The year of the Bhikkhus was divided into two parts.  During nine months they might wander about, live in the woods or reside in a monastery.  During the remaining three months, known as Vassa[542] or rainy season, residence in a monastery was obligatory.  This custom, as mentioned, existed in India before the Buddha’s time and the Pitakas represent him as adopting it, chiefly out of deference to public opinion.  He did not prescribe any special observances for the period of Vassa, but this was the time when people had most leisure, since it was hard to move about, and also when the monks were brought into continual contact with the inhabitants of a special locality.  So it naturally became regarded as the appropriate season for giving instruction to the laity.  The end of the rainy season was marked by a ceremony called Pavarana, at which the monks asked one another to pardon any offences that might have been committed, and immediately after it came the Kathina ceremony or distribution of robes.  Kathina signifies the store of raw cotton cloth presented by the laity and held as common property until distributed to individuals.

It would be tedious to give even an abstract of the regulations contained in the Vinaya.  They are almost exclusively concerned with matters of daily life, dwellings, furniture, medicine and so forth, and if we compare them with the statutes of other religious orders, we are struck by the fact that the Buddha makes no provision for work, obedience or worship.  In the western branches of the Christian Church—­and to some extent, though less markedly, in the eastern—­the theory prevails that “Satan finds some mischief still for idle hands to do” and manual labour is a recognized part of the monastic life.  But in India conditions and ideals were different.  The resident monk grew out of the wandering teacher or disputant, who was not likely to practise any trade; it was a maxim that religious persons lived on alms, and occupations which we consider harmless, such as agriculture, were held to be unsuitable because such acts as ploughing may destroy animal life.  Probably the Buddha would not have admitted the value of manual labour as a distraction and defence against evil thoughts.  No one was more earnestly bent on the conquest of such thoughts, but he wished to extirpate them, not merely to crowd them out.  Energy and activity are insisted on again and again, and there is no attempt to discourage mental activity.  Reading formed no part of the culture of the time, but a life of travel and new impressions, continual discussion and the war of wits, must have given the Bhikkhus a more stimulating training than was to be had in the contemporary Brahmanic schools.