________________ THE GLORY THAT WAS VAISALI* T. N. RAMACHANDRAN On this holy occasion which has gathered us all at this unique place in India's history, I am happy and grateful indeed for the opportunity given to me to pay tribute of worship to that great religious leader, Lord Mahavira. It may, with truth, be said that in the not long list of India's illustrious and eventful cities, few there are that have better earned a niche in the temple of fame and a place in the hearts of their citizens than the intrepid, prosperous and accomplished city Vaisali. The history of this place is deep rooted in the very remote past. The greatest intellectual thinker, Adi Sankara, begins with the city of Visala in his list of cities, whose namos he dextrously utilises to bring out the characteristics of Devi's looks. The verse from Saundaryalahari (49) runs as : “विशाला कल्याणी स्फुटरुचिरयोध्याकुवलयः कृपाधाराधारा किमपि मधुराभोगवतिका / अवन्ती दृष्टिस्ते बहुनगरविस्तारविजया ध्र वं तत्तन्नामव्यवहरणयोग्या विजयते" // 49 // PRE-BUDDHISTIC VAISALI Vaisali (Basadha, in Hajipur Sub-division of Muzzaffarpur) is the birth-place of Lord Mahavira, the 24th Tirthankara of Jainism. It was the capital of the Licchavi Clan, related by marriage to the Magadha kings and the ancestors of the kings of Nepal, of the Mauryas and of the Guptas. It was the seat of Vajjian confederacy, afterwards defeated by Ajatasatru. It was a great and flourishing city within the territories of the free clans that constituted the social and political life of ancient India of the 7th-6th Century B. C. Though Vaisali represents the conflu * Address delivered at the Seventeenth Vajsali Festival (30-3-61).
