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The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s3: The Kingdoms. I. Kosala

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s3

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English

The Kingdoms. I. Kosala

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Kosala was the most important of the kingdoms in North India during the lifetime of the Buddha. Its exact boundaries are not known. But it must have bordered on the Ganges in its sweep downwards in a south-easterly direction from the Himālayas to the plains at the modern Allahābād. Its northern frontier must have been in the hills, in what is now Nepāl; its southern boundary was the Ganges; and its eastern boundary was the eastern limit of the Sākiya territory. For the Sākiyas, as one of our oldest documents leads us to infer, claimed to be Kosalans¹⁰. The total extent of Kosala was therefore but little less than that of France to-day. At the same time it is not probable that the administration was very much centralised. The instance of the very thorough Home Rule enjoyed, as we have seen, by the Sākiyas should make us alive to the greater probability that autonomous local bodies, with larger power than the village communities, which were of course left undisturbed, were still in existence throughout this wide territory.

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¹⁰ *Sutta Nipāta*, verse 422.

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One or two of the technical terms in use to describe such powers have survived. *Rāja-bhogga* for example is the expression for a form of tenure peculiar to India. The holder of such a tenure, the *rāja-bhoggo*, was empowered to exact all dues accruing to the government within the boundaries of the district or estate granted to him. But he had not to render to government any account of the dues thus received by him. They were his perquisite. He could hold his own courts, and occupied in many ways the position of a baron, or lord of the manor. But there was a striking difference. He could draw no rent. The peasantry had to pay him the tithe of the rice grown; and though the amount was not always strictly a tithe, and by royal decree could be varied in different localities, the grantee could not vary it. So with the import, or ferry, or octroi duties. The rate of payment, and the places at which the levy could be made, were fixed by the government. We have not enough cases of this tenure to be able to interpret with certainty the meaning of all the details, and limits of space prevent a discussion of them here. But the general principle is quite clear¹. It shows how easy would be the grant to local notabilities of local government to this extent, and how narrow was the line of distinction between the collection of dues by civil servants or farmers of the taxes and their collection by a grantee in this way. This custom, thus traced back to so early a period in the history of India, seems never to have fallen into abeyance. It certainly, in the period under discussion, was of manifest advantage. But it must be admitted that it is, to English ideas, very strange—so strange that our civilians made the mistake, in Bengal, of regarding all such persons legally empowered to collect the land-tax as landlords, and of endowing them accordingly with the much greater privileges and powers of the English landlord. In the Buddhist period there is no evidence of the existence, in North India, of landlords in our sense of that term.

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¹ D. I, 114, 127, 130: cf. II, 50 and Divy., 620, *Vin.* III, 221, with the Old Commentary at 222, *M.* III, 133, *Jāt.* VI, 344, *Sum. Vil.* I, 245, 246.

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It was the rise of this great power, Kosala, in the very centre of Northern India, which was the paramount factor in the politics of the time before the Buddhist reform. We do not know the details of this rise. But there are purely incidental references imbedded in the ethical teachings in the Buddhist books which afford us at least hints as to the final manner of it, and as to the date of it. For instance we have the story of Dīghāvu in the Vinaya¹. There Brahmadatta, king of Kāsi, invades Kosala, when Dīghīti was king at Sāvatthī, and conquered and annexed the whole country; but finally restored it to Dīghīti's son, with whom he had become on very friendly terms. Other traditions inform us on the other hand of several invasions of the Kāsi country by the then kings of Kosala, Vaṅka, Dabbasena, and Kaṁsa². And when that most excellent story, the *Rājovāda Jātaka*³—as good in humour as it is in ethics—was first put together to represent two kings in conflict, the quite natural idea was to fix upon kings of Kosala and Kāsi, and the author does so accordingly.

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¹ *Vinaya Texts*, ii, 293-305.

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² *Jāt.* i, 262; ii, 403; iii, 13, 168, 211; v, 112.

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³ *Jātaka* ii, 1.

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No references have so far been found in the books as to any contests between Kosala and any other tribe or nationality. It would seem therefore that the gradual absorption into Kosala of the clans and tribes in the northern part of Kosala as we know it in the Buddha's time took place without any such battle, campaign, or siege as was sufficiently striking to impress the popular imagination; but that when Kosala came into contact with Kāsi there ensued a struggle, with varying result and lasting through several reigns, which ended in the complete subjugation of the Kāsi country by Kaṁsa, king of Kosala.

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As to the approximate period of these events, we see that they were supposed to have taken place not only before the time of Pasenadi, who was born about the same time as the Buddha and lived about as long, but also before the time of his father the Great Kosalan. We have four kings of Kosala mentioned as taking part in these wars, and cannot be sure that there were not others who had quieter reigns. It would be enough and more than enough to allow, in round numbers, a century for all these kings. And the period cannot be much longer than that. For the name Brahmadatta could not have been older than towards the close of the Brāhmaṇa literature; and a century and a half before the birth of the Buddha would about bring us to that.

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The king of Kosala in the Buddha's time was Pasenadi. He was of the same age as the Teacher⁴; and though never actually converted, was very favourable to the new movement, adopted its more elementary teachings, and was fond of calling upon the Buddha either to consult him or simply for conversation. A whole book of the Saṁyutta⁵ is devoted to such talks, and others are recorded elsewhere. They are mostly on religion or ethics, but some political and personal matters are occasionally mentioned incidentally.

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⁴ *M.* ii, 124.

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⁵ The Kosala Saṁyutta, *S.* i, 68-102.

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For instance five ‘rājas’ are introduced discussing a point in psychology with Pasenadi. Whatever the title may exactly imply it is probable that we have the leaders of five clans or communities that, formerly independent, had, at that time, been absorbed into Kosala. Again we hear of a double campaign. In the first Ajātasattu, king of Magadha, attacks Pasenadi in the Kāsi country and compels him to take refuge in Sāvatthi¹. In the second, Pasenadi comes down again into the plains, defeats Ajātasattu, and captures him alive. Then he restores to him the possession of his camp and army, and lets him go free². The commentaries inform us that he also gave him, on this occasion his daughter Vajirā, to wife³. They also give the reasons for the dispute between the two kings; but this will be better dealt with under the next heading. Another conversation arises when the king comes to tell the teacher of the death of his (the king’s) grandmother for whom he expressed his deep devotion and esteem. She had died at a great age, specified as 120 years, no doubt a round number⁴. At another talk Sumanā, the king’s sister, is present, and becomes converted. Desiring to enter the Order she refrains from doing so in order to take care of this same old lady, and attains Arahantship while still a lay-woman⁵. The last and longest talk between the two friends took place at Meḷalumpa in the Sākiya country. The king, in much trouble with his family and ministers, expressed his admiration, and possibly also some envy, at the manner in which the teacher preserved peace in his Order. He then took his last leave with a striking declaration of his devotion⁶. But even as they were talking the crisis had come. The tradition records that the minister in whose charge the insignia had been left when the king went on alone, had in his absence, proclaimed the king’s son, Viḍūḍabha, as king. Pasenadi found himself deserted by all his people. He hurried away to Rājagaha to get help from Ajātasattu, and, worn out by worry and fatigue, he died outside the gates of the city⁷. Ajātasattu gave him a state funeral, but naturally enough left Viḍūḍabha undisturbed.

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¹ S. I, 79.

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² S. I, 82–85.

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³ *Jāt.* II, 404; IV, 343.

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⁴ S. I, 97; cf. *Jāt.* IV, 146.

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⁵ S. I, 69; *Thīg.* 16.

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⁶ M. II, 118–124.

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⁷ *Jātaka* IV, 152.

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The first use the latter made of his new position was to invade the Sākiya territory, and slaughter as many of the clan—men, women, and children—as he could catch. Many however escaped¹, and it is, perhaps, to this remnant that we owe the Piprahwa Tope discovered by Mr Peppé. Elsewhere² it has been shown that the reasons given for this invasion were probably not the real ones. But why should the Buddhists have taken pains so elaborately to explain away the fact, unless the fact itself had been indisputable? This is the last we know of Kosala. We hear nothing more of Viḍūḍabha, or of his successors if he had any. When the curtain rises again Kosala has been absorbed into Magadha.

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¹ *Dhp. A.* I, 359; *Mahāvaṃsa* VIII, 18, and the *Ṭīkā* on it.

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² *Buddhist India*, pp. 11, 12.

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