Tribes in Ancient India c31.22

c31.22

The little kingdom of Kāśī, whose extent is given in the Jātaka (V, 41; III, 304, 391) as three hundred leagues, was bordered by Kośala on the north, Magadha on the east, and Vatsa on the west.⁶ It was a wealthy and prosperous country, having ‘an abundance of the seven gems’,⁷ and the Bhojājānīya Jātaka (J., I, 178) tells us that ‘all the kings around coveted the kingdom of Benares’. It often served as a bone of contention between its three powerful neighbours, as we shall see.