________________
ANTI-MAGADHAN CONFEDERACY
213
hand and Vaisali on the other. It seems that all the enemies of Ajataśatru including the rulers of Kasi-Kosala and Vaisali offered a combined resistance. The Kosalan war and the Vajjian war were probably not isolated events but parts of a common movement directed against the establishment of the hegemony of Magadha. The flames fused together into one big conflagration. 1 We are reminded of the tussle of the Samnites, Etruscans and Gauls with the rising power of Rome.
In the war with Vaiśāli Kūniya-Ajataśatru is said to have made use of the Mahasilakanṭaga and ra(t)hamusala. The first seems to have been some engine of war of the nature of a catapult which threw big stones. The second was a chariot to which a mace was attached and which, running about, effected a great execution of men." The ra(t)hamusala may be compared to the tanks used in the great world wars.
The war is said to have synchronised with the death of Gosala Mankhaliputta, the great teacher of the Ajivika sect. Sixteen years later at the time of Mahavira's death the anti-Magadhan confederacy is said to have been still in existence. We learn from the Kalpa Sutra that on the death of Mahavira the confederate kings mentioned in the Nirayavali Sutra instituted a festival to be held in memory of that event. The struggle between the Magadhan king and the powers arrayed against him thus seems to have been protracted for more than sixteen years. The
1 We are told that even Pradyota of Avanti made preparations to avenge the death of his friend Bimbisara (DPPN, I. 34).
2 Uvāsaga-dasão, Vol. II, Appendix, p. 60; Kathakośa, p. 179.
3 S.B.E., xxii, 266 (para. 128). As pointed out by Jacobi (The Kalpasūtra of Bhadravahu, 6 ff.), the traditional date of Mahavira's Nirvana is 470 years before Vikrama (58 B.C.) according to the Svetambaras, and 605 according to the Digambaras. It is suggested that Vikrama of the Digambaras is intended for Śali vahana (78 A.D.). A different tradition is, however, recorded by Hemchandra who says that 155 years after the liberation of Mahavira Chandragupta became king:
