Geography of Early Buddhism c7.30

c7.30

The capital cities of Kosala were Sāvatthi and Sāketa. But from the Epics and some Buddhist works Ayodhyā seems to have been the earliest capital, and Sāketa the next. In Buddha’s time, Ayodhyā had sunk to the level of an unimportant town (Buddhist India, p. 34), but Sāketa and Sāvatthi (Srāvastī)² were two of the six great cities of India (Mahāparinibbāna Sutta, S.B.E., XI, p. 99). Ayodhyā or Oudh was a town on the river Sarajū. Some think that Sāketa and Ayodhyā were identical, but Prof. Rhys Davids has been successful to point out that both cities were existing in the Buddha’s time. Besides Sāketa and Sāvatthi, there were other minor towns like Setavya (Pāyāsi Suttanta) and Ukkaṭṭha (Ambaṭṭha Sutta) included in Kosala proper. Some hold that Sāvatthi was so called because it was resided in by the sage Sāvatthi. But in the Papañca-sūdani (I, p. 59), we find a different explanation. The city is said to have contained everything required by human beings. Hence the city is called Sāvatthi (sabbam + atthi).