UruvelāSenānigamaUruvelapattana

A locality on the banks of the Nerañjara, in the neighbourhood of the Bodhi-tree at Buddhagayā. MN.i.166 The place chosen by the Bodhisatta for his penances was called Senānigama.

From Uruvelā the Buddha went to Isipatana, but after, he had made sixty-one arahants and sent them out on tour to preach the Doctrine, he returned to Uruvelā, to the Kappāsikavanasanda and converted the Bhaddavaggiyā. Vin.i.23f. At Uruvelā dwelt also the Tebhātika-Jatilas: Uruvelā-Kassapa, Nadī-Kassapa and Gayā-Kassapa, who all became followers of the Buddha. Vin.i.25

Mention is made of several temptations of the Buddha while he dwelt at Uruvelā, apart from the supreme contest with Māra, under the Bodhi-tree. Once Māra came to him in the darkness of the night in the guise of a terrifying elephant, trying to frighten him. On another dark night when the rain was falling drop by drop, Māra came to the Buddha and assumed various wondrous shapes, beautiful and ugly. Another time Māra tried to fill the Buddha’s mind with doubt as to whether he had really broken away from all fetters and won complete Enlightenment. SN.i.103ff. Seven years after the Buddha’s Renunciation, Māra made one more attempt to make the Buddha discontented with his lonely lot and it was then, when Māra had gone away discomfited, that Māra’s three daughters, Taṇhā, Ratī and Ragā, made a final effort to draw the Buddha away from his purpose. SN.i.124f.

It was at Uruvelā, too, that the Buddha had misgivings in his own mind as to the usefulness of preaching the Doctrine which he had realised, to a world blinded by passions and prejudices. The Brahmā Sahampati thereupon entreated the Buddha not to give way to such diffidence.SN.i.136ff. Vin.i.4f. It is recorded that either on this very occasion or quite soon after, the thought arose in the Buddha’s mind that the sole method of winning Nibbāna was to cultivate the four satipaṭṭhānas and that Sahampati visited the Blessed One and confirmed his view.SN.v.167 SN.v.185 A different version occurs elsewhere, SN.v.232 where the thought which arose in the Buddha’s mind referred to the five controlling faculties, and Brahmā tells the Buddha that in the time of Kassapa he had been a monk named Sahaka and that then he had practised these five faculties.

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