Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s38.7

c11.s38.7

Sampadi or Samprati is well known both in Buddhist and Jaina literature. According to the *Divyāvadāna* he was the son of Kunāla and was established on the throne of Magadha by the ministers of state under strange circumstances ; Aśoka had promised a hundred crores to the Saṅgha of which he had paid only ninety-six crores by the end of his reign ; so he handed the kingdom over to them in lieu of the balance of four crores. The ministers managed to raise this money, pay it to the Saṅgha, and thus redeem the kingdom over which they set Samprati². The Jaina accounts also make Samprati the immediate successor of Aśoka, and say that after his conversion to Jainism by Suhastin he did for Jainism nearly everything that Aśoka did for Buddhism, such as building temples and endowing them liberally and spreading the faith even in non-Aryan lands. Though Pāṭaliputra is mentioned as the seat of his government in some accounts, others, with greater probability, make him ruler of Ujjain³. If Samprati was a grandson of Aśoka ruling from from Ujjain, Daśaratha was perhaps another who held sway at Pāṭaliputra. Whether Bandhupālita (Vāyu) and Vigatāśoka (Tāranāth) were alternative names of Samprati, or those of his brothers, is not easily ascertained.