Central India at that time was an agriculturally rich area that produced
abundant food and thus could support leisured classes as well as large numbers of monks. People with religious interests often left their homes and became wandering mendicants (parivràjaka), living off alms from householders while they immersed themselves into a search for truth. Although people could usually be confident of their livelihood during this time, it was also a period with few diversions or amusements. As a result, young people in particular seem to have been beset by anxieties and boredom and to have turned away from the everyday world to seek truth in religion. Many men and women of good families joined religious orders.