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234 INDIA AS DESCRIBED IN PARLY TEXTS
Byddhists contended for the superiority of their Master over, all by the fact of his experience of the highest state of consciousness through the ninth samāpatti called saññā-vedayitanirodha 1. Among the Buddha's immediate disciples, Moggallāna was claimed to have occupied the foremost rank in respect of the possession of psychic power a.
The man gifted with psychic power passed also as the man of wisdom, the greatest Yogi figuring sometimes as the greatest rationalist. The Samaņa-Brāhmaṇa period was indeed a period during which the religious experiences were sought to be rationalised. So we need Mot be astonished at all that the bands of the wandering ascetics, Paribbājakas and Samaņas, appeared in the scene as great controversialists and disputants. The royal parks and gardens of the aristocrats were their halting places where they engaged themselves in serious disoussions. The philosophical contest was no lesis an interesting occasion for the people than the miracle. Sometimes they talked so loudly that the place where they halted or resided became very much noisy like a fish market 8. We hear of a Tindukacira or Tinduka garden which
1 Mailama, i, p, 296. 2 Arguttara, i, p. 23; Majjhimo, 1, p. 261f.; H. J. Thomnes, History of Buddhist Thought, p. 52.
3 Majjhima, ii, Sakuludāyi Subtą (Mahi and Oūļa),
