monasteries for which Kārlē, Nāsik, Kenheri, Ajantā, Ellora, and other places are famous.
The wandering bhikkus, whose duty it was to perpetuate the tradition of the Good Law taught by the Buddha, were enjoined to meet together in the rainy season, when travelling was difficult or impossible, for the purpose of comparing notes and discussing the affairs of the Sangha; a very necessary precaution, as the tradition, like that of orthodox Brahmanism, was an oral one transmitted from one generation to another, and depending for its accuracy upon a scientific system of memorising. The importance of these annual meetings was recognised by the rule of the Order that no bhikku was allowed to travel in the rainy season, except when news should come from a distant place that one of the brethren specially learned in the Law might die and leave no spiritual heir to carry on the great tradition.
In the early days of Buddhism the retreats of the bhikkus were often natural caves in the ravine of a mountain torrent where the great Rishis who preceded the Enlightened One had sought, by meditation or painful mortification of the flesh, to find the true Path. When Asoka began to take the Sangha under his imperial patronage, and the number of bhikkus greatly increased, it became necessary to enlarge these ancient retreats of the Order, and to provide others in proximity to the royal courts, so that the sons of the Aryan nobility might benefit by the instruction of the bhikkus. When kings and emperors took the vows of the Order, and the abbots of the monasteries were treated as royal personages, it soon followed that the ritual of relic worship lost the austerity of the primitive Buddhist cult, and became as elaborate and ornate as the Vedic rites over which the ancient Aryan kings
