________________
490
one crore and 80 lakh people in course of two days, the oracle about Kulavalaka, the forecast about the overthrow of the Vajjis on the destruction of the sacred altar, etc., do not appear to be very convincing to a rational mind. The Buddhist account, in contrast, is easy and natural.
As a cause of the war, we have in one account a diamond mine, and in the other, a very costly divine necklace. This shows some similarity between the two. Accor ding to the Jaina account, the arrow of Cetaka never failed its target; in the Buddhist account, the description of the Vajjis as the most invincible people makes almost a similar hint. In the Jaina account, an altar in the city protected the city of the Vajjia; this may be compared with what the Buddha said, "So long as the Vajjis will honour the caityas both inside and outside their city, they will attain fresh heights and will never go down".
As to the main personalities of the war, the Jaina account is more detailed than the Buddhist. The latter does not even take note of Ceṭaka, who was the main adversary of Ajatasatru, and his allies, 9 Mallas and 9 Licchavis, the 18 kings of Kasi-Kosala, who were the members of the Confederacy.
The use of a secret strategy has been admitted in both the accounts. The Jaina accounts gives two phases of war, viz., i) straight fighting for a fortnight, and ii) storming of the wall round Vaisali. There is a time gap between the two phases. Radha Kumud Mookerjee is of the view that this gap could be as long as 16 years (145). According to the Buddhist account, Vassakara lived for three years in Vaisali and created a split among the Vajjis. From this, the conclusion is unavoidable that the Buddhistaccount deals only with the second phase of the war.
Queens and Progeny of Kūnika
In the Jaina account, we come across principally three names of Kunika's queens. They are Padmavati (146), Dharini(147), and Subhadra (148). According to the Avasyak Curyi, Kuņika married eight princesses (149), but we do not get any worthwhile detail about them from this
source.
