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The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s6: IV. The Vaṁsas

The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s6

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English

IV. The Vaṁsas

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The King of the Vaṁsas in the Buddha’s time is called in the Canon Udena⁵. His father’s name was Parantapa, and his son’s name Bodhi Kumāra⁶. But Udena survived the Buddha⁷, and we are not informed whether Bodhi did or did not succeed him on the throne. Tradition has preserved a long story of the adventures of Udena and his three wives. We have it in two recensions—a Pāli one, the Udena-vatthu⁸; and a Sanskrit one, the Mākandika-avadāna⁹. It is quite a good story, but how far each episode may be founded on fact is another question. The capital was Kosambī, the site of which has been much discussed¹⁰. It seems to have been on the south bank of the Jumna, at a point about 400 miles by road from Ujjenī, and about 230 miles up stream from Benares¹. One route from Ujjenī to Kosambī lay through Vedisa, and other places whose names are given but of which nothing else is at present known². There were already in the time of the Buddha four establishments or settlements of the Order in or near Kosambī, each of them a group of huts under trees. One of them was in the *ārāma* or pleasaunce of Ghosita, two more in similar parks, and one in Pāvāriya's Mango Grove³. The Buddha was often there, at one or other of these settlements; and discourses he held on those occasions have been handed down in the Canon. King Udena was at first indifferent or even unfriendly. On one occasion, in a fit of drunken jealousy he tortured a leading member of the Order, Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja, by having a basket full of brown ants tied to his body⁴. But long afterwards, in consequence of a conversation he had with this same man Piṇḍola, he professed himself a disciple. We have no evidence that he progressed very far along the path; but his fame has lasted in a curious way in Buddhist legends. For instance there is an early list of the seven Con-natals (*sahajātā*), persons born on the same day as the Buddha⁵. The details of the lists differ; and already in the Lalita-vistara it has grown into several tens of thousands, still arranged however in seven groups⁶. Many centuries afterwards we find the name of Udena appearing in similar lists recurring in Tibetan and Chinese books⁷.

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⁵ *Udāna* VII, 10; *Saṁyutta* IV, 110–113.

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⁶ *Vinaya* II, 127; IV, 198; *Majjhima* II, 97; *Jātaka* III, 157.

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⁷ *Peta-vatthu Commentary* 140.

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⁸ In Norman's *Dhammapada Commentary* I, 161–230.

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⁹ *Divyāvadāna* 515–544. (Ed. Cowell and Neil.)

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¹⁰ For different views see T. Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, I. 366–9 and Chapter XXI, p. 524, *infra*.

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¹ *Buddhist India*, p. 36.

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² *Sutta Nipāta*, 1011.

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³ *Vin.* IV, 16; *Sum.* 319.

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⁴ *Jātaka* IV, 375.

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⁵ See Rh.D., *Buddhist Birth Stories*, note on p. 68.

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⁶ *Lalita-vistara* ed. Rajendralal Mitra, p. 109.

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⁷ Rockhill, *Life*, 16, 17; T. Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, I, 368.

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