________________
218 INDIA. AS DESCRIBAD IN EARLY TEXTS
ana the Jätakas, produced a very deep impression in the country. A popular chronicle, - embodied in the Anguttara Nikāya, bears an eloquent testimony to it. Mahāgovinda is claimed to have a direct communion with Brahma Sanamkumāra as a happy result of the cultivation of the four Brahmavihāras: Metta, Karuņā, Muditā and Upekkhā. The "Isigili Sutta in the Majjhima Nikāya 2 contains a similar chronicle of five hundred Paccekabuddhas who are otherwise described as great sages of old, and the Khaggavisāna Sutta in the Sutta-nipāta2 and the Paccekabuddha Apadāna in the Apadānas contain distinct utterances of them. In historical times, Băvari, the chaplain of king Pasenadı of Kosala, retired from the world and built a hermitage on the Godhāvarī (Godāvarī) in the Vindhya region. The Pārāyaņa Vagga in the Sutta-nipāta + preserves a glorious tradition of Bāvari along with his sixteen disciples. As the Jātakas elearly attest, among the tāpasas there were many who practised Yoga or Jhāna, and mastered as many as eight Samāpattis. There is evidence also to prove that the neighbourhood of the hermitages became sites afterwards of many important
1 Vol w, p. 88f * PP 6-12 3 Vol. 1, pp 7–14. * p. 190f.
