________________
516
It was this second Committee that was responsible for the building up of the Confederacy which claimed within its fold the Licchavis, the Mallas and kingdom of Kasi-Kosala, of which the head was King Cetaka.
Jitasatru, Singha and Cetaka
In his English translation of the Uvasagadasão, Dr. Hornell has confused King Jitasatru of Vanijyagrāma with King Cetaka. This is not correct. When in the Vaisāli confederacy, there were 7707 kings, there is no reason why the two should be confused as one and the same person. Dr. Otto Stein has, however, tried to throw light on this in diverse ways (243).
Some people have stretched their imagination to suggest that Singha Senapati to the Buddhist tradition and King Cetaka were one and the same person (244). The reason for his surmise may be that according to the Tibetan tradition, (245), Queen Vasavi, wife of Bimbisāra, was the daughter of Singha Senapati, and she was the mother of Ajātas atru. But leaving aside the Tibetan tradition, this has not been corroborated by any other source. Had Singha Senapati been the father-in-law of Bimbisāra and maternal grand-father of Ajātasatru, the Tripiṭakas would have taken pride to record this relation. Under the circumstances, this should not be given too much importance beyond what may be due to a popular gossip of the later period.
In the Buddhist literature, Singha has been consistently called a 'Senapati' or army commander, whereas Cetaka was the head of the most powerful confederacy of the time. This is not very likely that a king would be confused with an army commander by anyone. In the social hierarchy of the time, as also of later period, the position of the king and that of a general were clearly distinct. Dr. Jyoti Prasad Jain is of opinion that King Cetaka had 10 sons of whom the eldest named Singha or Singhabhadra was a famous general of the Vajjis (246).
The main Jaina sources on the life-story of King Cetaka are the Nirayavalika and the Bhagavati. This story has been already recounted at length under the section on 'Ajātas atru' above.
