As soon as he had made the decision to convert followers to the homeless life, the Buddha, as the first leader of the saṅgha, had to establish means of raising material support to sustain the saṅgha, none of whose members engaged in any productive work. This effort required at least three sustaining factors:

1. The presence of sufficient material support – whether from an economic surplus or elsewhere.

2. The intellectual motivation for people to give this support, a motivation fully acceptable to the laity, as to why they should give freely to the Order or to individual holy men.

3. A marketing or communicative technique designed to spread news of the saṅgha's need for support without giving the impression this need was motivated by avarice or grasping.

His success in harnessing material support can be judged by the minimal evidence in the texts pertaining to the development of these ideas. Even in the Buddha's time there must have been a widespread belief that śramaṇas were entitled to receive offerings and that benefits would flow directly from the giving of such offerings. How long it took to make the transition from individual to institution as receiver of gifts cannot be determined from the evidence at hand. From a quantitative perspective the difference is a fundamental one.

The offering of alms to monks looking for food in the early morning was the most habitual and conspicuous form of giving a layperson could make, at least when the saṅgha was first established.