The Buddhist "Monastery" and the Indian Garden: Aesthetics, Assimilations, And the Siting of Monastic Establishments (Essay‪)‬

--Fur Oskar von Hiniiber als kleines Zeichen eines grossen Dankes-- The vocabulary we use to refer to early Buddhist establishments in India could hardly be more different from the vocabulary that early Buddhist authors or compilers used to refer to the same places, (1) nor could two lexicons be farther apart in their associations. We call such places "monasteries" or "cloisters" and--willingly or not--invoke a vision of an isolated, chaste, serene, ascetic, and austere space. (2) Buddhist monks, however, in both texts and inscriptions called such places viharas or aramas, and these Sanskrit terms, or their Prakrit equivalents, would have had very different associations. In Classical Sanskrit the term vihara would have meant, and continued to mean, "walking or touring for pleasure"--this is the only sense in which Asoka uses the term (3)--or "sport, play, pastime, or diversion," or "a "place of recreation, pleasure-ground." Arama too would have referred to "delight, pleasure " or a "place of pleasure, a garden," (4) and for and urban population of any standing or sophistication in classical India both terms would have been associated with gardens lush with flowers and fruit trees in bloom, filled with bird-song and the cries of peacocks and the sound of bees, all invoking a strong aesthetic eroticism--an arama or vihara or udyana was where well-heeled men went to dally with lovely ladies, or where urban ladies went to amuse themselves and take in the scenery. Scenes of such occur repeatedly in Classical Sanskrit drama and "court" poetry where the garden and its beauties are constantly extolled and intertwined with aesthetic and erotic pleasure. (5)