Jetavana

• 1. Introduction

  ›

  Jetavana was one of the most famous Buddhist monasteries in what is now Uttar Pradesh, India. A wealthy merchant paid for it not with silver or land, but with gold coins laid across an entire park until the earth could no longer be seen. That story of acquisition alone became legendary. But Jetavana was far more than a monument to generosity. It became the place where the Buddha delivered the bulk of his teachings, and its name carries the memory of two men whose combined giving shaped one of the most significant religious sites in the ancient world. How did a prince's jest become a binding contract? Who built the gateway, and who paid eighteen crores for the ground beneath it? And what happened to Jetavana in the centuries after the Buddha's time, until an inscription in a ruined wall finally told the world it had not been forgotten?

• 2. A Park Bought in Gold

  ›

  Anathapindika first approached the Buddha after their initial encounter and asked to build him a monastery in his hometown of Savatthi, and the Buddha agreed. Back in Savatthi, Anathapindika searched for a location that was both accessible to followers and peacefully secluded. He found it in a park belonging to Prince Jeta, the son of King Pasenadi of Kosala. The prince was not interested in selling. When Anathapindika pressed the matter, the prince made what he took to be an impossible joke: cover the whole park with gold coins and you can have it. Anathapindika agreed on the spot.

  Wagons full of gold pieces arrived. When Prince Jeta insisted he had only been joking, the two men brought the dispute to arbitrators. The arbitrators ruled that Prince Jeta had to sell at the price he named. Gold covered virtually the entire park, but the money from the first delivery fell short of one small spot near the gateway. Anathapindika sent servants back for more. Prince Jeta, struck by the merchant's earnestness, asked instead to be allowed to donate that remaining patch himself, and Anathapindika accepted. Jeta used the space to erect a gateway with a room built over it, described in later sources as an imposing structure.

  Anathapindika paid eighteen crores for the purchase of the site itself; Jeta spent that same sum building the gateway. Anathapindika then spent a further fifty-four crores on the park purchase and the buildings together. Jeta also gave valuable timber trees from the grove. The construction that followed was extensive: dwelling rooms, retiring rooms, storerooms, service halls, halls with fireplaces, closets, cloisters, exercise halls, wells, bathrooms, ponds, and open and roofed sheds all rose within the grounds.

• 3. Dedication and Name

  ›

  The ceremony marking the monastery's dedication was an occasion of remarkable splendour. Anathapindika's entire family participated. His son came with five hundred other youths. His wife attended alongside five hundred noble women. His daughters Maha Subhadda and Cula Subhadda each arrived with five hundred maidens. Five hundred bankers accompanied Anathapindika himself. The festivities connected with that dedication stretched across nine months.

  The monastery acquired a formal name that fused the identities of both its key figures: Jetavane Anathapindikassa arama, meaning in Pali "in Jeta Grove, Anathapindika's Monastery." The Commentaries record that this dual naming was deliberate, made at the Buddha's own suggestion. The intent was to preserve the memory of both the original owner and the donor so that future generations would be reminded of two men whose generosity served the faith, and might be moved to follow their example. The monastery is also sometimes called Jetarama in older texts.

• 4. The Buddha's Presence

  ›

  Jetavana was not simply a monument. Out of the 45 vassas, the monsoon retreats the Buddha observed during his teaching life, he spent nineteen at Jetavana. That count exceeds the number he spent at any other monastery. It was here that he gave the majority of his teachings and discourses.

  After the Migaramatapassada, a second monastery built at Pubbarama near Savatthi by the Buddha's chief female lay disciple Visakha, the Buddha settled into a rhythm. He would dwell alternately between Jetavana and the Migaramatapassada, sometimes spending the day in one and the night in the other.

  At the heart of Jetavana stood a structure called the Gandhakuti, the Buddha's personal dwelling. The space covered by its four bedposts was considered one of the four avijahitatthana, spots held sacred across all Buddhas regardless of era. The Gandhakuti's physical size varied across different Buddhas, but its sacred ground remained constant. Faxian, the Chinese pilgrim-monk, described the original vihara as having seven sections filled with embroidered banners, canopies, and offerings, with lamps burning from dusk to dawn. A rat carrying a lamp wick in its mouth started a fire that consumed all seven sections. The monastery was later rebuilt in two sections. Faxian also found stupas erected at every spot connected with the Buddha, each one labeled with the name of the event it commemorated.

• 5. Grounds and Structures

  ›

  Tibetan sources record that the vihara was built according to a plan sent by the devas of the Tusita realm, and that it contained sixty large halls and sixty small ones. The Vinaya-pitaka provides additional details about its decorative scheme.

  Several buildings within Jetavana were known by their own specific names: the Mahagandhakuti, the Kaverimandalamala, the Kosambakuti, and the Candanamala. A building called the Salalaghara was erected by King Pasenadi himself. Over the gateway lived a guardian deity tasked with keeping evildoers out. Just outside the monastery stood a rajayana tree, regarded as the residence of the god Samiddhisumana.

  Within the grounds lay a large pond, later known as the Jetavanapokkharani, where the Buddha often bathed. Near the edge of this pond, texts record, Devadatta was swallowed into Avici. The grounds were thickly wooded, giving the appearance of a forest grove. A mango grove grew on the outskirts. In front of the gateway, Anathapindika planted a Bodhi tree, which eventually came to be called the Anandabodhi. Not far from the gateway was a cave that became known as the Kapallapuvapabbhara because of an incident connected with Macchariyakosiya.

• 6. Later History and Rediscovery

  ›

  An inscription discovered by Daya Ram Sahni in 1908, found in one of the ruined monastery structures at Shravasti, recorded a grant made by the Gahadavala king Govindachandra. That document confirmed the monastery was active as late as 1128-29 CE. The grant gave six villages along with their lands to the sangha residing at Jetavana, and named Buddhabhattaraka as the head of that community. Whether Govindachandra was renewing a lapsed grant or simply reaffirming a continuing one remains uncertain.

  For centuries after that, the site was known locally by the name Sahet-Mahet. Alexander Cunningham used the accounts of Chinese pilgrim-monks from the sixth century AD to establish that Sahet-Mahet corresponded to ancient Jetavana and Savatthi. Today Jetavana is a historical park containing the remains of monasteries, huts including the Gandhakuti and the Kosambakuti, and stupas. The Anandabodhi Tree, the Bodhi tree Anathapindika planted in front of the gateway, is now considered the second-holiest tree in Buddhism. Jetavana forms part of the Buddhist pilgrimage route in North India, and the Gandhakuti remains its most revered site. The gateway that Prince Jeta built with the gold he received, which ancient sources called an imposing structure, has not survived, but the name above it has never been forgotten.

• 7. From India to Japan

  ›

  Jetavana's influence traveled far beyond the Indian subcontinent. In Japan, the deity Gozu Tenno is considered to have originated as a guardian of Jetavana itself. He became a central figure in the Gion faith and was identified with the Shinto deity Susanoo-no-Mikoto. The district of Gion in Japan, where that faith is centered, takes its name directly from Jetavana. The word arrived through Chinese, where the Sanskrit Jetavana was rendered as Qiyuan, before becoming Gion in Japanese. A park purchased with wagons of gold outside an ancient Indian city thus gave its name to one of the most recognizable districts in Japan.