The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s4.1

v1.c19.s4.1

This was a narrow strip of country of some considerable length from north to south, and about twelve to fifteen per cent. in area of the size of Kosala. Just as Kosala corresponded very nearly to the present province of Oudh, but was somewhat larger, so Magadha corresponded in the time of the Buddha to the modern district of Patna, but with the addition of the northern half of the modern district of Gayā. The inhabitants of this region still call it Magā, a name doubtless derived from Magadha³. The boundaries were probably the Ganges to the north, the Son to the west, a dense forest reaching to the plateau of Chotā Nāgpur to the south, and Aṅga to the east. The river Champā had been the boundary between Magadha and Aṅga⁴; but in the Buddha's time Aṅga was subject to Magadha—it is the king, not of Aṅga, but of Magadha, who makes a land-grant in Aṅga (that is a grant of the government tithe)⁵, and an Aṅga village is one of the eighty thousand parishes over which the king of Magadha holds rule and sovereignty⁶. All the clansmen in each of these two countries are called by Buddhaghosa, princes⁷ (exactly as he elsewhere calls the Sākiyas and Licchavis). The same writer says that the two kingdoms amounted together to ‘three hundred leagues⁸.’ It is reasonable to suppose, as he was born and bred in Magadha, that he was not so very far wrong. But this is said in reference to the time of Bimbisāra. Later on he estimates the area of the whole of the United Kingdom of Magadha, in the time of Ajātasattu, at five hundred leagues. We may conclude from this that, according to the tradition handed down to Buddhaghosa, the size of the kingdom had nearly doubled in the interval. This would be about correct if the allusion were to Ajātasattu's conquests north of the Ganges¹. As Buddhaghosa however seems to use the larger figures of a date, not after, but at the beginning of those conquests, other wars of which we have no record, to the east or south, may be meant.