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Shri Mahavir Jain Aradhana Kendra
www.kobatirth.org
Acharya Shri Kailassagarsuri Gyanmandir
AJITASENA-VYAKARAŅAM Śrāvasti and Rājagțha, for in the ms. also we see that Buddha was at Srāvasti and asked Nandimitra to go eastwards to Magadha to convert Ajitasena and his son.
Our object therefore should be to look for a place in or near Magadha having simha as a part of its name. A careful study of the Mahavamsa yields very interesting results. The ancient name of Ceylon as given in the Mahavamsa is either Tambapanni or Lankā, and nowhere do we find mention of Simhala. The introductory verse of chapter ix of the Dipavamsa,' if literally translated, would be: "there was the Lankādipa (inhabited by) the Sihala people so called after sība. The fact that Ceylon was originally called Larkādipa but later on came to be known as Simhala after the Sihala people of eastern India, will be apparent from the story of the conversion of Ceylon which is as follows:
"There was the king of Vanga in the city of Vanga in the kingdom of Vanga. He made the daughter of the king of Kalinga his queen. She lost herself in the forest of Lālarattha, and lived with a lion. She had a son and a daughter called respectively Sihabahu and Sihasivali. After some time she returned to Vanga with her children. Her son Sihabahu was offered the throne of Vanga for killing the lion. He accepted it but gave it away to the second 'husband of his mother.' He took his sister and went back to the forest of his birth and built a city called Sihapura and the kingdom reclaimed by him from forests was known as Lāļarattha.” His eldest son was Vijaya who colonised
1 Larkādipo ayam ahū sihena sihalā iti. 2 Mahāvamsa, vi, 34, 35:
So rajjam sampațicchitvā datvā mātupatissa tam Sihasivalim ādāya jāti-bbūmim gato sayam. Nagaram tattha māpesi, āhu Sihapuram ti tam
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Lālaratthe pure tasmim Sihabāhu narādhipo
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