Tribes in Ancient India c52.14

c52.14

In the early sixth century B.C., the chief of the Kṣatriya Nātha clan was Siddhārtha who married Triśalā, sister of Ceṭaka, the most eminent among the Licchavi princes. Siddhārtha and Triśalā were the parents of Mahāvīra, who lived from approximately 570-500 B.C. (See B. C. Law, *Mahāvīra: His Life and Teachings*, p. 53). Of Siddhārtha Dr. Hoernle says: ‘Though, as may be expected, the Sacred Books of the Jains speak of him in exaggerated terms, they do not, I believe, ever designate him as “the king of Kuṇḍapura or Kuṇḍagāma”; on the contrary, he is, as a rule, only called the Khattiya Siddhattha (Siddhatthe Khattiye) and only exceptionally he is referred to simply as King Siddhattha. This is perfectly consistent with his position as the chief of the Kshatriyas of Kollāga. Accordingly, Mahāvīra himself was born in Kollāga and naturally when he assumed the monk’s vocation, he retired to the Cheïya of his own clan, called Duïpalāsa and situated in the neighbourhood of his native place, Kollāga.’³ Mahāvīra, on renouncing the world, probably first joined Pārśva’s sect of which, however, he soon became a reformer and chief himself.⁴