Tribes In Ancient India

SR No.: 007311
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute
Publication Year: 1943
Total Pages: 449
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 132 MB

Page 215

THE MAGADHAS
197 a hundred years, and then the Nandas were destroyed in their turn by Kautilya who installed Candragupta Maurya on the throne. Ten kings of the Maurya dynasty are said to have ruled over Magadha for 137 years. Brhadratha was the last king of this dynasty, which was followed by the Sungas, founded by Pusyamitra. Ten kings of this dynasty ruled for 112 years, Devabhūti being the last monarch of the Sunga family; he was killed by Vāsudeva Kāņva, who founded the Kāņva dynasty, and four kings of this family ruled in Magadha for 45 years. Then Sipraka, a royal servant, murdered King Sušarman, usurped the throne and founded the Andhra dynasty, thirty kings of which reigned in Magadha for 456 years. The Vişnupurāna gives us a long list of the ancestors of Jarāsandha as well as of the monarchs who succeeded him.3
Kālidāsa, who seems to have derived his materials from the Purāṇas and Epics, speaks of the intermarriage of the early kings of Kośaia with the ruling family of Magadha. He says that Dilīpa, the father of Raghu, married Sudaksiņā, daughter of the king of Magadha. In his beautiful account of the Svayamvara of Indumatī, Kālidāsa also refers to the prominent position occupied by the Magadhan king, 5 We have a description of Magadha in the Daśakumāracaritam of Daņdin who belongs to about the same period as Kālidāsa. Dandin there speaks of a monarch, Rājahamsa, who was a powerful king of Magadha, and who defeated Mānusāra, king of Mālava. Bhāsa's Svapnavāsavadattā also speaks of Magadha and its king, whose daughter Padmāvati married the king of Vatsa, Udayana.?
The Samantapāsādi kā mentions two other kings of Magadha, viz. Anuruddha, and his son Munda. The latter is also referred to in the Anguttara Nikāya. Here we read that King Munda was overwhelmed with grief at the death of his queen, Bhaddā, and asked his treasurer to embalm her body in an oil pot, so that he might continue to look at her. The treasurer besought Muņda to go to the sage Nārada who was dwelling at the Kukkuțārāma near Pāķaligāma
1 Twenty-two years according to the more reliable account of the Samantapāsādikā (72); cf. Mahāvamsa, Chap. IV.
2 Vişnupurāņa, IV, 24. The Buddhist Samantapāsādikā (Vol. I, pp. 72-3) gives the following summary of Magadhan dynasties. Udaya Bhadda reigned for sixteen years. He was succeeded by Susunāga (i.e. Siśunāga) who ruled for eighteen years. Then came the Nandas who reigned in Magadha for the same period. The Nanda dynasty was overthrown by Candagutta who ruled the kingdom for twentyfour years, and he was succeeded by Bindusāra who reigned for twenty-eight years, and was succeeded by Aśoka.
3 Vişnupurāna, IV, Chap. 19, Chap. 23; Matsyapurāna, Chap. 50, Chap. 271. 4 Raghuvamsa, I, 31.
5 Ibid., VI 6 Sankhiptakathā, Pūrvapīțhikā, pp. 4-5.
7 See Vatsa chapter.