Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s5.18

c12.s5.18

The war is said to have synchronised with the death of Gosāla Maṅkhaliputta, the great teacher of the Ājīvika sect. Sixteen years later at the time of Mahāvīra's death the anti-Magadhan confederacy is said to have been still in existence. We learn from the *Kalpa Sūtra* that on the death of Mahāvīra the confederate kings mentioned in the *Nirayāvalī Sūtra* instituted a festival to be held in memory of that event.³ The struggle between the Magadhan king and the powers arrayed against him thus seems to have been protracted for more than sixteen years. The *Aṭṭhakathā* gives an account of the Machiavellian tractics¹ adopted by Magadhan statesmen headed by Vassakāra to sow the seeds of dissension among the Vaiśālians and thus bring about their downfall.²