[Buddha-l] Did the Buddha settle down?

[Jamie Hubbard]

I haven't thought about this in a while, and this doesn't specifically
address the Buddha's traveling around, but most of the texts depict a
fairly urban Buddha, fairly restricted in the locations of his teaching--
fully 83% of the places mentioned in the Pali texts refer to a total of
just five cities, and less than one-half of 1% refer to the countryside
(Gokhale, Balkrishna Govind. “Early Buddhism and the Urban Revolution.”
Journal of the International Association of Buddhist Studies 5/2, 1982).
Romila Thapar has  long made similar claims about the urban origins of the
Buddhist communities. To paraphrase the caption under a depiction of the
Buddha's accepting the Jeta Grove in a popular intro Buddhist textbook,
"with the acceptance of Jetavana, the community of wanders became corporate
landowners." Reggie Ray might disagree.

Jamie Hubbard



On Sun, Jul 21, 2013 at 2:31 PM, David Living <aryacitta at hotmail.com> wrote:

>
>
>
> > "What they forget is that after a period of wandering, the Buddha
> settled down to spend twenty-five years in the same monastery, teaching
> and offering himself as a community leader."
>
> His last year on earth was spent wandering all over the place just before
> his Parinirvana. Whenever you get a Sutra in the Pali Canon it seems to
> come from a new venue every time....almost. Maybe in his middle years he
> stopped at one place or favoured one place for his rains retreat but I
> don't think he ever settled down.
>
> Aryacitta/Dave Living Southend on Sea
>
>
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