Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s7.113

c9.s7.113

The chronology of ancient Kosala is in a state of utmost confusion. If the *Purāṇas* are to be believed, a prince named Divākara occupied the throne of Ayodhyā in the time of Adhisīma-kṛishṇa, great-great-grandson of Parikshit. But, as has already been pointed out above, the princes who are mentioned as his successors did not form a continuous line of rulers who reigned over the same territory in regular succession. It is, therefore, a hopeless task to measure the distance separating him from the Buddha and his contemporary with the help of the traditional dynastic lists alone. It is also not known when the older capitals were abandoned in favour of Śrāvastī. But it must have been some time before the accession of Prasenajit, the contemporary of the Buddha, of Bimbisāra, and of Udayana of Kauśāmbī, supposed to be a descendant of Adhisīma-Kṛishṇa.