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214 INDIA AS DESCRIBED. IN EARLY TEXTS
cottage in sylvan surroundings. Either they retired alone or with their families apd in some instances with their resident pupils. They lived on roots and fruits, wild-grown rice and vegetables. Their garments were made of birchbark or antelope-skin. The matted hair on their head marked them out to the people at large as Jatilas. Long before the rise of Jainism and Buddhism the hermits in large numbers built their hermitages in the Himalayan forosts, in the Vindhya Range and along the banks of the Ganges, Yamunā and other sacred rivers. The hermitages were fenced round, and inside, some of them reared mango and other fruit trees, wwhile the lakes or pools near by were adorned with varieties of lotus flowers; some of them were so idcally situated and so attractive that they were said to have been built by Vessakamma, the heavenly architect. The instances are not wanting in which the royal princes in exile betook themselves with their wives to. forest-life, leading the life of hermits. When and how the institutions commenced we cannot definitely say. But it seems to have had a very early beginning indeed. The Jātakas and Jain texts 2 maintain a tradition of some ancient
1 Cf. Vessantara Jataka (No. 647); Mugapakkha Tātaka=Tomiye Jakaka (No. 588).
Uttarādhyayana sútra, Leo. XVIIT, Kumbhakāra Jätake No. 408).
