Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c9.s7.192

c9.s7.192

The second Magadhan dynasty, according to the less corrupt texts of the Purāṇas, was the Śaiśunāga line which is said to have been founded by a king named Śiśunāga. Bimbisāra, the contemporary of the Buddha, is assigned to this family. Aśvaghosha, an earlier authority,¹ refers however, in his *Buddha-charita*² to Śreṇya *i.e.*, Bimbisāra, as a scion, not of the Śaiśunāga dynasty, but of the **Haryaṅka-kula**, and the *Mahāvaṁśa* makes ‘Susunāga’ *i.e.*, Śiśunāga, the founder of a distinct line of rulers which succeeded that of Bimbisāra. The *Purāṇas* themselves relate that Śiśunāga "will take away the glory of the Pradyotas" whom we know from other sources to be contemporaries of the Bimbisārids:—