Theravāda Collection on Monastic Law The Small Division The chapter on the group of five hundred 1. The origin story of the communal recitation Then Venerable Mahākassapa addressed the monks: “On one occasion, as I was traveling from Pāvā to Kusināra with a large sangha of five hundred monks, I left the road and sat down at the foot of a tree. Just then a follower of the Ājīvakas was traveling toward Pāvā on the same road, holding a coral-tree flower that he had picked up in Kusināra. When I saw him coming, ‘Do you know anything about our Teacher?’