The Foundations of Buddhism

104 The Buddhist Community

necessarily the case that the life of monks in the larger well-

endowed city monasteries was lax or especially comfortable;

some of these monasteries kept up a strict regime of spiritual prac-

ticeY Moreover all monks would have participated alongside

the laity in the various devotional practices which are associated

with the 'recollections' (anusmrtilanussati) (seep. 179) and which

are intended to arouse and cultivate religious emotions that are

an aspect of 'calm' (samatha) meditation. Essentially such de-

votional practices take the form of worship (pujii) by means of

prostrations, circumambulation, and making offerings of flowers,

incense; and lamps to 'relics' (dhiitu) of the Buddha. These may

be of three kinds: actual physical remains of the body of the Buddha

(or some other Buddhist saint); articles 'used' by.the Buddha,

such as his bowl or the Bodhi-tree; and 'reminders', such as images

of the Buddha.^48 Worship of the first two types of relic centred

principally around the veneration of the stiipas enshrining such

relics-though images too might enshrine relics-and of the

Bodhi-trees normally found in each monastery.

In addition to this kind of worship, monks also seem to have

participated in other activities along with the laity, commission-

ing and even sometimes making images of the Buddha, and

other Buddhist monuments. The making of works of art was an

act of merit, and the ancient inscriptions record that often the

merit from such acts was dedicated or 'transferred' to parents or

even to the benefit of all sentient beings.^49

In Chapter 2 I drew attention to a distinCtion made in later Pali

sources between two main duties: the 'task of spiritual insight'

(vipassanii-dhura) and the scholarly 'task of books' (gantha-dhura).^50

This distinction indicates that as well as having the responsibility

of putting the teaching into practice by keeping the Vinaya and

cultivating meditation, the Sangha has also traditionally been

responsible for the preservation and study of the scriptures. Some

Buddhist monasteries have thus also been great centres of learn~

ing and scholarship, which has taken in not only the study of
Buddhist and other systems of philosophical and religious thought;
but also the study of such disciplines as ·medicine, grammar, liter~
ature, astronomy, and astrology.^51 This distinction between the