India As Described In Early Texts Of Buddhism and Jainism

Author(s): Bimla Charn Law
Publisher: Bimlacharan Law

Page 60

52 INDIA. AS DESCRIBED IN EARLY TEXTS
Vajji territory: It appears to have comprised the principalities of eight? or nine 2 allied clans. The names of all of them are nowhere given; these are left only to be inferred. The Pali works expressly speak of Vajjīgāma, a locality of the Vajjis near about Vesālī. Vesāli (modern Besarh in the Muzaffarpur district of North Bebar) was the headquarters of the Licchavis. The city was rich, prosperous and populous. 'It had 7,707 storied buildings, 7,707 pinnacled houses (kūtāgāras), 7,707 ārămas, and 7,707 lotus ponds', too symmetrical to be accepted as a fact. It was encompassed by three walls at a distance of a gāvuta from one another each provided with gates and watch-towers. The early Jaina texts locate Kundagāma, the seat of power of the Nātas in a suburb of Vesālī. The country of the Bhaggas is placed between Vesāli and Săvatthi. Videha (modern Tirhut), the land of ther Videhas, with Mithilā as its capital, was bounded by the Kosiki in the east, the Ganges in the south, the Sadānīrā in the west, and the Himalayas in the north. Cunningham identi.
1 Sumangalavilásini, ii, p. 619: an inference drawn from the expression atthakulika. * Kalpasūtra, seo. 128; Nirayávalt Sutra: an inference drawn from the expression navamallali.
8 Samyutta, v, 348, eto. 4 Vinaya Texta, ii, 171; Lalitavistara, ed. Lefmann, Oh, iii, p. 21. 5 Acarángasutra, Janina Sutras, SBR., vol. xxii, pp. x-xi. * Law, Geography of Early Buddhism, pp. 7, 30, 31.