When the curtain rises
again Kosa la has been absorbed into Magadha.
again Kosa la has been absorbed into Magadha.
Cambridge History of India - v1
The Videhas, capital Mithilā
10. The Licchavis, capital Vesāli
11-15, Tribes, as yet unidentified, mentioned
by Megasthenes
Nos. 1. 10 occupied in the sixth century B. C. the whole country east of
Kosala between the mountains and the Ganges. Those mentioned, as is
reported in other authors, by Megasthenes seem to have dwelt in his time
on the sea-coast of the extreme west of India north of the gulf of Cutch'.
It is naturally in relation to the Sākiyas that we have the greatest amount
of detail. Their territory included the lower slopes of the Himālayas, and
the glorious view of the long range of snowy peaks is visible, weather
permitting, from every part of the land. We do not know its boundaries
or how far it extended up into the hills or down into the plains. But the
territory must have been considerable. We hear of a number of towns
besides the capital - Chātumā, Sāmagāra, Khomadussa, Silāvati, Meda-
lumpa, Nagaraka, Ulumpa, Devadaha, and Sakkara. And according to an
.
ancient tradition preserved in the Commentary on the Digha? there were
80,000 families in the clan. This number (it is noteworthy that the auspi-
cious number 84,000 was not chosen) would, allowing for children and
dependents, mean a population of at least half a million. It would be
absurd to take this tradition as a correct, or even as an official enumeration.
We do not even know who first made the calculation. But it would be
equally absurd deliberately to ignore it. It is at least interesting to find
that even as late as Buddhaghosa the traditional estimate of the number of
the Sākiyans was still, in spite of the temptation to magnify the extent of
the 'kingdom' which the Buddha renounced, so limited and so reasonable
as this.
The administrative business of the clan, and also the more important
judicial acts, were carried out in public assembly, at which young and old
were alike. The meetings were held in a mote-hall- a
roof
supported by pillars, without walls. It is called Santhāgāra, a technical
term never used of the council chamber of kings. "
We have no account of the manner in which the proceedings were
conducted in the Sākiya mote-hall. But in the Maha-Govinda Suttanta
there is an account of a palaver in Sakka's heaven, evidently modelled
1 M'Crindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenese, p. 144, cf. p. 156.
See Rh. D. , Dialogues of the Buddha, I, 147.
D. I, 91.
4 See the passages quoted at J. P. T. S. , 1909, 65.
mere
## p. 157 (#191) ############################################
VII ]
LOCAL ADMINISTRATION
157
>
more or less on the proceedings in a clan meeting. All are seated in a
specified order. After the president has laid the proposed business before
the assembly others speak upon it, and Recorders take charge of the
unanimous decision arrived at? . The actions of gods are drawn in imita-
tion of those of men. We may be sure that the composers and repeaters
of this story, themselves for the most part belonging to the free clans (and,
if not, to neighbouring clans familiar with tribal meetings) would make use
of their knowledge of what was consequently done at the mote-hall
assemblies. This is confirmed by the proceedings adopted in the rules
observed at formal meetings of the Chapters of the Buddhist Order. Quite
a number of cases are given in the Canon Law; and in no single case,
:
apparently, is there question of deciding the point at issue by voting on a
motion moved. Either the decision is regarded as unanimous ; or, if
difference of opinion is manifest, then the matter is referred for arbitration
to a committee of referees'. It is even quite possible that certain of the
technical terms found in the Rules of the Orders (ñatti for ‘motion,'
ubbāhikā for 'reference to arbitration, etc. ), are taken from those in use at
the mote-halls of the free clans. But however that may be, we are justified
by this evidence in concluding that the method of procedure generally
adopted in the mote-halls was not, as in modern parliaments, by voting on
a motion, but rather as just above explained.
A single chief (how or for what period chosen we do not know) was
elected as office holder, presiding over the Senate, and, if no senate were in
session, over the state. He bore the title of Raja which in this connexion
does not mean king, but rather something like Roman consul, or the
Greek archon. We hear at one time that Bhaddiya, a young cousin
of the Buddha, was ‘rāja’4, at another that the Buddha's father Suddhudana
(elsewhere spoken of as a simple clansman, Suddhodana the Sākiyan), held
that ranks.
We hear of mote-halls at some of the other towns besides the capital,
Kapilavatthu. And no doubt all the more important places had them.
The local affairs of each village were carried on in open assembly of the
householders held in the groves which, then as now, formed so distinctive
a feature in the long and level alluvial plain.
The clan subsisted on the produce of their rice fields and their cattle.
The villages were of grouped, not scattered, huts on the margin of the rice
field. The cattle wandered in harvest time, under the charge of a village
herdsman, through the adjoining forest (of which the village groves were a
remnant), and over which the Sākiyan peasantry had common rights.
5
>
1 Translated' in Dialogues, vol. II, pp. 259-264.
2 Translated in Rhys Davids' and Oldenberg's Vinaya Texts. See especially vol.
pp.
44 ff.
3 Vinaya Texts, III, pp. 49 ff.
4 Vinaya II, 181.
5 Digha II 52
III,
## p. 158 (#192) ############################################
158
[ CH
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
>
Men of certain special crafts, most probably not Sākiyans by birth-
carpenters, smiths, and potters for instance - had villages of their own ;
and so also had the Brāhmans whose services were often in request for
all kinds of magic. The villages were separated one from another by
forest jungle, the remains of the Great Wood (the Mahāvana), portions
of which are so frequently mentioned as still surviving throughout the
clanships. The jungle was infested from time to time by robbers, sometimes
runaway slaves. But we hear of no crime (and there was probably not
very much) in the villages themselves - each of them a tiny self-governed
republic.
Tradition tells that the neighbouring clan, the Koliyas, were closely
related by descent with the Sākiyası ; but we are not told much about the
former. Five of their townships besides the capital are referred to by
name: -- Halidda-vasana”, Sajjanela3, Sāpūga“, Uttara”, and Kakkara-pattae.
Every Koliyan was a Vyaggha pajja by surname, just as every Sākiyan was
a Gotama ; and in tradition the name of their capital Rāmagāma, so
called after the Rāma who founded it, is once given as either Kolanagara
or Vyagghapajja? The central authorities of the clan were served by a
body of peons or police, distinguished, as by a kind of uniform, by
a special form of head-dress. These men had a bad reputation for
extortion and violence. In the other clans we are told only of ordinary
servants. The tradition that the Koliyans and Sākiyans built a dam over
the river Rohini which separated their territories, and that they afterwards
quarrelled over the distribution of the store of water, may very well be
founded on fact.
Of the form of government in the Vajjian confederacy, comprising the
Licchavis, the Videhas, and other clans, we have two traditions, Jain
and Buddhist10. They are not very clear and do not refer to the same
matters, the Jain being on military affairs, while the Buddhist refers
to judicial procedure.
THE KINGDOMS. I. KOSALA
Kosala was the most important of the kingdoms in North India
during the life of the Buddhi. Its exact boundaries are not known.
But it must have bordered on the Ganges in its sweep downwards in
a south-easterly direction from the Himālayas to the plains at the modern
Allahābād. Its northern frontier must have been in the hills, in what is
now Nepāl ; its southern boundary was the Ganges; and its eastern
boundary was the eastern limit of the Sākiya territory. For the Sākiyas,
as one of our oldest documents leads us to infer, claimed to be Kosalansll.
1 Sumangala I, 258 ff.
2 M. I, 387; S. V, 115. 3 A. II, 62,
4 A, II, 194.
5 S. IV, 340.
6 A. IV, 281.
7 Sum. I, 262.
8 S. IV, 341.
9 Jat. V, 412-416.
10 Jacobi, Jaina Sutras, I, XII 11 Sutta Nipata, verse 422.
>
## p. 159 (#193) ############################################
VII ]
KOSALA
159
a
The total extent of Kosala was therefore but little less than that of France
to-day. At the same time it is not probable that the administration
was very much centralised. The instance of the very thorough Home Rule
enjoyed, as we have seen, by the Sākiyas should make us alive to the
greater probability that autonomous local bodies, with larger power than
the village communities, which were of course left undisturbed, were still
in existence throughout this wide territory.
One or two of the technical terms in use to describe such powers have
survived. Rāja-bhogga for example is the expression for a form of tenure
peculiar in India. The holder of such a tenure, the rāja-bhoggo, was
empowered to exact all dues accruing to the government within the bound-
aries of the district or estate granted to him. But he had not to render
to government any acco unt of the dues thus received by him. They were
his perquisite. He could hold his own courts, and occupied in many ways
the position of a baron, or lord of the manor. But there was a striking
difference. He could draw no rent. The peasantry had to pay him the tithe,
of the rice grown; and though the amount was not always strictly a tithe,
and by royal decree could be varied in different localities, the grantee could
not vary it. So with the import, or ferry, or octroi duties. The rate of
payment, and the places at which the levy could be made, were fixed by
the government. We have not enough cases of this tenure to be able to
interpret with certainty the meaning of all the details, and limits of space
prevent a discussion of them here. But the general principle is quite clear? .
It shows how easy would be the grant to local notabilities of local govern-
ment to this extent, and how narrow was the line of distinction between
the collection of dues by civil servants or farmers of the taxes and their
collection by a grantee in this way. This custom, thus traced back to so
early a period in the history of India, seems never to have fallen into abey-
ance, It certainly, in the period under discussion, was of manifest advan-
tage. But it must be admitted that it is, to English ideas, very strange -
so strange that our civilians made the mistake, in Bengal, of regarding all
such persons legally empowered to collect the land-tax as landlords, and of
endowing them accordingly with the much greater privileges and powers
of the English landlord. In the Buddhist period there is no evidence of
the existence, in North India, of landlords in our sense of that term.
It was the rise of this great power, Kosala, in the very centre of
Northern India, which was the paramount factor in the politics of the time
before the Buddhist reform. We do not know the details of this rise. But
there are purely incidental references imbedded in the ethical teachings in the
Buddhist books which afford us at least hints as to the final manner of it,
and as to the date of it. For instance we have the story of Dighāvu in the
1 D. I, 114, 127, 130 : cf. II, 50 and Divy. , 620, Vin. III, 221, with the Old Com.
mentary at 222, M. III, 133, Jāt. VI, 344, Sum. Vil. I, 245, 246.
## p. 160 (#194) ############################################
160
[ch.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
Vinaya? . There Brahinadatta, king of Käsi, invades Kosala, when Dighiti
was king at Săvatthi, and conquered and annexed the whole country ; but
finally restored it to Dighiti's son, with whom he had become on very
friendly terms. Other traditions inform us on the other hand of several
invasions of the Kāsi country by the then kings of Kosala, Vanka,
Dabbasena, and Kamsa? . And when that most excellent story, the Rājovada
Jātaka3- as good in humour as it is in ethics-was first put together to
represent two kings in conflict, the quite natural idea was to fix upon kings
of Kosala and Kāsi, and the author does so accordingly.
No references have so far been found in the books as to any contests
between Kosala and any other tribe or nationality. It would seem therefore
that the gradual absorption into Kosala of the clans and tribes in the
northern part of Kosala as we know it in the Buddha's time took place
without any such battle, campaign, or siege as was sufficiently striking to
impress the popular imagination ; but that when Kosala came into contact
with Kāsi there ensued a struggle, with varying result and lasting through
several reigns, which ended in the complete subjugation of the Kāsi country
by Kamsa, king of Kosala.
As to the approximate period of these events, we see that they
were supposed to have taken place not only before the time of Pasenadi,
who was born about the same time as the Buddha and lived about as long,
but also before the time of his father the Great Kosalan. We have four
kings of Kosala mentioned as taking part in these wars, and cannot be sure
that there were not others who had quieter reigns. It would be enough and
more than enough to allow, in round numbers, a century for all these
kings. And the period cannot be much longer than that. For the name
Brahmadatta could not have been older than towards the close of the
Brāhmaṇa literature ; and a century and a half before the birth of the
Buddha would about bring us to that.
The king of Kosala in the Buddha's time was Pasenadi. He was of
the same age as the Teacher; and though never actually converted, was
very favourable to the new movement, adopted its more elementary teach-
ings, and was fond of calling upon the Buddha either to consult him or
simply for conversation. A whole book of the Samyutta is devoted to such
talks, and others are recorded elsewhere. They are mostly on religion or
ethics, but some political and personal matters are occasionally mentioned
incidentally.
For instance five ‘rājas' are introduced discussing a point in
psychology with Pasenadi. Whatever the title may exactly imply it is
probable that we have the leaders of five clans or communities that,
1 l'inaya Texts, II, 293-305.
? Jät. I, 262 ;II, 403 ; III, 13, 168, 211; v, 1 12.
3 Jätaka II, 1.
4 M. II, 124.
6 The Kosala Samyutta, S. I, 68-102.
>
## p. 161 (#195) ############################################
VII ]
AJĀTASATTU
161
formerly independent, had, at that time, been absorbed into Kosala. Again
we hear of a double campaign. In the first Ajātasattu, king of Magadha,
attacks Pasenadi in the Kāsi country and compels him to take refuge
in Sāvattbi'. In the second, Pasenadi comes down again into the plains,
defeats Ajātasattu, and captures him alive. Then he restores to him the
possession of his camp and army, and lets him go free". The commentaries
inform us that he also gave him, on this occasion his daughter Vajirā, to
wife. They also give the reasons for the dispute between the two kings ;
but this will be better dealt with under the next heading. Another con-
versation arises when the king comes to tell the teacher of the death of his
(the king's) grandmother for whom he expressed his deep devotion and
esteem. She had died at a great age, specified at 120 years, no doubt a
round number. At another talk Sumanā, the king's sister, is present, and
becomes converted. Desiring to enter the Order she refrains from doing
so in order to take care of this same old lady, and attains Arahantship while
still a lay-woman. The last and longest talk between the two friends
took place at Medaļumpa in the Sākiya country. The king, in much
trouble with his family and ministers, expressed his admiration, anci
possibly also some envy, at the manner in which the teacher preserved peace
in his Order. He then took his last leave with a striking declaration of his
devotion. But even as they were talking the crisis had come. The
radition records that the minister in whose charge the insignia had been
left when the king went on alone, had in his absence, proclaimed the king's
son, Viļūdabha, as king. Pasenadi found himself deserted by all his
people. He hurried away to Rājagaha to get help from Ajātasattu, and,
worn out by worry and fatigue, he died outside the gates of the city? .
Ajātasattu gave him a state funeral, but naturally enough left Vidūdabha
undisturbed.
The first use the latter made of his new position was to invade the
Sākiya territory, and slaughter as many of the clan - men, women and
children -as he could catch. Many however escaped®, and it is, perhaps, ,
to this remnant what we owe the Piprahwa Tope discovered by Mr. Peppe.
Elsewhere it has been shown that the reasons given for this invasion were
probably not the real ones. But why should the Buddhists have taken
pains so elaborately to explain away the fact, unless the fact itself had been
indisputable? This is the last we know of Kosala. We hear nothing more
of Viļūdabha, or of his successors if he had any.
When the curtain rises
again Kosa la has been absorbed into Magadha.
1 S. I, 79.
2 S. I, 82-85.
3 Jāt. II, 404 ;IV, 343.
4 S. I, 97, cf. Jät. IV, 146. 5 S. I, 69; Thig. 16.
6 M. JI, 118-124.
7 Jātaka IV, 152.
8 Dhp. A. I, 359 ; Mahavamsa VIII, 18, and the Tikā on it.
9 Buddhist India, pp. 1), 12.
>
## p. 162 (#196) ############################################
162
( ch.
THE EARLY HISTORI OF BUDDHISTS
II. MAGADHA
This was a narrow strip of country of some considerable length from
north to south, and about twelve to fifteen per cent. in area of the size of
Kosala. Just as Kosala corresponded very nearly to the present province of
Oudh, but somewhat larger, so Magadha corresponded in the time of
the Buddha to the modern district of Patna, but with the addition of the
northern half of the modern district of Gayā. The inhabitants of this
region still call it Magā, a name doubtless derived from Magadhat. The
boundaries were probably the Ganges to the north, the Son to the west, a
dense forest reaching to the plateau of Chotā Nagpur to the south, and
Anga to the east. The river Champā had been the boundary between
Magadha and Anga? ; but in the Buddha's time Anga was subject to
Magadha- it is the king, not of Anga, but of Magadha, who makes a
Jand-grant in Anga (that is a grant of the government tithe), and an Anga
village is one of the eighty thousand parishes over which the king of
Magadha holds rule and sovereignty! All the clansmen in each of these
.
two countries are called by Buddhaghosa, princes (exactly as he elsewhere
calls the Sākiyas and Licchavis). The same writer says that the two
kingdoms amounted together to 'three hundred leagues. It is reasonable
to suppose, as he was born and bred in Magadha, that he was not so very
far wrong. But this is said in reference to the time of Bimbisāra. Later
on he estimates the area of the whole of the United Kingdom of Magadha,
in the time of Ajātasattu, at five hundred leagues. We may conclude from
this that, according to the tradition handed down to Buddha ghosa, the
size of the kingdom had nearly doubled in the interval. This would
be about correct if the allusion were to Ajātasattu's conquests north of the
Ganges? . As Buddhaghosa however seems to use the larger figures of
a date, not after, but at the beginning of those conquests, other wars
of which we have no record, to the east or south, may be meant.
The king of Magadha in the Buddha's time, was Bimbisāra.
principal queens one was the Kosala Devi, daughter of Mahā-Kosala ; and
sister therefore of Pasenadi8 ; another was Chellanā, daughter of a chieftain
of the Licchavis'; and a third was Khemā, daughter of the king of Madda
in the Punjabł0. If the traditions of these relationships be correct they are
eloquent witnesses to the high estimate held in other countries of the
then political importance of Magadha.
1 Grierson in E. R. E. VI, 181.
? Jāt. IV, 454-above, pp. 153-54. 3 Digha I, 111. 4 Vinaya I, 179.
5 Rāja-kumārā, Sum. I, 279,294. See Early Buddhism, 27.
6 Yojanas, Sum. I, 148.
? V. Inf. p. 164. 8 Jāt, II, 403. 9 Jacobi, Jaina Sūtrar, I, XII-XV.
10 Thig. A. on 139-143, and A padāna quoted ibid. 131.
a
## p. 163 (#197) ############################################
VII]
MAGADHA
163
Bimbisāra had a son known as Vedehi-putto Ajātasattu in the
canonical Pāli texts, and as Kūņika by the Jains. The later Buddhist
tradition makes him a son of the Kosala Devi ; the Jain tradition,
. confirmed by the standing epithet of Vedehi-putto, son of the princess of
Videha, in the older Buddhist books, makes him a son of Chellanā.
Buddhaghosa has preserved what is no doubt the traditional way of
explaining away the evidence contained in the epithet? . But the matter
cannot be further discussed here.
One of the very oldest fragments preserved in the canon is a ballad
on the first meeting of Bimbisāra and Gotama. In the ballad the latter is
called 'the Buddha. ' But the meeting took place about seven years before
he became the Buddha in our modern sense ; and this unwonted use
of a now familiar title would have been impossible in any later documenta.
Gotama has only just started on his search for truth. The king, with
curious density, offers to make him a captain, and give him wealth. It
will be noticed that the king still resides in the palace of the old capital at
the Giribbaja, 'the Hill Fort'. Some years afterwards when Gotama
returns as a teacher, tbe king was lodged in the new palace that gave its
name to the new capital, Rājagaha, 'the King's House. ' The ruins of both
these places are still extant; and the stone walls of the Giribbaja are
probably the oldest identified remains in India. Dhammapāla says that the
place was originally built or planned by Mahā-Govinda, the famous
architect, to whom it was the proper thing to ascribe the laying out of
ancient cities.
On Gotama's second visit to Rājagaha Bimbisāra presented him
with the Bamboo Grove, where huts could be built for the accommodation
of the Ordert - just as he endowed also the opposite teaching”. We hear
very little about him in the books. He is not even mentioned in three out
of the four Nikāyas, and the few references in the fourth are of the most
meagre kind. But the Vinaya gives a short account of an attempt made
by Ajātasattu to kill his father with a sword", and in the closing words of
the Sāmañña-phala there is an allusion to the actual murder which he
afterwards committed? The commentary on that Suttanta gives a long
account of how it happened. The details may or may not be true ; but
the main fact that Bimbisāra was put to death by his son Ajātasattu may
be accepted as historical. The Ceylon chronologists place this event
1 Sum. I, 139. Cf. Diulogues, II, 78.
2 Sutta Nipāta, verse 408. See Dialogues, II, 2. The ballad is translated in Rh. D. ,
Early Buddhism, 31-34.
3 Vimāna-vatthu Commentary, p. 82, and above p. 154.
4 Vinaya 1, 39. 5 Ligha I, 111, 127.
Vinaya II, 190 7 Dīgha I, 86,
8 Sum. I, 133-136; Peta-v, A. 105.
6
## p. 164 (#198) ############################################
164
[сн
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
eight years before the Buddha's death, at the time when Bimbisāra; who
had come to the throne when he was fifteen, had reigned fifty-two years. ".
On the death of Bimbisāra, his wife, the Kosala Devi, is said by
tradition to have died of grief? .
The
government revenues of an estate in
Kāsi had been settled upon her by Mahā-Kosala as pin-money on her
marriage. At her death the payment of course ceased. Ajātasattu then
invaded Kāsi. It seems incredible that this could have been the real
motive of the war, unless the kings of that place and time were less
expert in inventing pretexts for a war which they wanted than modern
kings in Europe. The war itself is however mentioned in the Canon", and
with some detail. In the first campaign Ajātasattu out-manæuvred his
aged uncle, and drove him back upon Sāvatthi. In the next, however,
Pasenadi lured his nephew into an ambush, and he was compelled to
surrender with all his force. But Pasenadi soon set him at liberty,
gave him back his army, and, according to the commentary, gave him
also one of his daughters in marriage.
In the opening paragraph of the Maha-parinibbāna Suttanta' we hear
of Ajātasattu's intention to attack the Vajjian confederacy, and, as the first
step in the attack, of his building a fortress at Pāțaliputta, the modern Patna,
on the south bank of the Ganges, the then boundary between his territory
and theirs. The minister in charge of this work was a Brāhman, known to
us only by his official title, 'the Pain-maker' (Vassakāra). He fled suddenly
to the Vajjian capital Vesāli, giving out that he had barely escaped with his
life from Ajātasattu. The Vajjians gave him refuge and hospitality. He then
dwelt among them, carefully disseminating lies and slanders until he judged
the unity of the confederation to be finally broken. Three years after his
kindly reception he gave the hint to his master, who swooped down on
Vesāli, and destroyed it, and treated his relatives very much as Vidūdabha
had treated his. We can only hope this ghastly story of dishonour, trea-
chery, and slaughter is a fairy-tale. The question can only be discussed
with profit when we have the whole of the commentary before us.
The son of Ajātasattu is mentioned in the Canon. His name was
Udāyi-bhadda, and it follows from the statements of the Ceylon Chronicles
that he succeeded his father on the throne. This is confirmed in the com-
mentaries? The name also occurs in medieval Jain and Hindu lists, inde-
pendent no doubt, both of them, of the Buddhist books.
1 Dip. III, 56. 60 ; Mhr, II, 29, 30.
2 Jät. II, 403.
3 Samyutta I, 84-86. Cf. Dhp. A. III, 259; Jāt. IV, 342.
4 Rh. D. , Dialogues of the Buddha, II, 78.
5 Digha I, 50-Dialogues, I, 68.
6 Dip. V, 97; Mhv. IV, 1.
7 Smp. 321 ; Sum. 1, 153-4.
8 V. inf. , pp. 168-69.
## p. 165 (#199) ############################################
VII)
AVANTI
165
III. AVANTI
The king of Avanti in the Buddha's time was Pajjota the Fierce, who
reigned at the capital Ujjeni. There is a legend about him which shows
that he and bis neighbour king Udena of Kosambi were believed to have
been contemporaries, connected by marriage, and engaged in war. The
boundary is not given, but a commentary mentions incidentally that the two
capitals were in round numbers fifty yojanas, about four hundred miles,
apart. We have seen that when the Nikāyas were composed Avanti was
considered to have been one of the important kingdoms of India before the
Buddha's time. Shortly after the Buddha's death Ajātasattu is said to
have been fortifying his capital, Rājagaha, in anticipation of an attack by
Pajjota of Avanti? . The king of the Sūrasenas, at Madhura, in the Buddha's
time, was called Avantiputto ; and was therefore almost certainly the son
of a princess of Avanti'. The Lalita-vistara gives the personal name of the
king of Madhura in the year of the Buddha's birth as Subāhu', and this
may be the same person.
Avanti became from the first an important centre of the new doctrine
we now call Buddhism in India it was not so called till centuries later).
Several of the most earnest and zealous adherents of the Dhamma were either
born or resided there. Abhaya Kumāra is mentioned and Isidāsiand
Isidatta8 and Dhammapāla' and Sona Kuţikaņņa10, and especially Mahā.
Kaccānall. The last of these is stated to have been called by the Buddha the
most pre-eminent of those of his disciples able to expound at length, both
as to form and meaning, that which had been said in short. The last but one,
Soņa, wās in a similar way declared to be the most eminent of the disciples
distinguished for beauty of expression. In what language were they supposed
to have exercised these literary gifts ? It was certainly not the religious
language then current in the priestly schools of Brāhmanism. This archaic
form of speech which has been preserved in the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads
was called by the grammarians chhāndasa, 'the language of chhandas or Ved
poetry,' to distinguish it from the laukika or 'secular' language ; and the
Buddha had expressly forbidden his 'word' to be put into chhandas. Each
disciple was to speak the word in his own dialect13. It would be a
mistake, however, to be misled by the ambiguities of the word dialect,
and to suppose it to mean here the language as spoken by any peasantry.
1 Buddhist India, 4-7.
2 Above, p. 153. Cf. Jāt. IV, 390.
3 M. III, 7.
M. I), 83.
5 Ed. Rajendra Lal Mitra, p. 24. 6 Thag. A. 39.
7 Thig, A. 261-4
8 S. IV, 288 ; Thag. 120.
10. The Licchavis, capital Vesāli
11-15, Tribes, as yet unidentified, mentioned
by Megasthenes
Nos. 1. 10 occupied in the sixth century B. C. the whole country east of
Kosala between the mountains and the Ganges. Those mentioned, as is
reported in other authors, by Megasthenes seem to have dwelt in his time
on the sea-coast of the extreme west of India north of the gulf of Cutch'.
It is naturally in relation to the Sākiyas that we have the greatest amount
of detail. Their territory included the lower slopes of the Himālayas, and
the glorious view of the long range of snowy peaks is visible, weather
permitting, from every part of the land. We do not know its boundaries
or how far it extended up into the hills or down into the plains. But the
territory must have been considerable. We hear of a number of towns
besides the capital - Chātumā, Sāmagāra, Khomadussa, Silāvati, Meda-
lumpa, Nagaraka, Ulumpa, Devadaha, and Sakkara. And according to an
.
ancient tradition preserved in the Commentary on the Digha? there were
80,000 families in the clan. This number (it is noteworthy that the auspi-
cious number 84,000 was not chosen) would, allowing for children and
dependents, mean a population of at least half a million. It would be
absurd to take this tradition as a correct, or even as an official enumeration.
We do not even know who first made the calculation. But it would be
equally absurd deliberately to ignore it. It is at least interesting to find
that even as late as Buddhaghosa the traditional estimate of the number of
the Sākiyans was still, in spite of the temptation to magnify the extent of
the 'kingdom' which the Buddha renounced, so limited and so reasonable
as this.
The administrative business of the clan, and also the more important
judicial acts, were carried out in public assembly, at which young and old
were alike. The meetings were held in a mote-hall- a
roof
supported by pillars, without walls. It is called Santhāgāra, a technical
term never used of the council chamber of kings. "
We have no account of the manner in which the proceedings were
conducted in the Sākiya mote-hall. But in the Maha-Govinda Suttanta
there is an account of a palaver in Sakka's heaven, evidently modelled
1 M'Crindle, Ancient India as described by Megasthenese, p. 144, cf. p. 156.
See Rh. D. , Dialogues of the Buddha, I, 147.
D. I, 91.
4 See the passages quoted at J. P. T. S. , 1909, 65.
mere
## p. 157 (#191) ############################################
VII ]
LOCAL ADMINISTRATION
157
>
more or less on the proceedings in a clan meeting. All are seated in a
specified order. After the president has laid the proposed business before
the assembly others speak upon it, and Recorders take charge of the
unanimous decision arrived at? . The actions of gods are drawn in imita-
tion of those of men. We may be sure that the composers and repeaters
of this story, themselves for the most part belonging to the free clans (and,
if not, to neighbouring clans familiar with tribal meetings) would make use
of their knowledge of what was consequently done at the mote-hall
assemblies. This is confirmed by the proceedings adopted in the rules
observed at formal meetings of the Chapters of the Buddhist Order. Quite
a number of cases are given in the Canon Law; and in no single case,
:
apparently, is there question of deciding the point at issue by voting on a
motion moved. Either the decision is regarded as unanimous ; or, if
difference of opinion is manifest, then the matter is referred for arbitration
to a committee of referees'. It is even quite possible that certain of the
technical terms found in the Rules of the Orders (ñatti for ‘motion,'
ubbāhikā for 'reference to arbitration, etc. ), are taken from those in use at
the mote-halls of the free clans. But however that may be, we are justified
by this evidence in concluding that the method of procedure generally
adopted in the mote-halls was not, as in modern parliaments, by voting on
a motion, but rather as just above explained.
A single chief (how or for what period chosen we do not know) was
elected as office holder, presiding over the Senate, and, if no senate were in
session, over the state. He bore the title of Raja which in this connexion
does not mean king, but rather something like Roman consul, or the
Greek archon. We hear at one time that Bhaddiya, a young cousin
of the Buddha, was ‘rāja’4, at another that the Buddha's father Suddhudana
(elsewhere spoken of as a simple clansman, Suddhodana the Sākiyan), held
that ranks.
We hear of mote-halls at some of the other towns besides the capital,
Kapilavatthu. And no doubt all the more important places had them.
The local affairs of each village were carried on in open assembly of the
householders held in the groves which, then as now, formed so distinctive
a feature in the long and level alluvial plain.
The clan subsisted on the produce of their rice fields and their cattle.
The villages were of grouped, not scattered, huts on the margin of the rice
field. The cattle wandered in harvest time, under the charge of a village
herdsman, through the adjoining forest (of which the village groves were a
remnant), and over which the Sākiyan peasantry had common rights.
5
>
1 Translated' in Dialogues, vol. II, pp. 259-264.
2 Translated in Rhys Davids' and Oldenberg's Vinaya Texts. See especially vol.
pp.
44 ff.
3 Vinaya Texts, III, pp. 49 ff.
4 Vinaya II, 181.
5 Digha II 52
III,
## p. 158 (#192) ############################################
158
[ CH
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
>
Men of certain special crafts, most probably not Sākiyans by birth-
carpenters, smiths, and potters for instance - had villages of their own ;
and so also had the Brāhmans whose services were often in request for
all kinds of magic. The villages were separated one from another by
forest jungle, the remains of the Great Wood (the Mahāvana), portions
of which are so frequently mentioned as still surviving throughout the
clanships. The jungle was infested from time to time by robbers, sometimes
runaway slaves. But we hear of no crime (and there was probably not
very much) in the villages themselves - each of them a tiny self-governed
republic.
Tradition tells that the neighbouring clan, the Koliyas, were closely
related by descent with the Sākiyası ; but we are not told much about the
former. Five of their townships besides the capital are referred to by
name: -- Halidda-vasana”, Sajjanela3, Sāpūga“, Uttara”, and Kakkara-pattae.
Every Koliyan was a Vyaggha pajja by surname, just as every Sākiyan was
a Gotama ; and in tradition the name of their capital Rāmagāma, so
called after the Rāma who founded it, is once given as either Kolanagara
or Vyagghapajja? The central authorities of the clan were served by a
body of peons or police, distinguished, as by a kind of uniform, by
a special form of head-dress. These men had a bad reputation for
extortion and violence. In the other clans we are told only of ordinary
servants. The tradition that the Koliyans and Sākiyans built a dam over
the river Rohini which separated their territories, and that they afterwards
quarrelled over the distribution of the store of water, may very well be
founded on fact.
Of the form of government in the Vajjian confederacy, comprising the
Licchavis, the Videhas, and other clans, we have two traditions, Jain
and Buddhist10. They are not very clear and do not refer to the same
matters, the Jain being on military affairs, while the Buddhist refers
to judicial procedure.
THE KINGDOMS. I. KOSALA
Kosala was the most important of the kingdoms in North India
during the life of the Buddhi. Its exact boundaries are not known.
But it must have bordered on the Ganges in its sweep downwards in
a south-easterly direction from the Himālayas to the plains at the modern
Allahābād. Its northern frontier must have been in the hills, in what is
now Nepāl ; its southern boundary was the Ganges; and its eastern
boundary was the eastern limit of the Sākiya territory. For the Sākiyas,
as one of our oldest documents leads us to infer, claimed to be Kosalansll.
1 Sumangala I, 258 ff.
2 M. I, 387; S. V, 115. 3 A. II, 62,
4 A, II, 194.
5 S. IV, 340.
6 A. IV, 281.
7 Sum. I, 262.
8 S. IV, 341.
9 Jat. V, 412-416.
10 Jacobi, Jaina Sutras, I, XII 11 Sutta Nipata, verse 422.
>
## p. 159 (#193) ############################################
VII ]
KOSALA
159
a
The total extent of Kosala was therefore but little less than that of France
to-day. At the same time it is not probable that the administration
was very much centralised. The instance of the very thorough Home Rule
enjoyed, as we have seen, by the Sākiyas should make us alive to the
greater probability that autonomous local bodies, with larger power than
the village communities, which were of course left undisturbed, were still
in existence throughout this wide territory.
One or two of the technical terms in use to describe such powers have
survived. Rāja-bhogga for example is the expression for a form of tenure
peculiar in India. The holder of such a tenure, the rāja-bhoggo, was
empowered to exact all dues accruing to the government within the bound-
aries of the district or estate granted to him. But he had not to render
to government any acco unt of the dues thus received by him. They were
his perquisite. He could hold his own courts, and occupied in many ways
the position of a baron, or lord of the manor. But there was a striking
difference. He could draw no rent. The peasantry had to pay him the tithe,
of the rice grown; and though the amount was not always strictly a tithe,
and by royal decree could be varied in different localities, the grantee could
not vary it. So with the import, or ferry, or octroi duties. The rate of
payment, and the places at which the levy could be made, were fixed by
the government. We have not enough cases of this tenure to be able to
interpret with certainty the meaning of all the details, and limits of space
prevent a discussion of them here. But the general principle is quite clear? .
It shows how easy would be the grant to local notabilities of local govern-
ment to this extent, and how narrow was the line of distinction between
the collection of dues by civil servants or farmers of the taxes and their
collection by a grantee in this way. This custom, thus traced back to so
early a period in the history of India, seems never to have fallen into abey-
ance, It certainly, in the period under discussion, was of manifest advan-
tage. But it must be admitted that it is, to English ideas, very strange -
so strange that our civilians made the mistake, in Bengal, of regarding all
such persons legally empowered to collect the land-tax as landlords, and of
endowing them accordingly with the much greater privileges and powers
of the English landlord. In the Buddhist period there is no evidence of
the existence, in North India, of landlords in our sense of that term.
It was the rise of this great power, Kosala, in the very centre of
Northern India, which was the paramount factor in the politics of the time
before the Buddhist reform. We do not know the details of this rise. But
there are purely incidental references imbedded in the ethical teachings in the
Buddhist books which afford us at least hints as to the final manner of it,
and as to the date of it. For instance we have the story of Dighāvu in the
1 D. I, 114, 127, 130 : cf. II, 50 and Divy. , 620, Vin. III, 221, with the Old Com.
mentary at 222, M. III, 133, Jāt. VI, 344, Sum. Vil. I, 245, 246.
## p. 160 (#194) ############################################
160
[ch.
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
Vinaya? . There Brahinadatta, king of Käsi, invades Kosala, when Dighiti
was king at Săvatthi, and conquered and annexed the whole country ; but
finally restored it to Dighiti's son, with whom he had become on very
friendly terms. Other traditions inform us on the other hand of several
invasions of the Kāsi country by the then kings of Kosala, Vanka,
Dabbasena, and Kamsa? . And when that most excellent story, the Rājovada
Jātaka3- as good in humour as it is in ethics-was first put together to
represent two kings in conflict, the quite natural idea was to fix upon kings
of Kosala and Kāsi, and the author does so accordingly.
No references have so far been found in the books as to any contests
between Kosala and any other tribe or nationality. It would seem therefore
that the gradual absorption into Kosala of the clans and tribes in the
northern part of Kosala as we know it in the Buddha's time took place
without any such battle, campaign, or siege as was sufficiently striking to
impress the popular imagination ; but that when Kosala came into contact
with Kāsi there ensued a struggle, with varying result and lasting through
several reigns, which ended in the complete subjugation of the Kāsi country
by Kamsa, king of Kosala.
As to the approximate period of these events, we see that they
were supposed to have taken place not only before the time of Pasenadi,
who was born about the same time as the Buddha and lived about as long,
but also before the time of his father the Great Kosalan. We have four
kings of Kosala mentioned as taking part in these wars, and cannot be sure
that there were not others who had quieter reigns. It would be enough and
more than enough to allow, in round numbers, a century for all these
kings. And the period cannot be much longer than that. For the name
Brahmadatta could not have been older than towards the close of the
Brāhmaṇa literature ; and a century and a half before the birth of the
Buddha would about bring us to that.
The king of Kosala in the Buddha's time was Pasenadi. He was of
the same age as the Teacher; and though never actually converted, was
very favourable to the new movement, adopted its more elementary teach-
ings, and was fond of calling upon the Buddha either to consult him or
simply for conversation. A whole book of the Samyutta is devoted to such
talks, and others are recorded elsewhere. They are mostly on religion or
ethics, but some political and personal matters are occasionally mentioned
incidentally.
For instance five ‘rājas' are introduced discussing a point in
psychology with Pasenadi. Whatever the title may exactly imply it is
probable that we have the leaders of five clans or communities that,
1 l'inaya Texts, II, 293-305.
? Jät. I, 262 ;II, 403 ; III, 13, 168, 211; v, 1 12.
3 Jätaka II, 1.
4 M. II, 124.
6 The Kosala Samyutta, S. I, 68-102.
>
## p. 161 (#195) ############################################
VII ]
AJĀTASATTU
161
formerly independent, had, at that time, been absorbed into Kosala. Again
we hear of a double campaign. In the first Ajātasattu, king of Magadha,
attacks Pasenadi in the Kāsi country and compels him to take refuge
in Sāvattbi'. In the second, Pasenadi comes down again into the plains,
defeats Ajātasattu, and captures him alive. Then he restores to him the
possession of his camp and army, and lets him go free". The commentaries
inform us that he also gave him, on this occasion his daughter Vajirā, to
wife. They also give the reasons for the dispute between the two kings ;
but this will be better dealt with under the next heading. Another con-
versation arises when the king comes to tell the teacher of the death of his
(the king's) grandmother for whom he expressed his deep devotion and
esteem. She had died at a great age, specified at 120 years, no doubt a
round number. At another talk Sumanā, the king's sister, is present, and
becomes converted. Desiring to enter the Order she refrains from doing
so in order to take care of this same old lady, and attains Arahantship while
still a lay-woman. The last and longest talk between the two friends
took place at Medaļumpa in the Sākiya country. The king, in much
trouble with his family and ministers, expressed his admiration, anci
possibly also some envy, at the manner in which the teacher preserved peace
in his Order. He then took his last leave with a striking declaration of his
devotion. But even as they were talking the crisis had come. The
radition records that the minister in whose charge the insignia had been
left when the king went on alone, had in his absence, proclaimed the king's
son, Viļūdabha, as king. Pasenadi found himself deserted by all his
people. He hurried away to Rājagaha to get help from Ajātasattu, and,
worn out by worry and fatigue, he died outside the gates of the city? .
Ajātasattu gave him a state funeral, but naturally enough left Vidūdabha
undisturbed.
The first use the latter made of his new position was to invade the
Sākiya territory, and slaughter as many of the clan - men, women and
children -as he could catch. Many however escaped®, and it is, perhaps, ,
to this remnant what we owe the Piprahwa Tope discovered by Mr. Peppe.
Elsewhere it has been shown that the reasons given for this invasion were
probably not the real ones. But why should the Buddhists have taken
pains so elaborately to explain away the fact, unless the fact itself had been
indisputable? This is the last we know of Kosala. We hear nothing more
of Viļūdabha, or of his successors if he had any.
When the curtain rises
again Kosa la has been absorbed into Magadha.
1 S. I, 79.
2 S. I, 82-85.
3 Jāt. II, 404 ;IV, 343.
4 S. I, 97, cf. Jät. IV, 146. 5 S. I, 69; Thig. 16.
6 M. JI, 118-124.
7 Jātaka IV, 152.
8 Dhp. A. I, 359 ; Mahavamsa VIII, 18, and the Tikā on it.
9 Buddhist India, pp. 1), 12.
>
## p. 162 (#196) ############################################
162
( ch.
THE EARLY HISTORI OF BUDDHISTS
II. MAGADHA
This was a narrow strip of country of some considerable length from
north to south, and about twelve to fifteen per cent. in area of the size of
Kosala. Just as Kosala corresponded very nearly to the present province of
Oudh, but somewhat larger, so Magadha corresponded in the time of
the Buddha to the modern district of Patna, but with the addition of the
northern half of the modern district of Gayā. The inhabitants of this
region still call it Magā, a name doubtless derived from Magadhat. The
boundaries were probably the Ganges to the north, the Son to the west, a
dense forest reaching to the plateau of Chotā Nagpur to the south, and
Anga to the east. The river Champā had been the boundary between
Magadha and Anga? ; but in the Buddha's time Anga was subject to
Magadha- it is the king, not of Anga, but of Magadha, who makes a
Jand-grant in Anga (that is a grant of the government tithe), and an Anga
village is one of the eighty thousand parishes over which the king of
Magadha holds rule and sovereignty! All the clansmen in each of these
.
two countries are called by Buddhaghosa, princes (exactly as he elsewhere
calls the Sākiyas and Licchavis). The same writer says that the two
kingdoms amounted together to 'three hundred leagues. It is reasonable
to suppose, as he was born and bred in Magadha, that he was not so very
far wrong. But this is said in reference to the time of Bimbisāra. Later
on he estimates the area of the whole of the United Kingdom of Magadha,
in the time of Ajātasattu, at five hundred leagues. We may conclude from
this that, according to the tradition handed down to Buddha ghosa, the
size of the kingdom had nearly doubled in the interval. This would
be about correct if the allusion were to Ajātasattu's conquests north of the
Ganges? . As Buddhaghosa however seems to use the larger figures of
a date, not after, but at the beginning of those conquests, other wars
of which we have no record, to the east or south, may be meant.
The king of Magadha in the Buddha's time, was Bimbisāra.
principal queens one was the Kosala Devi, daughter of Mahā-Kosala ; and
sister therefore of Pasenadi8 ; another was Chellanā, daughter of a chieftain
of the Licchavis'; and a third was Khemā, daughter of the king of Madda
in the Punjabł0. If the traditions of these relationships be correct they are
eloquent witnesses to the high estimate held in other countries of the
then political importance of Magadha.
1 Grierson in E. R. E. VI, 181.
? Jāt. IV, 454-above, pp. 153-54. 3 Digha I, 111. 4 Vinaya I, 179.
5 Rāja-kumārā, Sum. I, 279,294. See Early Buddhism, 27.
6 Yojanas, Sum. I, 148.
? V. Inf. p. 164. 8 Jāt, II, 403. 9 Jacobi, Jaina Sūtrar, I, XII-XV.
10 Thig. A. on 139-143, and A padāna quoted ibid. 131.
a
## p. 163 (#197) ############################################
VII]
MAGADHA
163
Bimbisāra had a son known as Vedehi-putto Ajātasattu in the
canonical Pāli texts, and as Kūņika by the Jains. The later Buddhist
tradition makes him a son of the Kosala Devi ; the Jain tradition,
. confirmed by the standing epithet of Vedehi-putto, son of the princess of
Videha, in the older Buddhist books, makes him a son of Chellanā.
Buddhaghosa has preserved what is no doubt the traditional way of
explaining away the evidence contained in the epithet? . But the matter
cannot be further discussed here.
One of the very oldest fragments preserved in the canon is a ballad
on the first meeting of Bimbisāra and Gotama. In the ballad the latter is
called 'the Buddha. ' But the meeting took place about seven years before
he became the Buddha in our modern sense ; and this unwonted use
of a now familiar title would have been impossible in any later documenta.
Gotama has only just started on his search for truth. The king, with
curious density, offers to make him a captain, and give him wealth. It
will be noticed that the king still resides in the palace of the old capital at
the Giribbaja, 'the Hill Fort'. Some years afterwards when Gotama
returns as a teacher, tbe king was lodged in the new palace that gave its
name to the new capital, Rājagaha, 'the King's House. ' The ruins of both
these places are still extant; and the stone walls of the Giribbaja are
probably the oldest identified remains in India. Dhammapāla says that the
place was originally built or planned by Mahā-Govinda, the famous
architect, to whom it was the proper thing to ascribe the laying out of
ancient cities.
On Gotama's second visit to Rājagaha Bimbisāra presented him
with the Bamboo Grove, where huts could be built for the accommodation
of the Ordert - just as he endowed also the opposite teaching”. We hear
very little about him in the books. He is not even mentioned in three out
of the four Nikāyas, and the few references in the fourth are of the most
meagre kind. But the Vinaya gives a short account of an attempt made
by Ajātasattu to kill his father with a sword", and in the closing words of
the Sāmañña-phala there is an allusion to the actual murder which he
afterwards committed? The commentary on that Suttanta gives a long
account of how it happened. The details may or may not be true ; but
the main fact that Bimbisāra was put to death by his son Ajātasattu may
be accepted as historical. The Ceylon chronologists place this event
1 Sum. I, 139. Cf. Diulogues, II, 78.
2 Sutta Nipāta, verse 408. See Dialogues, II, 2. The ballad is translated in Rh. D. ,
Early Buddhism, 31-34.
3 Vimāna-vatthu Commentary, p. 82, and above p. 154.
4 Vinaya 1, 39. 5 Ligha I, 111, 127.
Vinaya II, 190 7 Dīgha I, 86,
8 Sum. I, 133-136; Peta-v, A. 105.
6
## p. 164 (#198) ############################################
164
[сн
THE EARLY HISTORY OF THE BUDDHISTS
eight years before the Buddha's death, at the time when Bimbisāra; who
had come to the throne when he was fifteen, had reigned fifty-two years. ".
On the death of Bimbisāra, his wife, the Kosala Devi, is said by
tradition to have died of grief? .
The
government revenues of an estate in
Kāsi had been settled upon her by Mahā-Kosala as pin-money on her
marriage. At her death the payment of course ceased. Ajātasattu then
invaded Kāsi. It seems incredible that this could have been the real
motive of the war, unless the kings of that place and time were less
expert in inventing pretexts for a war which they wanted than modern
kings in Europe. The war itself is however mentioned in the Canon", and
with some detail. In the first campaign Ajātasattu out-manæuvred his
aged uncle, and drove him back upon Sāvatthi. In the next, however,
Pasenadi lured his nephew into an ambush, and he was compelled to
surrender with all his force. But Pasenadi soon set him at liberty,
gave him back his army, and, according to the commentary, gave him
also one of his daughters in marriage.
In the opening paragraph of the Maha-parinibbāna Suttanta' we hear
of Ajātasattu's intention to attack the Vajjian confederacy, and, as the first
step in the attack, of his building a fortress at Pāțaliputta, the modern Patna,
on the south bank of the Ganges, the then boundary between his territory
and theirs. The minister in charge of this work was a Brāhman, known to
us only by his official title, 'the Pain-maker' (Vassakāra). He fled suddenly
to the Vajjian capital Vesāli, giving out that he had barely escaped with his
life from Ajātasattu. The Vajjians gave him refuge and hospitality. He then
dwelt among them, carefully disseminating lies and slanders until he judged
the unity of the confederation to be finally broken. Three years after his
kindly reception he gave the hint to his master, who swooped down on
Vesāli, and destroyed it, and treated his relatives very much as Vidūdabha
had treated his. We can only hope this ghastly story of dishonour, trea-
chery, and slaughter is a fairy-tale. The question can only be discussed
with profit when we have the whole of the commentary before us.
The son of Ajātasattu is mentioned in the Canon. His name was
Udāyi-bhadda, and it follows from the statements of the Ceylon Chronicles
that he succeeded his father on the throne. This is confirmed in the com-
mentaries? The name also occurs in medieval Jain and Hindu lists, inde-
pendent no doubt, both of them, of the Buddhist books.
1 Dip. III, 56. 60 ; Mhr, II, 29, 30.
2 Jät. II, 403.
3 Samyutta I, 84-86. Cf. Dhp. A. III, 259; Jāt. IV, 342.
4 Rh. D. , Dialogues of the Buddha, II, 78.
5 Digha I, 50-Dialogues, I, 68.
6 Dip. V, 97; Mhv. IV, 1.
7 Smp. 321 ; Sum. 1, 153-4.
8 V. inf. , pp. 168-69.
## p. 165 (#199) ############################################
VII)
AVANTI
165
III. AVANTI
The king of Avanti in the Buddha's time was Pajjota the Fierce, who
reigned at the capital Ujjeni. There is a legend about him which shows
that he and bis neighbour king Udena of Kosambi were believed to have
been contemporaries, connected by marriage, and engaged in war. The
boundary is not given, but a commentary mentions incidentally that the two
capitals were in round numbers fifty yojanas, about four hundred miles,
apart. We have seen that when the Nikāyas were composed Avanti was
considered to have been one of the important kingdoms of India before the
Buddha's time. Shortly after the Buddha's death Ajātasattu is said to
have been fortifying his capital, Rājagaha, in anticipation of an attack by
Pajjota of Avanti? . The king of the Sūrasenas, at Madhura, in the Buddha's
time, was called Avantiputto ; and was therefore almost certainly the son
of a princess of Avanti'. The Lalita-vistara gives the personal name of the
king of Madhura in the year of the Buddha's birth as Subāhu', and this
may be the same person.
Avanti became from the first an important centre of the new doctrine
we now call Buddhism in India it was not so called till centuries later).
Several of the most earnest and zealous adherents of the Dhamma were either
born or resided there. Abhaya Kumāra is mentioned and Isidāsiand
Isidatta8 and Dhammapāla' and Sona Kuţikaņņa10, and especially Mahā.
Kaccānall. The last of these is stated to have been called by the Buddha the
most pre-eminent of those of his disciples able to expound at length, both
as to form and meaning, that which had been said in short. The last but one,
Soņa, wās in a similar way declared to be the most eminent of the disciples
distinguished for beauty of expression. In what language were they supposed
to have exercised these literary gifts ? It was certainly not the religious
language then current in the priestly schools of Brāhmanism. This archaic
form of speech which has been preserved in the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads
was called by the grammarians chhāndasa, 'the language of chhandas or Ved
poetry,' to distinguish it from the laukika or 'secular' language ; and the
Buddha had expressly forbidden his 'word' to be put into chhandas. Each
disciple was to speak the word in his own dialect13. It would be a
mistake, however, to be misled by the ambiguities of the word dialect,
and to suppose it to mean here the language as spoken by any peasantry.
1 Buddhist India, 4-7.
2 Above, p. 153. Cf. Jāt. IV, 390.
3 M. III, 7.
M. I), 83.
5 Ed. Rajendra Lal Mitra, p. 24. 6 Thag. A. 39.
7 Thig, A. 261-4
8 S. IV, 288 ; Thag. 120.
