Story of Nation Buddhist India

Author(s): T W Rhys Davids
Publisher: T Fisher Unwin Ltd

Page 24

THE KINGS
3
As regards the monarchies, the four referred to above as then of importance are as follows:
1. The kingdom of Magadha, with its capital at Rājagaha (afterwards at Pāṭaliputta), reigned over at first by King Bimbisāra and afterwards by his son Ajātasattu.
2. To the north-west there was the kingdom of Kosala the Northern Kosala with its capital at Savatthi, ruled over at first by King Pasenadi and afterwards by his son Viḍūḍabha.
3. Southwards from Kosala was the kingdom of the Vamsas or Vatsas, with their capital at Kosambi on the Jumna, reigned over by King Udena, the son of Parantapa.
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4. And still farther south lay the kingdom of Avanti, with its capital Ujjeni, reigned over by King Pajjota.
The royal families of these kingdoms were united by matrimonial alliances; and were also, not seldom in consequence of those very alliances, from time to time at war. Thus Pasenadi's sister, the Kosala Devi, was the wife of Bimbisāra, King of Magadha. When Ajàtasattu, Bimbisāra's son by another wife (the Videha lady from Mithila), put his father Bimbisāra to death, the Kosala Devī died of grief. Pasenadi then confiscated that township of Kāsi, the revenues of which had been granted to the Kosala Devī as pin money. Angered at this, Ajātasattu declared war against his aged uncle.' At first victory inclined to Ajātasattu. But in the fourth campaign he was taken prisoner, and not released until Properly brother of his stepmother." ~
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