life5. In initial times the Buddha and his disciples had no
fixed abode and never stayed long in the same place. However, outside the rainy season,
Paribbajakas, Ajlvikas, Niganthas (Jains), and individual ascetics were constantly on the
move, for them traveling was a way to practice detachment but according to Vinaya
Pitaka Buddha travel for the good of the many. This wandering life on the road was a good
way to advertise the young Master and his Doctrine6.

1.2 Need and Cause to Built Early Dwelling Places: Varshavāsa

Although, the Buddha had instructed the sangha to wander throughout the
countryside and teach he required that they should gather on some specific occasions
such as for a retreat during the rainy season, for the recitation of the Pātimokkha and the
Dharma, and for holding the Uposatha (day of fasting) services7. These occasions became
the foundation for the gathering of the organization of the sangha and the construction
of the first monasteries. By providing such a place, the sangha would be more easily
accessible to the public, allowing them to visit and receive teachings. Another cause for
varsavāsa was the complaints of laypeople. The town’s people became annoyed and
angry at the Buddhist monks. They found that by walking through the fields during the
rainy season, the monks destroyed the crops and killed the foraging creatures. In
response to this, the Buddha prescribed Vassa, the three-month retreat for the rainy
season. A choice of two retreat periods was established for entering Vassa; the first began
the day after the full moon of Āsālha(June-July), and the second began during Srāvana,
the month after the full Moon of Āsālha8. Thus, it is told that when the Buddha on his last
missionary tour reached Vaishali the monsoon had set in and he called upon his followers

5
Wijayaratna, Mohan, Buddhist monastic life: According to the text of the theravada tradition, translated by
Grangier, Claude and Steven collins, {New York: Cambridge university press, 1990}, 2.
6
Ibid.,19.
7
Winters, Dennis A. "The First Buddhist Monasteries." The Tibet Journal 13, no. 2 (1988): 12-22. Accessed April 22,
2020. www.jstor.org/stable/43300289.
8
Ibid.,12.

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to spend the Vasa period at the village of Beluva, each according to the place where his
friends acquaintances and intimate once might live9.

1.3 Early Dwelling Places

As we mentioned above when some monks told the Buddha that people were
annoyed and had made angry complaints because of their traveling during the rainy
season then it was the first time Buddha permitted them to observe a retreat during the
rainy season. According to one of the Mahdvagga rule that a monk observing the Rainy
Season Retreat must not travel before he has completed the retreat. According to the
Mahavagga text, the first park for resting at night during the rainy season was given by
King Bimbisara, a friend and lay disciple of the Buddha. From this time all monks were
obliged to stay for those three months in one place, but they were not allowed to settle
just anywhere. The Vinaya Pitaka and the Sutta Pitaka show that even they had places to
dwell, the Master and his disciples did not abandon traveling.

The canonical texts also mention the names of several forests in which the Buddha and
his disciples stayed at night. They always traveled during the day, and at night they
received lodging in the town meeting hall10. Every day, so the Vinaya texts tell us, these
monks admitted many new members into the Community. There were also public parks,
such as Ambalatthika in Rajagaha, which were popular resting-places for wandering
ascetics. At this time although they were resting at night they continued their traveling
during the rainy season. When a great merchant from Rajagaha wanted to have
residences built for the monks then Buddha allowed five kinds of dwelling places, an
ordinary residence (vihara), round residences (addhayoga), long (pasada), or with several
stories (hammiya), and a cave11.

1.3.1 Rudimentary Structure of Avãsas: Huts, Vihara and Caves

The Vinaya Pitaka states that at first there were small hunts were constructed by the
monks themselves for the rainy season retreat. The huts were thatched, consequently,
during the cold season the interiors of the huts were cold, and during the hot season, the
interiors of the huts were hot. The huts had no operable doors so that snakes, scorpions,
and centipedes were able to enter and they had no windows so that the lighting and the

9
Dutt, Sukumar, Buddhist monks and monasteries of India, {London: George allen and unwin, Ltd, 1962}, 54.
10
These places were, it seems, open to monks, nuns, and other ascetics to pass the night on their travels.
11
Wijayaratna, Mohan, Buddhist monastic life: According to the text of the theravada tradition, translated by
Grangier, Claude and Steven collins, {New York: Cambridge university press, 1990}, 22.

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circulation of air were poor12. At the request of monks, Buddha allowed the use of more
portable places to dwell called vihara. Vihara was the name originally given to such a
hutment13. A vihara might be occupied by a single monk or by a small group of monks.
The vihara was a complex of cells for monks usually encircled a large rectangular chamber.
Entryways to several cells (layana), each cell serving as the residence of one or two
monks. One particularly large vihara at Ellora consists of three stories with a total of more
than a hundred cells for monks that were used at that time. Approximately twelve
hundred cave-temples have been found in India. These temples provide significant
information about monastery life in ancient India. The most famous cave-temples are
found at Ajanta, Bhaja, Nasik, Karli, and Ellora. Two types of caves are found at these sites:
caves used for worship, which contained a stupa, and caves used as quarters for monks 14.
The Mahāvagga text States that eventually, the Buddha prescribes that the entire sangha
within each designated could choose one building or cave in which to hold the Uposatha
service and conduct their recitations, so a larger structure was also constructed. These
first groupings of dwellings were the compounds known as the Avāsas. Made of thatch
and wood, the avāsas were probably constructed as Temporary residences, for none of
them lasted long enough to have gained any recognition. There are no remains of these
first settlements; they were long gone even before Fā-hien made his pilgrimage to India
in the early fifth century A.D.

1.3.2 Avāsas to Arāma and Sangharama

As the Buddha’s teachings spread throughout India, the Buddhist Sangha and laity
increased in size, and the organization becomes more complex. Monks tended to return
to the same location for their Vassa retreats and more permanent arrangements began
to become necessary; consequently, the more durable ārāma came into widespread use,
replacing the avāsa. These structures were built by the laity and donated to bhikkus for
their uses15. When it was given to the monks by the owner, not for temporary use but
permanently, it was named as sangharama. Only three out of eight great ārāma have
been found by archaeologists. As Sukumar Dutt mentioned in his work these are

12
Winters, Dennis A. "The First Buddhist Monasteries." The Tibet Journal 13, no. 2 (1988): 12-22. Accessed April
22, 2020. www.jstor.org/stable/43300289.,16.
13
Dutt, Sukumar, Buddhist monks and monasteries of India, {London: George allen and unwin, Ltd, 1962}, 58.
14
Akira, Hirakawa, A history of Indian Buddhism from Sakyamuni to early Mahayana, Trans. & ed. By paul Groner, {
USA: University of Hawaii press, 1990}, 237.
15
Holt, Johan Clifford. Discipline: the canonical Buddhism of Vinayapitaka. {Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1999}, 32.

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Jivakarama, Jetavanaranma, and Ghositarama respectively16. As time passes this ārāma
became the great monasteries of Buddhist followers especially for monks and nuns.

Jeevika the donor of Jivakarama was a physician. He treated The Buddha himself on
a few occasions and give professional aid to his bikhu followers free of charge. He gifted
his great mango orchard for built the arama. There built also an assembly hall and the
open space for congregational ceremonies. Consequently, the plan of the Vihara evolved
into one having a standard format that begins to be used as the accepted plan for the
Buddhist monasteries in India. Jetavanarama was the largest and more famous among
the other ārāma it is claimed that Buddha spent nineteen Vassa periods here. Soon
Anathapindika, a great banker from Savatthi and one of the most devoted lay disciples,
who had two colleagues Kukkuta and Pavariya bought a park for the Buddha and his
disciples. In this avāsa he had large dwelling places built, which included cells, store-
rooms, meeting rooms, rooms with a fire-place, places to store gifts, toilets, meditations
walk-ways, rooms next to wells, rooms for hot baths, and lotus ponds17.

1.1.4 Sangha and Its Order in Earlier Settlement

After the development of cenobitical live in the avāsas and ārāma, the patimokha
code comes into existence. However, patimokkha was first applied to the chanting of the
Confession Of Faith once in six years. So it meant one thing when the Buddhists were
wanderers and another when they were settled in avāsas and ārāma . The new
patimokkha was the disciplinary code of order to regulate day-to-day activities of monks
and nuns in the monasteries. This new patimokkha code formulates and defines offenses
against the regimen of monastic life. The rules contained in the patimokkha are called
Shikhapadas. There exist 227 to 263 rules in different versions of patimokkha text. After
the Buddha’s death, there were the rules of patimokkha that help to unite the Sanga.
When the collective sangha life became more Complex then Vinaypitika emerged
gradually. It is a collection of Legends that pertains to some Institutions of the collective
sangha life. Vinaya reflects the religious frame of reference of Gautama’s early monastic
followers. The text is primarily concerned with elucidating over 200 rules of discipline that
range greatly in character18.

16
Dutt, Sukumar, Buddhist monks and monasteries of India, {London: George allen and unwin, Ltd, 1962}, 61-65.
17
Wijayaratna, Mohan, Buddhist monastic life: According to the text of the theravada tradition, translated by
Grangier, Claude and Steven collins,{ Cambridge university press: New York, 1990}, 23.
18
Holt, Johan Clifford. Discipline: the canonical Buddhism of Vinayapitaka. {Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass,
1999}, 2.

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Conclusion

We had studied that with the need for the sangha to have a place for retreat and
gathering for recitation, the Buddhist monastery came to be used the avāsas first and
eventually the sangharama, whose brick and stone foundations have been excavated,
providing us with clues of a tradition that Buddhists maintained over the years. Vinaya
Pitaka, show that the Master and his disciples still traveled from place to place a long way,
they could rest in residences close to their route. In that way, monasteries had become
part of the Community's traveling lifestyle. At the same time, they became centers for lay
disciples in the locality. Monastic settlements formed the core of Buddhist religious
activities from the earliest of times. In essence, the Buddhist monastery was an
expression of faith and the profound belief in the benefaction of Buddhist teachings19.

19
Ibid.,65.

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 Bibliography

Books

➢ Akira, Hirakawa, A history of Indian Buddhism from Sakyamuni to early Mahayana,

(Trans. & ed. By paul Groner), University of Hawaii Press, USA, 1990.
➢ Dutt, Sukumar, Buddhist monks and monasteries of India, George Allen and Unwin,
Ltd, London, 1962.

➢ Holt, Johan Clifford. Discipline: the canonical Buddhism of Vinayapitaka. Delhi:

Motilal Banarsidass, 1999.
➢ Wijayaratna, Mohan, Buddhist monastic life: According to the text of the
Theravada tradition, translated by Grangier, Claude and Steven Collins,
Cambridge university press, New York, 1990.

Online resources

➢ “Introduction.” The Monastery Rules: Buddhist Monastic Organization in Pre-

Modern Tibet, by Berthe Jansen, 1st ed., University of California Press, Oakland,
California, 2018, pp. 1–13. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/j.ctv941wdq.5. Accessed
22 Apr. 2020.
➢ Winters, Dennis A. “The First Buddhist Monasteries.” The Tibet Journal, vol. 13,
no. 2, 1988, pp. 12–22. JSTOR, www.jstor.org/stable/43300289. Accessed 22 Apr.
2020.

Encyclopedia

➢ Johnson, William M., Encyclopaedia of monasticism, Fitzroy Dearborn Publishers,

Chicago, 2000.