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KINGS AND PEOPLES
105
overthrowing the Nagas of the Narmadă region. The Haihayas and their descendants, the Avantis, Bhojas, and the rest, were all originally of the Satvata race.1
The pedigree of king Candapajjota of Avantī is nowhere given in Pali or Ardhamägadhi. According to the Purāņas, however, his father was Pulika who killed his master, the then reigning king of Avanti and anointed his son, Pradyota by force. Pradyota who subdued all neighbouring kings was 'destitute of good" policy.' He reigned for 23 years and was succeeded by five kings who reigned for 138 years. His son and successor was Pālaka whose reign served as data for fixing the date of Mahavira's demise. Thus in the time of Mahavira and the Buddha, Candapajjota or Pajjota was the powerful monarch of Avanti who had three sons and a daughter named Vasuladatta (Sk. Vasavadattā). Vasuladattā eloped with king Udena of the Vaccha realm.
Within a century and a half from the death of Pajjota, the country of the Avantis became merged in the Maurya empire.
The Jātakas speak of sixteen Bhojaputtas.3 But they tell us nothing as to the countries where the sixteen branches of the Bhojas resided
1 Raychaudhuri, op. cit., 4th ed., p. 23.
2 Pargiter, Dynasties of the Kali Age, pp. 18, 68.
Samyutta, i, 61-62; Jätaka, i, p. 46; Law, Geography, p. 62.
