he was accompanied by a considerable following of disciples:  five hundred or twelve hundred and fifty are often mentioned and though the numbers may be exaggerated there is no reason to doubt that the band was large.  The suttas generally commence with a picture of the surroundings in which the discourse recorded was delivered.  The Buddha is walking along the high road from Rajagaha to Nalanda with a great company of disciples.  Or he is journeying through Kosala and halting in a mango-grove on the banks of the Aciravati river.  Or he is stopping in a wood outside a Brahman village and the people go out to him.  The principal Brahmans, taking their siesta on the upper terraces of their houses, see the crowd and ask their doorkeepers what it means.  On hearing the cause they debate whether they or the Buddha should pay the first call and ultimately visit him.  Or he is halting on the shore of the Gaggara Lake at Campa in Western Bengal, sitting under the fragrant white flowers of a campaka tree.  Or he visits the hills overlooking Rajagaha haunted by peacocks and by wandering monks.  Often he stops in buildings described as halls, which were sometimes merely rest houses for travellers.  But it became more and more the custom for the devout to erect such buildings for his special use and even in his lifetime they assumed the proportions of monasteries[343].  The people of Vesali built one in a wood to the north of their city known as the Gabled Hall.  It was a storied house having on the ground floor a large room surrounded by pillars and above it the private apartments of the Buddha.  Such private rooms (especially those which he occupied at Savatthi), were called Gandhakuti or the perfumed chamber.  At Kapilavatthu[344] the Sakyas erected a new building known as Santhagara.  The Buddha was asked to inaugurate it and did so by a discourse lasting late into the night which he delivered sitting with his back against a pillar.  At last he said his back was tired and lay down, leaving Ananda to continue the edification of the congregation who were apparently less exhausted than the preacher.

But perhaps the residence most frequently mentioned is that in the garden called Jetavana at Savatthi.  Anathapindika, a rich merchant of that town, was converted by the Buddha when staying at Rajagaha and invited him to spend the next rainy season at Savatthi[345].  On returning to his native town to look for a suitable place, he decided that the garden of the Prince Jeta best satisfied his requirements.  He obtained it only after much negotiation for a sum sufficient to cover the whole ground with coins.  When all except a small space close to the gateway had been thus covered Jeta asked to be allowed to share in the gift and on receiving permission erected on the vacant spot a gateway with a room over it.  “And Anathapindika the householder built dwelling rooms and retiring rooms and storerooms and halls with fireplaces, and outside storehouses and closets and cloisters and halls attached to the bath rooms and ponds and roofed open sheds[346].”