Tribes in Ancient India c33.49

c33.49

In the Jaina Vividhatīrthakalpa (p. 23), Udayana is praised as an expert in the science of music (gandhabbaveya-niuṇo). He ruled despotically and sometimes recklessly. When his queen Māgandiyā was found guilty of putting her co-wife Sāmāvatī to death, Udayana ordered her to be buried alive. According to one Buddhist tradition, a hermit fled to Śrāvastī when his life was threatened by Udayana.⁵ On one occasion, in a fit of drunken jealousy, Udayana tortured the Buddhist Thera Piṇḍola Bhāradvāja by causing a nest of brown ants to be tied to his body. Later, however, he consulted this same Piṇḍola about various spiritual matters,⁶ and ended by professing himself his disciple. We have no evidence that he proceeded very far along the path, but his fame has lasted in a curious way in Buddhist legends. Udayana is said to have made a golden image of the Buddha,⁷ and Hsüan Tsang brought back from India many things including a statue of the Buddha carved out of sandal-wood on a transparent pedestal. This figure is described as a copy of the statue which Udayana, king of Kauśāmbī, had made.¹ It is said in the *Si-yu-ki* that in the city of Kauśāmbī, within an old palace, there was a large vihāra about 60 feet high, containing a figure of the Buddha carved out of sandal wood above which was a stone canopy. It was the work of the King U-to-yen-na (Udayana). By its spiritual qualities it produced a divine light, which from time to time shone forth. The princes of various countries had used their power to try to carry off this statue, but although many men tried, none could move it. They therefore worshipped copies of it, and pretended that their likeness was a true one, the original of all such figures.² The *Petavatthu* records the erection of a vihāra by one Uttara, a wood-carver, in the service of King Udayana.³ The figure was known to have been made for King Udayana by a distinguished artist of the time.⁴ But nowhere in the earlier tradition is Udayana mentioned as the builder of any such temple or statue.