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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
Kaušāmbi is described as the capital of the Vatsa country, as also in the Kathāsaritsāgara. The Vividhatīrthakalpa (p. 23) definitely states that the forests of Kausāmbi were reached along the course of the Kālimdi (i.e. Yamunā or Jumna).2
According to the description in the Suttani pāta of a journey of Bāvari's disciples from Patitthāna to Rājagaha, Kausāmbi was one of the halting places on the same high road which led to Sāketa and Srāvasti. The Vinaya Mahāvagga 3 gives a description of a somewhat different route that lay between Kauśāmbi and Srāvasti. Kaušāmbi was the most important entrepôt for both goods and passengers coming to Kośala and Magadha from the south and west. The route from Kaušāmbi to Rājagrha was down the river,4 and Kausāmbi was also one of the chief stopping places on the way from Srāvasti to Patitthāna.5
Kaušāmbi had great military strength. The remains at Kosam include those of a vast fortress with eastern ramparts and bastions, four miles in circuit, with an average height of 30 to 35 feet above the general level of the country. The fact that the city was an important commercial centre, is indicated by the extraordinary variety of the coins found there. 6 Cast coins were issued at the close of the third century by the kingdoms of Kausāmbī, Ayodhyā and Mathurā, some of which bear the names of local kings in the Brāhmi script.? There is little foreign influence traceable in the die-struck coins, all closely connected in point of style, which were issued during the first and second centuries B.C. from Pañcāla, Ayodhyā, Kaušāmbī and Mathurā. A number of these bear Brāhmi Inscriptions. The coins of Kaušāmbi have a tree within a railing on the obverse. The coinage of the kings of Kaušāmbi seems to begin in the third century B.C., and to extend over a period of about 300 years.
In the Buddha's time, there were four establishments or settlements of the Order in or near Kauśāmbi, each of them having a group of huts under trees. Buddhaghosa informs us that the three banker friends, Ghosita, Kukkuţa and Pāvārika, were the great business magnates of Kauśāmbī in the Buddha's time. All of them went on
1 II, 1.
2 Spence Hardy, Manual of Buddhism, p. 501. Cf. Manorathapūraņi, I, Pp. 306-7.
3 Vol. I, p. 352 foll. 4 Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, p. 36.
5 Ibid., p. 103. 6 Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 524. 7 Brown, Coins of India, p. 19. 8 Ibid., p. 20. See also Prācīna Mudrā, p. 105. 9 Cambridge History of India, Vol. I, p. 525. IOB
