Travelling Śākyamuni, Groves, Reserves and Orchards

According to Buddhist literature, the Buddha spent the second part of his long life travelling through North-East India, teaching his doctrine wherever he decided to halt; and, as far as places are concerned, an analysis of the Pali Canon shows a clear prevalence of names of cities and towns. But, usually, the textual sources do not have the Buddha halting – or staying for the rainy season – and preaching inside built-up areas, but rather in areas just outside them, areas whose name is commonly translated as “park”, “garden” or “grove”, starting with the famous migadaya, the so-called Deer Park where he delivered his first sermon; and, in general, “parks” and “groves” are intimately connected to the entire biography of the Buddha. In these places we have often to see various kinds of reserves and orchards, and only occasionally the “pleasure parks” so well-known from kavya literature. Anyhow, whatever their original purpose, exactly in sites of this kind the textual sources locate the birth of the first Buddhist monasteries. This choice of Sakyamuni’s halting places and the transformations of the places into permanent residences are probably to be considered as a deliberate strategy by the new creed to profitably occupy a sort of middle space between the forest – the domain of Brahmanic asceticism – and the city proper, the place of politics and commerce.