We travel with the Buddha to several “villages of the Kosalan brahmins”, but this is the only recorded visit to Nagaravinda. The name seems to mean “mountain-lotus” (naga = “mountain”, aravinda = “lotus”). Sāvatthī lies only fifty kilometres south of the Himalayan foothills.

This is an unusual framing, as usually the Buddha refers to wanderers of another religion when speaking with mendicants. The parallel simply says “other people” (SA 280 at T ii 76c8). Again, the fact that the villagers have diverse responses to the Buddha shows that they are not all Buddhists, and hence it would be out of character for the Buddha to assume otherwise, as the teaching here implies. Further, the Buddha’s statement here reads as if it were an answer to a question on how to discern which of the many different ascetics were worthy of respect. It seems to me likely that the narrative has become a little confused.

The idiom samavisamaṁ caranti means “walk roughly in the smooth”, in other words, “conduct themselves badly among the good”, in contrast with those who “walk smoothly in the rough” (caranti visame samaṁ, SN 1.7:3.4, SN 2.6:8.6).

This is a much higher standard than that implied at MN 142:8.1. However, the context is different: there, it is whether offerings will be fruitful, here it is whether they are truly deserving of respect.