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TRIBES IN ANCIENT INDIA
and Mahārājādhiraja. Adityasena and his successors, as proved by Aphsad and Deo-Baranark inscriptions, were the only N. Indian sovereigns who laid claim to the imperial dignity during the last quarter of the seventh century A.D., and appear actually to have dominated Magadha and Madhyadeśa. The last king of the line of Adityasena was Jivitagupta II, who reigned early in the eighth century A.D.
About this time, the throne of Magadha was occupied by a Gauda king named Gopala, as the Pala inscriptions seem to indicate.1 Then the great Magadhan empire decayed politically, being included in the Gauda empire of the Palas and Senas, but it continued to remain the centre and headquarters of Buddhist learning up to the time of the Muhammadan conquests at the close of the twelfth century, when the monasteries with their well-stocked libraries were reduced to ashes.2
Magadha and its ancient capital Rajagṛha were intimately associated with the Buddha. Magadha was the scene of the real birth of Buddhism. The Buddha's chief disciples, Sariputta and Moggallana, were natives of Magadha, and it was at Rajagṛha that they were converted by the Buddha. Their conversion, and the consequent desertion of the school of Sañjaya the Wanderer, must have created a sensation among the citizens of Rajagṛha. Another notable conversion was that of Mahākāśyapa, who formerly belonged to another religious sect. Persons of many well-known families either became monks or lay supporters of the new doctrine. For want of accommodation in Venuvana, the bhikkhus passed the night in grottoes and caverns of the hills surrounding the city. This induced Anathapindika, the great banker of Rajagṛha, to undertake, with the permission of the Buddha, to build some 60 vihāras for them.
Rajagṛha was the first place visited by the Bodhisattva after his adoption of ascetic life at Anupiya in the Malla territory. It was here that he begged his food from door to door for the first time. It was somewhere in Magadha, between Rajagṛha and Uruvelă, that he met and placed himself under the training of Araḍa Kālāma and Uḍra Ramaputra in the method of Yoga.' He
1 Early History of India, 4th Ed., p. 413.
2 Smith, Early History of India, 4th Ed., p. 420.
3 Malalasekera, Pali Proper Names Dicty., II, s.v. Magadha.
4 Kathavatthu, 1, 97; Vinaya Pitaka, I, 37ff.
5 Vinaya, Cullavagga, p. 14.
6 Suttanipata, pp. 72ff.; Fausböll, Jātaka, I, pp. 65ff.
7 Majjhima Nikaya, I, pp. 163ff.; Mahavastu, II, 118; III, 322; Lalitavistara, VII, v. 54; Fausböll, Jātaka, I, pp. 66ff.
