We shall take up the next pair, viz. Kāsī and Kosalā. Kāsiraṭṭha was an independent kingdom before the rise of Buddhism. In the time of Buddha, however, it formed part of Kosala. The capital of Kāsi-raṭṭha was Bārāṇasi, i.e. Benares, so called perhaps after the great river Bārāṇasi.20 Kāsi, it is worthy of note, was the name of a country and not of a town. Kāsipura, of course, denoted Benares, but in the sense of the capital (pura) of the Kāsi country. Bārāṇasi had other names also. Thus it was called Suruṇḍhana21 in the Udaya Birth, Sudassana22 in the Chullasutasoma Birth, Brahmavaddhana23 in the Soṇanandana Birth, Pupphavatī24 in the Khaṇḍahala Birth and Ramma City25 in the Yuvañjaya Birth. Its sixth name was Molinī.26 Kosala is called anantara-sāmanta to, i.e. immediately bordering on, Kāsi in one Jātaka. The capital of Kosala is Sāvatthi or Śrāvastī, which, we now know beyond all doubt, is Maheth of the village group Saheṭh-Maheṭh on the borders of the Gonda and Bahraich Districts of the United Provinces.27 Another important town of this country was Sāketa, which was certainly the capital of Kosala in the period immediately preceding Buddha, as is clear from the Jātakas.28 Cunningham has shown that this Sāketa can be no other than Ayodhyā, modern Oudh.29
The third pair we have to consider is Vajjī and Mallā. I have already told you that they are the names, not of peoples, but of tribes. The Vajjī were known also as Lichchhavis. Videha and some parts of Kosala appear to have been held by them. Their capital was Vesāli or Vaiśālī which has been identified with Basaṛh of the Muzaffarpur District of Bihār.30
Then comes the pair—Cbetī and Vaṁsā. In the Jātakas mention has been made of Chetaraṭṭha or Chetiya-raṭṭha, and at one place we are told that its capital was Sotthivati-nagara.31 I have no doubt that Cheta or Chetiya is the same as the Sanskrit Chaidya or Chedi, which occurs even in the Ṛigveda32 and corresponds roughly to the modern Bundelkhaṇḍ. The Vaṁsā are identical with the Vatsas, whose capital was Kauśāmbī. This last has been identified by Sir Alexander Cunningham with Kosam on the Jumnā, about thirty miles south of west from Allāhābād.33
Kuru and Pañchāla have been known to be contiguous countries since the vedic period. The capital of the Kuru country was Indapatta or Indraprastha near Delhi, and that of Pañchāla Kāmpilya which has been identified with Kampil on the old Ganges between Budaon and Farrukhabad in U.P.34 Both these must be Dakshiṇa-Kuru and Dakshiṇa-Pañchāla. The capital of Uttara-Pañchāla was Ahichchhatra or Ahikshetra according to the Māhabhārata. Mention of Uttara-Kuru we meet with both in the early Brahmanical and Buddhist literature, but its capital is not yet known.
As regards Machchha and Sūrasena, the former doubtless corresponds to the Sanskrit Matsya. The Matsya people and country have been known to us from early times, being mentioned as early as the Śatapatha35 and Gopata36 Brāhmaṇas and the Kaushītaki Upanishad.37 Matsya originally included parts of Alwar, Jaipur and Bharatpur, and was the kingdom of the king Virāṭa of the Mahābhārata, in whose court the five Pāṇḍava brothers resided incognito during the last year of their banishment.38 His capital has been identified with Bairāṭ in the Jaipur State. The Sūrasenas occupied the country whose capital was Madhurā i.e. Mathurā, on the Jumnā. In Buddha’s time the king of Madhurā was styled Avanti-putta, showing that on his mother’s side he was connected with the royal family of Ujjain. It is worthy of note that according to Manu, the Kurukshetra, the Matsyas, the Pañchālas and the Sūrasenakas comprised Brahmarshi-deśa or the land of the Brāhmaṇ Ṛishis.39
The Assakas and the Avantis have been associated together in the Soṇa-Nanda-Jātaka.40 The first obviously are the Aśmakas of the Bṛihat-saṁhitā.41 In early Pāli literature, Assaka with its capital Potana or Potalī has, on the one hand, been distinguished from Muḷaka with its capital Patiṭṭhāna (Paiṭhaṇ),42 and on the other from Kaliṅga with its capital Dantapura.43 But as Assaka is here contrasted with Avanti, it seems to have included Muḷaka and also perhaps Kaliṅga.44 Avanti also here includes the two well-known division called simply Avanti country with its capital ‘Ujjain and the Southern Avanti-’Dakshiṇāpatha with its capital Māhissatī.
The last pair is Gandhāra and Kamboja the formar included west Panjāb and East Afghānistān. Its Capital was Takkasilā or Takashilā45 whose ruins are spread near Sarāī-Kālā in the Rāwalpiṇḍī District, Panjāb. it is very difficult to locate kamboja. According to one view they were a northern Himālayan people, and according to another the Tibetans. But in our period they were probably settled to the north-west of the Indus and are the same as Kambujiya of the old Persian inscriptions. Their capital is not known.
It will be seen that the different political divisions, mentioned in the above list, were in existence shortly before the time of Buddha. We know that during his lifetime Aṇga ceased to be an independent kingdom, and was annexed to Magadha, and that the territory of Kāsi was incorporated into the Kosalā dominions. If we, however, turn to the Jātakas, wre find that both Aṅga and Kasi were independent countries. The Champeyya-Jātaka46 e.g. speaks of Aṅga and Magadha as two distinct kingdoms, whose rulers were constantly at war with each other. Kāsi and Kosalā are similarly represented in the Mahāsīlava- Jātaka and Asātarūpa-Jātaka47 as being two independent countries and their kings fighting with each other. The political divisions enumerated in the Aṅguttara-Nikāya were, therefore, existing prior, but only just prior, to the time when Buddha flourished, because we have the mention of the Vajjī and Mallā in this list. It is worthy of note that they are mentioned in the Jātakas but only in the introductions to them and never in the stories themselves.
Evidently, therefore, these tribes came to be known after the period represented by the Jātakas but before that of the origin of Buddhism. It will thus be observed that early in the sixth century B.C., India, i.e. that portion of India which was colonised by the Aryans at that time, was sp up into a number of tiny States, living independently and sometimes fighting with one another. There was no supreme ruler to whom they owed fealty. The Purāṇas tell same tale. They distinctly state that along with the rulers of Magadha flourished other dynasties, such as Aikshvakāvas or kings of Kosala, Pañchāla, Kāseyas, Aśmakas, Kurus Maithilas and so forth.48 This clearly shows that about 600 B.C., India occupied by the Aryans was divided into several small kingdoms and that there was no imperial dynasty to which the others were subordinate. The most important of these tiny dynasties is that of Brahmadatta reigning at Bārāṇasī and ruling over Kāsi-raṭṭha. The family also seems to have been called Brahmadatta after this king. Thus in the Jātakas every prince who was heir-apparent to the throne of Bāraṇāsī has been styled Brahmadatta-kumara. In the Matsya-Purāṇa49 also, a dynasty consisting of one hundred Brahmadattas has been referred to. In the Jātakas no less than six kings of Bāraṇāsī have been mentioned besides Brahmadatta. They are Uggasena,Dhanañjaya, Mahāsīlava, Saṁyama, Vissasena and Udayabhadda.50 In the Purāṇas Brahmadatta is represented to have been followed in succession by Yogasena, Vishvaksena, Udaksena and Bhallāṭa.51 There can be no doubt that Vishvaksena and Udaksena of the Purāṇas are theāṭa.51 Ts Vissasena and Udayabhadda of the Jātakas. Bhallāṭa of the Purāṇas, again, is most probably Bhallāṭiya of the Bhallāṭiya-Jātakas.52
When Buddha lived and preached, there were four kingdoms, viz. Magadha, Kosala, Vatsa and Avanti. The most prominent of these was Magadha, whose rulers, as we shall see subsequently, rose to the position of paramount sovereigns. Prom Pāli Buddhist canon which pertains to a period only slightly later than the demise of Buddha and which consequently is trustworthy, we learn that Chaṇḍa-Pradyota of Avanti, Udayana of Vatsa. Territory, Pasenadi and his son Viḍūḍabha of Kosala, and Bimbisara and his son Ajātaśatru of Magadha were contemporaries of Buddha. The kings were thus contemporaries of one another. This point is worth grasping as this synchronism is the only sheet-anchor in the troubled sea of chronology in the period we have selected. The only chronicle that is relied on for this period is the
Purāṇas, but it is a hopeless task to reduce the chaos of the Purāṇic accounts to any order Some attempts53 no doubt have recently been made to deduce a consistent political history from these materials, but without any success so far as I can see.
I have just informed you that in the time of Buddha there were four important kingdoms, flourishing side by side. They were also connected by matrimonial alliances as might naturally be expected. For our description we shall first take Udayana of Kausāmbī, and Pradyota, ruler of Ujjain. A long account of Udayana is contained in the Kathā-sarit-sāgara, but the greater portion of it, I am afraid, is untrustworthy. According to the Purāṇas he pertained to the Paurava dynasty.54 The same authority tells us that his father’s name was Śatānīka. Bhasā, the earliest Sanskrit dramatist that we know at present, has composed two dramas describing incidents from Udayana’s life, viz. Svapna Vāsavadattā and Pratijñū-Yaugandhārayaṇa. From these it appears that he was the son o Śatānīka and grandson of Sahasrānīka and belonged to the Bhārata family.55 As he is called Vaidehīputra, his mother appears to have been daughter of the king of Videha. Udayana’s first Queen was Vāsavadattā, daughter of the king of Ujjain, who is called Pradyota Mahāsena by Bhāsa but Chaṇḍa Pradyota in Buddhist works. According to the Buddhist tradition, Udayana had two more queens, viz. Sāmavatī and Māgandiyā. The latter was his crowned queen and was daughter of a Brāhmaṇ. According to the Brāhmaṇic accounts he had two queens only, viz Vāsavadattā and Padmāvatī. His second queen, Padmāvatī, was sister to Darśaka, king of Rājagṛiha, Magadha. Scholars of the saner type have assigned Bhāsa to the third century A.D. and Bhāsa apparently followed the tradition which was current in his time. He does not, however, seem to be correct in accepting the tradition which makes Padmāvatī, sister to Darśaka, as will be shown shortly when we come to treat of the Magadha dynasties. Udayana had a lute called Ghoshavatī,56 whose sound captivated the elephants and by means of which he captured them. He had a she-elephent named Bhaddavatikā to which he owed his life, queen and kingdom.57
The two dramas of Bhāsa referred to above supply us with many interesting: items of information which, when they are brought to a focus, throw a flood of light upon the political condition of the period. The king, that seems to have been dreaded most when Buddha lived, was not Ajātaśatru, Pasenadi or Udayana, but Pradyota who is known both as Mahāsena or “possessed of a large army”58 and Chaṇḍa or “terrible.”59 We know from the Majjhima-Nikāya that even such a powerful king as Ajātaśatru was thrown on his defensive and was engaged on fortifying his capital Rājagṛiha when Pradyota invaded his territory, instead of meeting him openly in battle. Before, however, he attacked Magadha, he thought of subjugating the neighbouring province of Vatsa. But he was afraid of the undaunted bravery of Udayana and the political sagacity of his prime-minister Yaugandharāyaṇa. He, therefore, resorted to a ruse. He knew of the inordinate fondness of Udayana for capturing wild elephants with the captivating sounds of his vīṇā. An artificial elephant was set up in the jungles of the Narmadā just where the boundaries of the Avanti and Vatsa kingdoms met and in the body of the elephant were concealed a number of select warriors. Udayana fell a victim to this trap, put up a heroic fight to free himself, but was taken prisoner and carried away to Ujjain, where however, he was accorded chivalrous treatment by Mahāsena. When Yaugandharāyaṇa learnt that his master had fallen into the hands of a neighbouring king, he hastened to his release. He turned a Buddhist monk along with another minister and stole into Ujjain. He found that the release of Udayana had become a complicated affair by the latter having fallen in love with Vāsavadattā, Mahāsena’s daughter. He, however, devised a way out of this difficulty. One of his men was made a Mahaut of Vāsavadattā, and on an appointed day the two lovers managed to elope, leaving Yaugandharāyaṇa and his fighting band to cover their fight. At first, Mahāsena was furious, but he soon relented, and in the absence of the lovers themselves the proper marriage ceremonies were performed over their portraits.
Kauṭilya in his Arthaśāstra60 says that when it is impossible to ward off danger from all sides, a king should run away, leaving all that belongs to him; for, if he lives, his return to power is certain as was the case with Suyātra and Udayana. We know from the Svapna-Vāsavadattā that Udayana had to flee from his kingdom to a frontier village called Lāvāṇaka. The enemy, who overran his territory, was Āruṇi,61 who appears to have been ruling to the north of the Ganges. Might he be a king of Kosala? At any rate, the Ratnāvali clearly represents a king of Kosala to be Udayana’s enemy. The disaster was thought by Yaugandharāyaṇa to be so serious that the help of Pradyota, which was naturally expected, was not regarded to be sufficient, and marriage alliance with the Royal House of Magadha considered indispensable. But this was possible only if Udayana agreed to marry Padmāvatī, sister of the Magadha king. Udayana, however, was so attached to Vāsavadattā that he could not brook the idea of having another wife so long as she was alive. Vāsavadattā must, therefore, disappear for a time, thought the Prime-minister, so that Udayana could believe her to be dead and could therefore agree to marry Padmāvatī. When once the king was out a-hunting, the place was set on fire, as previously planned, after Vāsavadattā and Yaugāndharāyaṇa quietly left it. Everybody thought that the latter two had been consigned to the flames. On his return when the king knew about the disaster, he was overwhelmed with grief, from which, however, in course of time he recovered. There was thus no difficulty in bringing about the contemplated marriage alliance, and Udayana was married to Padmāvatī. Soon after his marriage and before he left Rājagṛiha, his minister Rumaṇvat had already apparently with the help sent by Māhasena62 driven away Āruṇi from the Vatsa kingdom and to the north of the Ganges, where it seems he was joined by Udayana along with the forces of the Magadha king, with the express object of killing Āruṇi. And we may assume that he soon succeeded in accomplishing his object.
According to the Pāli Buddhist canon, Udayana had a son named Bodhi, who most probably is identical with Vahīnara of the Purāṇas. Bodhi is represented as ruling over the Bhagga country at Suṁsuāragiri, apparently as Yuvarāja.63 He got a vaḍḍhaki or carpenter to build tor him a palace which he called Kokanada, but fearing that the artisan may build a similar excellent palace for another prince, Bodhi had his eyes plucked out. There is a suttanta in the Majjhima-Nikāya which is devoted to him and is called Bodhi-rāja-kumāra-sutta. Beyond this we know nothing reliable about this dynasty.64 Such is also the case with the dynasty that ruled over the Avanti country with its capital at Ujjain. I have just mentioned that a king, of this family was Pradyota, who was a contemporary of Buddha. The Purāṇas make him the founder of the dynasty. In Bhāsa’s dramas he is frequently called Māhasena. From his queen Aṅgāravatī he had a daughter Vāsavadattā espoused by Udayana, as mentioned above. We do not know much about his conquests, and all we know about him in this respect is the statement of the Majjhima-Nikāya65 that Ajātaśatru, king of Magadha, was fortifying his capital Rājagṛiha because he was afraid of an invasion of his territory by Pradyota. Bhāsa speaks of his two sons, viz. Gopāla and Pālaka.66 Gopāla, it is said, was of the same age as Udayana. Kathā-sarit-sāgara67 says that after the death of Pradyota, Gopāla abdicated the throne of Ujjain in favour of his younger brother Pālaka. This is not improbable, and also accounts for the omission of his name in the Purāṇas. The Mṛichchhakaṭika68 further tells us that Pālaka was ousted by Āryaka, son of Gopāla, who was in hiding for a long time in a settlement of herdsmen. What appears to be the truth is that Pradyota was succeeded not by Gopāla but by his younger brother Pālaka, and that Gopāla’s son Āryaka, not liking the idea of being deprived of the throne, conspired against his uncle and succeeded in usurping the throne. The Purāṇas omit the name of Gopāla,—which is not strange as he resigned the throne in favour of his brother, and mention those of Pālaka, and Āryaka. The latter is mentioned as Ajaka, which I have no doubt stands for Ajjaka i.e. Āryaka.69 They
, however, place one Visākhayupa between Pālaka and Āryaka—which is a mistake. Viśākhayupa, if there was a prince of such a name in this dynasty, must have come after Āryaka. We now pass on to the Kosala dynasty. The only princes of this royal family known to us from the Buddhist works are Pasenadi and his son Viḍūḍabha. I suspect that they belonged to the Ikshvāku family described by the Purāṇas, which, in the enumeration of its members, mention one Prasenajit which, I think, is the Sanskrit form of Pasenadi. Kshudraka is mentioned as the name of Prasenajit’s son, and it is possible that this was another name of Viḍūḍabha. Majjhima-Nikāya70 calls Pasenadi King of Kāsi-Kosala, and from Preamble of Bhadda-sāla Jatakā,71 we learn that the territory held by the Śākyas was also subordinate to him. Pasenadi had an amātya called Siri-Vaḍḍha and a favourite elephant named Eka-puṇḍarīka.72 One of his queens was Mallikā, who was originally daughter of the chief of garland-makers in Śrāvastī.73 She was only sixteen when Pasenadi married her, and as she was married at when he was at war with Ajātaśatru, she seems to have been married at his practically old age by Pasenadi. Nevertheless Mallikā predeceased him. Pasenadi had a daughter called Vajirā or Vajirī. She was married to Ajātaśatru, as I shall tell you later on. With a pious desire to become a kinsman of Buddha, Pasenadi sent envoys the Śākyas with a request to give him a Śākya girl in marriage. The Śākyas through their pride of birth, were unwilling to give him any girl of pure blood, and sent one Vāsabha-Khattiyā, born to a Śākya named Mahānāman from a slave woman. She was married to king Pasnadi and raised to the rank of the Chief Queen.74 She gave birth to Viḍūḍabha, who succeeded him. When Viḍūḍabha became grown-up boy, he went to the Śākya country against the wishes of his mother, where he was subjected to a series of indignities. There the real origin of his mother became known. The news reached the ears of Pasenadi, who was enraged with the Śākyas and degraded both Vāsabha-Khattiyā and Viḍūḍabha but reinstated them upon the intercession of Buddha. As soon as Viḍūḍabha came to the throne, he marched to the Śākya territory, massacred the Śākyas, and thus wreaked his vengeance for which he was burning ever since he came to know about the fraud practised by them. It is said that thrice Buddha dissuaded Viḍūḍabha from carrying out this wholesale carnage of the Śākyas, but it is difficult to say how far this is true. From Buddhist works we gather a great deal about the fights between the rulers of Kosala and Magadha, but about these we shall come to know shortly.
Lectures on the Ancient History of India Page 5
