[Pramāṇa](https://indike.org/pramana/) › [Studies](https://indike.org/pramana/ins) › [General history and culture](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general) › [The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922) › v1.c19.s1 # The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s1: 1. Pre-Buddhistic The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s1 - **Language:** English ### 1. Pre-Buddhistic ### [v1.c19.s1.1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.1) THE early history of the Buddhists should properly begin far enough back before the birth of the Buddha to throw light on the causes that were at work in producing the rise and progress of the Buddhist reformer. Unfortunately, even after all that has been written on the subject of early Buddhist chronology, we are still uncertain as to the exact date of the Buddha’s birth. The date 483 B.C. which is adopted in this History must still be regarded as provisional. The causes of this uncertainty which were explained by the present writer in 1877 still remain the same: ### [v1.c19.s1.2](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.2) If the date for Asoka is placed too early in the Ceylon chronicles, can we still trust the 218 years which they allege to have elapsed from the commencement of the Buddhist era down to the time of Asoka? If so we have only to add that number to the correct date of Asoka, and thus fix the Buddhist era \[the date of the Buddha's death\] at 483 B.C. or shortly after. Of the answer to this question, there can I think, be no doubt. \*We can not\*². ### [v1.c19.s1.3](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.3) ² \*Ancient Coins and Measures of Ceylon\*, p. 44 of the separate edition (London, 1877). ### [v1.c19.s1.4](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.4) This statement was followed by an analysis of the details of the lists of kings and teachers, the length of whose reigns or lives, added together, amount to this period of 218 years. The analysis shows how little the list can be relied on. The fact is that all such calculations are of very doubtful validity when they have to be made backwards for any lengthened period. Sinologists, Assyriologists, Egyptologists have not been able to agree on results sought by this method; and, though Archbishop Usher’s attempt to discover in this way, from the Hebrew records, the correct date of the creation was long accepted, it is now mere matter for derision. As is well known, even the Christian chronologists, though the interval they had to cover was very short, were wrong in their calculation of our Christian era. The Ceylon chroniclers may have been as much more wrong as the interval they had to account for was longer. We must admit that they tried their best, and were not so utterly at sea as the Irish church-dignitary. But we do not even know who made the calculation. We first hear of it in the fourth century A.D., and are only entitled to conclude that at that date the belief in the 218 years was accepted by most of those Buddhists who continued in possession of the ancient traditions¹. ### [v1.c19.s1.5](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.5) ¹ For the recent literature from the point of view of those who accept the 218 years as correct see Geiger, \*Mahāvaṁsa\* (English translation), pp. xxii–xxxvi. ### [v1.c19.s1.6](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.6) There have been endeavours, on the basis of other traditions, to arrive at a more exact date for the birth of the Buddha². It is sufficient to state that each of these is open to still more serious objection. We must be satisfied to accept, as a working hypothesis only, and not as an ascertained fact, the general belief among modern European scholars that the period for the Buddha's activity may be approximately assigned to the sixth century B.C. ### [v1.c19.s1.7](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.7) ² \*See\*, for instance, the various results detailed by Winternitz, \*Geschichte der indischen Litteratur\*, II, i, 2, note 1. ### [v1.c19.s1.8](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.8) In previous chapters of this volume will be found the story, drawn from the Brāhman literature, of the gradual establishment in Northern India of the Āryan supremacy. For the period just before the rise of Buddhism (say the seventh century B.C.) this literature tells us very little about political movements. The Buddhist books also are devoted to ideas rather than to historical events, and pass over, as of no value to their main objects, the dates and doings and dynastic vicissitudes of the kinglets before their own time. The fact that they do so is historically important; and we should do wrong in ignoring, in a history of India, the history of the ideas held by the Indian peoples. But the fact remains. It is only quite incidentally that we can gather, from stories, anecdotes, or legends in these books, any information that can be called political. Of that referring to the pre-Buddhist period the most important is perhaps the list of the Sixteen Great Powers, or the Sixteen Great Nations, found in several places in the early books³. It is a mere mnemonic list and runs as follows: ### [v1.c19.s1.9](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.9) ³ \*Aṅguttara\* I, 213; IV, 252, 256, 260. Referred to in \*Mahāvastu\* II, 2, line 15. Cf. the note in \*Vinaya Texts\*, II, 146. ### [v1.c19.s1.10](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.10) | 1. | Aṅgā | 9. | Kurū | | 2. | Magadhā | 10. | Pañchālā | | 3. | Kāsī | 11. | Macchā | | 4. | Kosalā | 12. | Sūrasenā | | 5. | Vajjī | 13. | Assakā | | 6. | Mallā | 14. | Avantī | | 7. | Cheti | 15. | Gandhārā | | 8. | Vaṁsā | 16. | Kambojā | ### [v1.c19.s1.11](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.11) When a mnemonic phrase or verse of this kind is found in identical terms in different parts of the various anthologies of which the Buddhist canon consists, the most probable explanation is that it had been current in the community before the books were put together as we now have them, and that it is therefore older than those collections in which it is found¹. As this particular list is found in two of the oldest books in the canon it would follow that it is, comparatively speaking, very old. It may even be pre-Buddhist—a list handed down among the bards, and adopted from them by the early Buddhists. For it does not fitly describe the conditions which, as we know quite well, prevailed during the Buddha’s lifetime. Then the Kosala mountaineers had already conquered Benares (Kāsi), the Aṅgas were absorbed into the kingdom of Magadhas, and the Assakas probably belonged to Avanti. In our list all these three are still regarded as independent and important nations; and that the list is more or less correct for a period before the rise of Buddhism is confirmed by an ancient rune preserved in the Dīgha², and reproduced (in a very corrupt form, it is true) in one of the oldest Sanskrit-Buddhist texts³. It runs: ### [v1.c19.s1.12](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.12) ¹ Cf. Rh.D., \*Buddhist India\*, p. 188. ### [v1.c19.s1.13](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.13) ² II, 235, translated in \*Dialogues of the Buddha\*, II, 270. ### [v1.c19.s1.14](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.14) ³ \*Mahāvastu\* III, 208, 209. ### [v1.c19.s1.15](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.15) Dantapura of the Kaliṅgas, and Potana of the Assakas, Māhissati for the Avantis, Roruka in the Sovīra land, Mithilā for the Videhas, and Champā among the Aṅgas, And Benares for the Kāsis—all these did Mahā-Govinda plan. ### [v1.c19.s1.16](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.16) We have here seven territories evidently, from the context, regarded as the principal ones, before the rise of Buddhism, in the centre of what was then known as Jambudīpa (India). Though quite independent of the list just discussed these mnemonic verses tell a similar story. Here also appear the Assakas, Aṅgas, and Kāsis. Only the Kaliṅgas are added; and the name of their capital, Dantapura, ‘the Tooth city,’ shows incidentally that the sacred tooth, afterwards taken from Dantapura to Ceylon was believed, when this list was drawn up, to have been already an object of reverence before the time of the Buddha. This tradition of a pre-Buddhist Dantapura, frequently referred to in the Jātakas, is thus shown to be really of much greater age. And it is clear that at the time when the four Nikāyas were put into their present form⁴ it was believed that, before the Buddha’s life-time, the distribution of power in Northern India, had been different from what it afterwards became. ### [v1.c19.s1.17](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.17) ⁴ For the Nikāyas and their probable date, \*v. inf.\*, pp. 195–6. ### [v1.c19.s1.18](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.18) In an appendix to the Dīgha verse the names of the seven kings of the seven nations are given, and it is curious that they are called the seven Bhāratas. Their names are Sattabhu, Brahmadatta, Vessabhu, Bharata, Reṇu, and two Dhaṭaraṭṭhas; but the record does not tell us which of the seven nations each belongs to. In an interesting story at Jātaka III, 470¹, the hero is Bharata, king of the Sovīras, reigning at Roruva. This is most probably meant for the same man as the Bharata of the Dīgha passage; and we may therefore apportion him to the Sovīras. The mention of Reṇu in a list of ancient kings of Benares given in the Dīp. III, 38–40 probably refers to the Reṇu of our passage since the same rare name is given in both places as the name of the father of Reṇu. On the other hand the King Reṇu of Jātaka IV, 144 is evidently not meant to be the same as this one. Three of the other four names also recur (not Sattabhu); but no inference can be drawn that the same people are meant. ### [v1.c19.s1.19](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.19) ¹ The references are to the Pāli text of the Jātaka. In the English translation the volumes correspond, and the pages of the original are indicated in square brackets. ### [v1.c19.s1.20](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1.20) There are lists of pre-Buddhist Rājas (whatever that term may signify) in the chronicles and commentaries. But they can only be evidence of beliefs held at a late date; they have not yet been tabulated or sifted; and it would not be safe to hazard a prophecy that, even when they shall have been, there will be found anything of much value. ## Linked texts (5) - [Mahāvastu](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.sanskrit.avadana.mahavastu.2.2) — Sanskrit - [Dīpavaṃsa](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada_postcanon.vamsa.dipavamsa.3.38) — Pāli - [Dīghanikāya](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.sp.digha.2.235) — Pāli - [Aṅguttaranikāya](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.sp.anguttara.1.213) — Pāli - [Jātaka](https://indike.org/pramana/in.bauddha.theravada.sp.khuddaka.jataka) — Pāli --- Source: [https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1](https://indike.org/pramana/ins.general.rapson-1922.v1.c19.s1) · Pramāṇa