Maps of Ancient Buddhist Asia
Tathāgatassa Pura Cārikā
The Realised One’s Early Career
The map shown above is approx. 550 km from East to West and 400 km from North to South
There is a video of an hour-long talk I gave using an earlier version of this map as a basis to explain more about the Buddha’s movements before and after his Awakening.
It can be seen on YouTube
Some of the modern place names, where they differ, are given here: Uruvelā = Bodhgaya; Bārāṇasī = Varanasi; Isipatana = Sarnath; Rājagaha = Rajgir; Vesālī = Vaishali; Kapilavatthu = Kapilavastu.
The key to the numbers on the map above is (1) Uruvelā > Isipatana; (2) Isipatana > Gayā; (3) Gayā > Rājagaha; (4) Rājagaha > Kapilavatthu; (5) Kapilavatthu > Rājagaha; (6) Rājagaha > Sāvatthī.
What follows is based on the account in the Mahākhandhaka section of the Vinaya Mahāvagga, and the traditional histories such as the Jātaka Nidānakathā, and the Jinavaṁsa. I have left out minor incidents along the way.
After Awakening at the foot of the Bodhi tree in Uruvelā the Buddha spent the following 7 weeks in a number of locations in the same area. He then travelled to Isipatana, where his former companions, the group of five (
That night he preached his first recorded discourse, the Dhammacakkappavattanasutta, and thereby set the Dhamma Wheel rolling, at the end of which Aññāta Koṇḍañña became the first person to attain Path and Fruition in the present Sāsana. In the next few days he and his four companions all became Worthy Ones (
The Buddha himself then walked back to Uruvelā, where he converted the three Kassapa brothers and their 1,000 disciples. From there he travelled to the Magadhan capital Rājagaha, where he was presented with his first monastery, the Bamboo Wood (
Five months had passed since leaving Isipatana and it was now Springtime. Kāḷudāyī arrived from Kapilavatthu, and invited the Buddha to return to his home town. There he converted his father Suddhodana, his foster mother Mahāpajāpatī Gotamī, former wife Yasodharā, and ordained his son Rāhula, and other family members, including Nanda and Ānanda.
After these conversions he returned once again to Rājagaha, and while he was there the rich merchant Anāthapiṇḍika arrived and invited him to Sāvatthī, where he bought and presented him with the Jetavana monastery. At this point the early histories break off, perhaps because the Sāsana was safely established by this time. Although we know a lot about the Buddha’s ministry, a definite chronology is not picked up again in the discourses until the Mahāparinibbānasutta opens about one year before the Parinibbāna at Kusinārā.