A garden at Sáketa. In it was a Deer-park where the Buddha used to stay. On one such occasion Kakudha came to see him (S.i.54), and also the Paribbájaka Kuńdaliya (S.v.73) who lived near by. Here were preached the Sáketa Sutta, (S.v.219) the Sáketa Játaka (J.i.308; DhA.iii.317ff.; SnA.531) and the Jará Sutta.
When Ananda was staying there a nun of the Jatila persuasion visited him and questioned him on the use of samadhi (A.iv.427-8).
The Thera Jambugámiyaputta (ThagA.i.86; SnA.531) dwelt there while yet a novice. Once the Buddha was staying at Ańjanavana with a large company of monks and some of the monks slept on the sandbanks of the river Sarabhú near by. During the night floods rose and the Thera Gavampati controlled the water by his mystic powers (Ibid., i.104; Thag.v.38).
The elder Bhúta (ThagA.i.494) stayed in Ańjana-vana while visiting his relatives in Sáketa, and the Thera Ańjanavaniya spent the rainy season there on a couch (ThagA.i.127). There Sujátá met the Buddha, and having listened to his discourse became an arahant (Thig.vv.145-50).
In ancient times the king of Kosala used to hunt in this garden, thus it was that the deer Nandiya met him (J.iii.270f).
The garden was so-called because it was thickly covered with ańjanna-creepers that bore collyrium-coloured flowers. Others say that ańjana is the name of a spreading tree (ThagA.i.128; SA.iii.195).