The Foundations of Buddhism

The Buddhist Community

of various sorts in order to handle donations of money and goods

and oversee their running. The canonical Vinaya sources refer

to the office of kappiya-kiiraka (Sanskrit kalpi-kiira), a layman

who makes 'allowable' (kappiya) gifts that would otherwise,

according to the strictures of the Vinaya, not be permissible.

This is relevant especially to donations of.land and money, which

individual monks and nuns are strictly forbidden from accepting

or handling, but which the kappiya-kiiraka could receive and

administer on their behalf.^35 The Sangha could thus become the

effective owner of considerable property, wealth, and resources,

while individual monks also came to exercise rights over pro-

perty which in certain circumstances extended to being able to

leave it to their monastic pupils.^36

A situation where a monk lives in a wealthy monastery effect-

ively enjoying personal rights of ownership over a share of that

monastery's wealth is somewhat removed from the ideal of the

homeless mendicant, wandering from village to village with alms-
bowl and dressed in rag robes retrieved from a dust heap, intent
on his spiritual quest. But we must remember that there were
also monks, perhaps the majority, who lived in more modest small
village monasteries. There were also those, no doubt a small minor~
ity, who continued to be inspired by the ascetic ideal, setting off

for the forest, living in caves, or donning robes made from rags

discarded on rubbish heaps,

In the context of developed Buddhist monasticism, dwell-

ing in the forest or wearing robes made of rags from a dust

heap became two of a set of twelve or thirteen specialized ascetic
practices (dhuta-gu!Ja/dhutmiga) that an individual monk might

undertake for a shorter or longer period.^37 These forest-dwelling

( iira!Jyaka/iiraiiiiika) or rag robe-wearing (parrzsu-!parrzsu-kulikii)

monks are contrasted with the town-dwelling (giima-viisin) monks.

Although the numbers of forest monks may have been relatively

small, their strict practice meant that they attracted the sup~
port of the laity and that they enjoyed considerable prestige and
influence.^38 Ironically this meant that they did not always suc-
ceed in maintaining their ascetic practice and that in ancient Sri
Lanka, for example, monks belonging to nominally Arafifiika