Tribes in Ancient India c33.22

c33.22

The Purāṇas tell us that after Hastināpura was carried away by the Ganges, Nicakṣu who was the fifth in descent from the Puru prince Parikṣit, grandson of Arjuna, transferred his capital to Kauśāmbī where altogether twenty-five Puru kings,¹⁰ from Nicakṣu to Kṣemaka, reigned.¹ In this genealogy we are given the succession of the kings of Vatsa from Nicakṣu to Kṣemaka without the length of their reigns. Udayana, who was a contemporary of the Buddha, is represented as the son and successor of Śatānīka; and the four successors of Udayana as Vahīnara, Daṇḍapāṇi, Nirāmitra and Kṣemaka. The evidence of Buddhist literature in general, and of the Pāli canon in particular, clearly proves the contemporaneity of Udayana, the king of Vatsa, with Caṇḍa Pradyota (Pāli Caṇḍa Pajjota) of Avanti, Prasenajit (Pasenadi) of Kośala, and Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru of Magadha. It is interesting to find that the Purāṇas mention just four kings who succeeded to the throne of Avanti after Caṇḍa Pradyota, and four kings who succeeded to the throne of Kośala after Prasenajit.² The total length of the reigns of the five kings of Avanti from Pradyota to Nandivardhana is given as 138 years, Pradyota’s four successors having reigned altogether for 115 years.³ Among the kings of N. India who were contemporaries of the Buddha, Bimbisāra pre-deceased him by about 8 years, and Ajātaśatru survived the Buddha by 16 years; Prasenajit, who was of the same age as the Buddha, died almost in the same year; and though both Pradyota and Udayana survived the Buddha, they could not have lived or reigned for more than 10 or 15 years after the Buddha’s demise. Thus, on the whole, it may be surmised that Avanti, Kośala and Vatsa retained their independence for about a century after the Buddha’s death, and lost it only during the period of the Nandas. We know that when King Aśoka Maurya ascended the throne of Magadha, the three ancient kingdoms of Kośala, Vatsa and Avanti were already included in the Maurya empire. Ujjenī or Avanti was placed under a Viceroy of Aśoka, while Kauśāmbī or Vatsa was governed by a Mahāmātra.⁴