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CULTURAL DATA IN TILAKAMAÑJARĪ
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there were no two Kośalas and refuted the opinion of different scholars as under:
"Certain scholars believe that there were two Kośalas in North India itself. The Primary source of their belief is Avadānaśataka, which refers to a war between the kings of the two Kośalas north and south and suggest that the river Sarayū formed the dividing line between the two territories. According to them the two regions were called separately as Uttara Kośala and Dakşiņa Kośala. According to Cunningham the northern portion was called 'Uttara Kosala' and that to the south “Banaodha”. He further divided the two portions into separate sub-divisions. The real crux of the problem, however, lies in working out the details. The believers in the theory of two Kośalas in the north describe the river Sarayū i.e. Ghāgrā as the boundary line between the two divisions but at the same time they say that the capitals of Uttara and Dakşiņa Kosala were Srāvasts and Kuśāvati respectively.2 This, however, is the weakest point in their argument. As far Srāvasti is concerned, it was undoubtedly the third and the last capital of Uttara Kośala. But what about Kuśāvatī? If it is placed in the northern part of India, it can be identified only with the modern town of Kasaya, in the Deoria district of Uttara Pradesh, 37 miles east of Gorakhpur city. Kasaya has been distinguished as Kusinārā in the Mahāparinbbāna Sutta of the Dīghanikāya and is named Kuśāvatī, the ancient capital of king Mahāsudassana in the Mahāsudassana Sutta. Then how can it be said to have existed to the south of Sarayū, the so called dividing line between the two Kośalas? Its present site Kasaya or Kusinagara is far north of Sarayū and east of Srāvastī. The two Kośalas then would not be the northern and southern ones. Rather one would be in the west with Srāvastī as its capital and the other would fall in the east with Kuśāvatī or Kusāvati i.e. Kasayā as its capital. The distinction becomes, it is evident, completely wrong and to accept the two portions as falling west and east of each other would be baseless.
That Kośala came to be later known as Uttara Kośala and was a single entity in the north of India having no internal divisions is proved from other independent reference. The Bhagavata Purāna calls it both as Uttara Kosala and Kosala and points out to its single character. The Vālmīki Rāmāyana makes it perfectly clear that Košala extended (Nivistah) on both the sides of the river Sarayū. Kālidāsa states that Dilipa was the sovereign of Uttara Kośala. (Raghuvassa III 5, p.66 GRNE 38 HITA:) The region meant is the
1. History of Kośala up to the rise of the Mauryas pp 43-46. 2. HIGAI pp. 52-53. See 44e above.
