of rags collected and sewed together but
it soon became the practice for pious laymen to supply the Order with
raiment.

2

In the Maha and Culla-vaggas of the Vinaya Pitaka we possess a large
collection of regulations purporting to be issued by the Buddha for the
guidance of the Order on such subjects as ceremonial, discipline,
clothes, food, furniture and medicine. The arrangement is roughly
chronological. Gotama starts as a new teacher, without either followers
or a code. As disciples multiply the need for regulations and uniformity
of life is felt. Each incident and difficulty that arises is reported to
him and he defines the correct practice. One may suspect that many
usages represented as originating in the injunctions of the master
really grew up gradually. But the documents are ancient; they date from
the generations immediately following the Buddha's death, and their
account of his activity as an organizer is probably correct in
substance. One of the first reasons which rendered regulations necessary
was the popularity of the order and the respect which it enjoyed. King
Bimbisara of Magadha is represented as proclaiming that "It is not
permitted to do anything to those who join the order of the
Sakyaputtiya[534]." Hence robbers[535], debtors, slaves, soldiers
anxious to escape service and others who wished for protection against
the law or merely to lead an idle life, desired to avail themselves of
these immunities. This resulted in the gradual elaboration of a code of
discipline which did much to secure that only those actuated by proper
motives could enter the order and only those who conducted themselves
properly could stay within it.

We find traces of a distinction between those Bhikkhus who were hermits
and lived solitary lives in the woods and those who moved about in
bands, frequenting rest houses. In the time of the Buddha the wandering
life was a reality but later most monks became residents in monasteries.
Already in the Vinaya we seem to breathe the atmosphere of large
conventual establishments where busy superintendents see to the lodging
and discipline of crowds of monks, and to the distribution of the gifts
made by pious laymen. But the Buddha himself knew the value of forests
and plant life for calming and quickening the mind. "Here are trees," he
would say to his disciples at the end of a lecture, "go and think it
out[536]."

In the poetical books of the Tripitaka, especially the collec