The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c19.s7.1

v1.c19.s7.1

The passages referred to above tell us a good deal of the political condition of India during the Buddha's life, and enable us to draw certain conclusions as to previous conditions for some time before the birth of the Buddha. There are also one or two passages in the Canon which must refer to dates after the Buddha's death. Perhaps the most remarkable is the verse in the Pārāyana (a poem now included in the Sutta Nipāta) which, referring to a time when the Buddha was alive, calls Vesālī a Magadha city⁸. Now we know from the *Mahā-parinibbāna Suttanta* that (at the time when that very composite work was put together in its present shape) Vesālī and the whole Vajjian confederacy was considered to have remained independent of Magadha up to the end of the Buddha's life¹. If therefore the reading in our text of the Pārāyana be correct, the expression 'Magadha city' must be taken in the sense of 'now a Magadha city,' and as alluding to the conquest of Vesālī as described above, p. 185. But it is apparently the only passage in the Canon which takes cognisance of that event. Again in the Aṅguttara we have a *sutta*² in which a king Muṇḍa, dwelling at Pāṭaliputta, is so overwhelmed with grief at the death of his wife Bhaddā that he refuses to have the cremation carried out according to custom. But after a simple talk with a *thera* named Nārada he recovers his self-possession. We learn from the chronicles that King Muṇḍa was the grandson of Ajātasattu and began to reign about the year 40 a.b.³ It is a fair inference from this episode that Pāṭaliputta had already at that time become the capital of Magadha. Nārada is said to have lived in the Kukkuṭārāma, no doubt consisting of a few huts or cottages scattered under the trees in the pleasaunce so called. It was a well-known resting-place for the Buddhist Wanderers, and Asoka is said to have built a monastery on the site of it⁴.