Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

Author(s): J C Sikdar
Publisher: Research Institute of Prakrit Jainology & Ahimsa Mujjaffarpur

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STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SUTRA
[Ch. III
Videhaputra king Kūņika of Magadha. He had to submit to the mandate of his state and went to war with his well-equipped army, being surrounded and followed by many leaders of the republic, ambassadors, and frontier guards. But he fought this battle according to the principle of not-striking the enemy first. Having seriously been smitten with an arrow of one rival soldier, he at once left the battlefield and passed his last breath in a lonely place by fully observing the holy teachings of the Nirgrantha Order.1
But what was the real cause of these two great wars between king Kūņika and the confederation of nine Mallakis, nine Licchavis, Kaśi, Kosala and their eighteen republican chiefs? What was the common interest which led the members of this confederation to form a military alliance under the leadership of king Cetaka in order to fight their common enemy, the Magadhan king? The BhS does not throw any light upon these two aspects of this political struggle going on between the two sides at the time of Lord Mahāvīra. So one should turn his attention to the other literary sources for ascertaining the real cause of these two political events between the two warring camps and finding out also the reason of the military alliance formed by the confederate powers.
In this respect some Jaina works furnish most valuable informations regarding the causes of these two political struggles between Magadha and the Vrjjian confederacy as reflected in the
BhS.
It is said in the Nirayavaliya Sutra that the cause of this great conflict was the gift of one famous state elephant, 'Seyanaga' (secanaka) i e., sprinkler and a huge necklace of eighteen strings of Jewels, made by king Seniya (Bimbisāra)
1 BhS, 7, 9, 303.
2 Nirayavaliya Sutra 1; See Uvasagadasão,, Appendix II, p. 7, Dr. Hoernle; cf. Tawny, Kathakośa, pp. 176 ff.
3 According to Avasyaka Carni (II., p. 158), king Seniya was known as Bhambhasara, because once he took a drum (Bhambha) at the time when the palace of Kusag gapura caught fire due to the carelessness of a cook.