The Foundations of Buddhism

The Buddhist Community 97

cE, the most generally useful textual sources, apart from the vari-

ous Vinayas, are the Pali commentaries and the records of three

Chinese Buddhist pilgrims: Fa-hsien, who spent some fifteen

years travelling in northern India and Sri Lanka at the,beginning

of the fifth century (399-414), Hsiian-tsang, who travelled through-

out India, in the first half of the seventh century (630-643), and

I-tsing, who visited India and the Malay archipelago towards

the end of the seventh century (671-695).^31 Archaeological and

inscriptional evidence comes from a great variety of monastic sites

across India and from Sri Lanka.

These sources suggest that monks lived as more or less per-

manent residents in monasteries ( vihiira, iiriima) that usually con-

sisted of a number of buildings: residential quarters, a teaching

hall, and a po~adha hall (for the fortnightly recitation of the monas-

tic rule). The religious heart of a monastery was threefold: a stiipa

(containing relics, ideally of the Buddha or of some acknowledged

'saint'), a Bodhi-tree (an asvattha or ficus religiosa-the type of

tree the Buddhagained awakening under-often growing on a

platform), and finally a shrine hall or image house.^32 All three

would have been the object of considerable devotional practice

by monks and laity alike. Monasteries varied enormouslyin size.
Fa-hsien records that the Abhayagiri Vihara at Anuradhapura,
the ancient capital of Sri Lanka, housed s,ooo monks, while I-
tsing states that at the famous monastic university of Nalanda in
eastern India there were some 3,000 residents.^33 Such monastic
establishments included kitchens, refectories, latrines, bathing

facilities, and libraries. Whether or not the figures of the Chinese

pilgrims are exaggerated, the remains of these ancient monastic

complexes are impressive in themselves and bear witness to

their grand past. Patronized by royalty and the wealthy, many

monasteries had considerable endowments in the form of pro-

perty, lands, and other material goods. Thus in both India and

Sri Lanka we find the development of a system (already adum-

brated in the Vinaya itself) whereby monasteries' requirements
for food were provided by the produce of land farmed on behalf
of the monastery by laity who received a share in return.^34 Large
monasteries also employed considerable numbers of lay servants