Studies in the Bhagavati Sutra

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

Page 94

Sec. II) STUDIES İN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA 69 of Magadha to his younger sons, Halla and Behalla by his wife, queen Cellanā, the daughter of king, Cetaka.
On his ascendency to the royal power after the usurpation of his father's throne by him, king Kūņika, the eldest son of king Seņiya, being instigated by his wife, Paumāyaī, demanded the surrender of those two gifts from his two younger brothers. But they refused to give them up to king Kūņika and they immediately carried them off to their maternal grandfather, king Cetaka, by their secret flight to Vaiśāli in order to escape the forcible surrender of these two precious gifts.
On his failure to obtain the peaceful extradition of the two fugitives, together with those presents, king Kūņika waged war against king Cetaka'.
The Buddhist text however reveals that the economic interest between Magadha and Vaiśäli was the real cause of this political struggle which led these two states to war to settle their issues in the battlefield. It is stated in the Sumangala Vilāsini", a commentary of Buddhaghoşa that the violation of the economic agreement on the part of the Licchavis, regarding the condominiun exercised by them and king Kūņika, over a mine of precious gems or some fragrant article in the vicinity of a port situated on the bank of the Ganges, led to the war between these two powers.
Thus it is found that there is a difference between the evi. dences furnished by the Jain and Buddhist texts respectively.
A close study of the above facts shows that the real cause of the struggle between the two powers was both political and economic. It is apparently clear that the rising state of Magadha followed a policy of expansion and self-aggrandizement at the cost of its powerful northern neighbouring state of Vaiśāli to establish its hegemony over the lower Gangetic region
1 Nirayāvaliyā Sūtra I, See U văsa gadasāo II, Appendix, p. 7,
Dr. Hoernle ; cf. Tawney, Kathākośa, pp. 176 ff. Burmese Edition, part II, p. 99. See also B. C. Law's Buddhist Studies, p. 199; DPPN. II 781.