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Tribes in Ancient India c61.s1: Name and Origin

Tribes in Ancient India c61.s1

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English

Name and Origin

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The Licchavis were a great and powerful people of Eastern India in the sixth century B.C. Their peculiar form of government, their free institutions, their manners and customs, their religious views and practices afford us glimpses of India of the transition period, when the ancient Vedic culture was developing in new directions, and undergoing a transformation under the influence of the speculative activity out of which emerged the two great religions of Jainism and Buddhism. Fortunately for us, Buddhist literature, and to a lesser extent the Jaina sacred books, have preserved for us facts and comments, which, though fragmentary, are yet sufficient to give us a living picture of this interesting people. From the account of their political institutions that can be gleaned from the Pāli Buddhist Canon, we obtain an insight into the democratic ideas of statecraft and government that prevailed among the majority of the Aryan clans that peopled Northern India before the imperialistic policy grew and developed.

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In Indian literature we find the name of this people in slightly varying forms—Licchavi, Licchivi, Lecchavi, Lecchaī and so on. Throughout the Pāli Canon, the name occurs in the form ‘Licchavi’. In some of the Buddhist Sanskrit texts, e.g. the *Divyāvadāna*,¹ the name is found in this form, but in others, e.g. the *Mahāvastu*, the usual form is Lecchavi.² In the Chinese translations of the Buddhist sacred books, the name occurs in both forms, Licchavi and Lecchavi,³ as is to be expected, since these translations are based on the Buddhist Sanskrit texts. The *Mahāvastu* form Lecchavi answers very well to the Prākrit form Lecchaī, which we find in another set of works claiming to be contemporaneous in origin with the Buddhist Canon, namely, the Jaina sacred literature which, according to some scholars, began to be composed perhaps by the direct disciples of Mahāvīra in the first century after his death, or at the latest in the next century, by the time of Candragupta Maurya, when the first Council of the Jains was held at Pāṭaliputra.¹

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¹ *Divyāvadāna*, ed. E. B. Cowell and R. A. Neil, pp. 55-6, 136.

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² *Mahāvastu*, ed. E. Senart, Vol. I, p. 254, etc.

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³ T. Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, Vol. II, p. 77.

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¹ M. Winternitz, *Geschichte der Indischen Litteratur*, II, p. 295.

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In the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga*, one of the earliest works of the Jaina sacred literature, we meet with the name Lecchai,² and the same form occurs in the *Kalpasūtra* attributed to Bhadrabāhu, who is considered to have been a contemporary of Candragupta (c. 321-297 B.C., according to Rapson, *Ancient India*, p. 182). The Jaina commentators equate the Prākṛt Lecchai with Sanskrit Lecchaki.³ In the form Lecchaki, however, the name never occurs in Sanskrit literature, in which the earliest mention of the tribe, so far as we have been able to ascertain, is in Kauṭilya’s *Arthaśāstra*, where they are called Licchivis. Here we read that the corporations of Licchivi, Vṛji, Malla, Madra, Kukura, Kuru, Pañcāla and others were ‘rājaśabdopajīvinaḥ’, i.e. enjoyed the status of rājās or kings.⁴ We next find the Licchavis mentioned in the *Mānava Dharmaśāstra* (X, 22). Here there are some *variæ lectiones*; the anonymous Kashmiri comment on the text reads Lichavi which approximates very closely to the Buddhistic form. Medhātithi and Govindarāja, the two earliest commentators, read Licchivi, and this reading tallies exactly with the name as given by Kauṭilya; this form, therefore, represents the earliest spelling of the word in the Brahmanic Sanskrit literature. Kullūka Bhaṭṭa, the Bengali commentator, however, reads Nicchivi, and Rāghavānanda, another commentator, follows him in this as in other matters; and the ordinary printed editions of the *Manusaṃhitā* have generally adopted this reading.¹ Both Jolly and Bühler have accepted the form Licchivi, but Jolly cites two MSS. and five printed editions with the form ‘Nicchivi’. Kullūka, who probably wrote in the fifteenth century, i.e. about 600 years later than Medhātithi, and about 300 years later than Govindarāja, was probably misled by the similarity of the letters ‘N’ and ‘L’ as they were written in Bengali in the fifteenth century, and as they are still written even in modern Bengali manuscripts.²

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² *Kalpasūtra*, paragraph 128. *Sīrīkalpasūtram*, Bhavnagar edition, p. 192; see also *Jaina Sūtras* by H. Jacobi, S.B.E., Vol. XXII, p. 266, f.n. 1; Vol. XIV, part II, p. 321, f.n. 3.

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³ *Jaina Sūtras*, Jacobi, S.B.E., Vol. XXII, part I, p. 266, f.n. 1.

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⁴ See Kauṭilya’s *Arthaśāstra*, translated by R. Shāma Shāstrī, p. 455. The Sanskrit text has: ‘Licchivika-Vṛjika-Mallaka-Madraka-Kukura-Kuru-Pañcālādayo rājaśabdopajīvinaḥ.’ The ‘ka’ at the end of Licchivi, etc., is adjectival. It will be noted that Kauṭilya distinguishes the Licchivis from the Vṛjis. Regarding this H. Panday (‘Notes on the Vajji country and the Mallas of Pāvā’, *J.B.O.R.S.*, Vol. VI, pt. II, June 1920, pp. 259 *et seq.*) says that it appears from the Pāli Suttas that the names Vajji and Licchavi are interchangeable to some extent. The accounts of Chinese pilgrims, however, point to a different conclusion. Fā-Hien calls the country of which Vaiśālī was the capital, ‘the kingdom of Vaiśālī’, and the people of the country, ‘Licchavis’. He does not mention Vṛji or Vajji. Hsüan Tsang describes Vaiśālī and Vṛji as two distinct countries, and Watters is inclined to doubt the accuracy of his description of the Vṛji country. Ray Chaudhuri reconciles the evidence of the Pāli literature with that of Kauṭilya and Hsüan Tsang, saying: ‘Vajji was not only the name of the confederacy but also of one of the constituent clans. But the Vajjis like the Licchavis are sometimes associated with the city of Vesālī which was not only the capital of the Licchavi clan, but also the metropolis of the entire confederacy.’—(*Political History of Ancient India*, 4th Ed., p. 101.)

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¹ For the various readings see *Mānava Dharmaśāstra*, ed. J. Jolly, p. 325. See also *Laws of Manu*, Bühler, S.B.E., Vol. XXV, p. 406, n.

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² R. D. Banerjee, *The Origin of the Bengali Script*, Cal. Univ., 1919, p. 82, pp. 108-9. It is clear, however, that the form Nicchivi is a very old reading, as it occurs in the Sinhalese *Aṭṭhakathā*, which forms the basis of Buddhaghosa’s story.

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The Sanskrit inscriptions of the early Gupta emperors favour the form ‘Licchavi’. In the Allahabad Stone Pillar Inscription of Samudragupta, that monarch is described as ‘Licchavidauhitra’, ‘the son of the daughter of the Licchavis’,³ so we have here the same form as in the Pāli Buddhist works. The same form occurs in many other inscriptions of the Guptas, for example, in the Mathurā Stone Inscription of Candragupta II,⁴ the Bilsād Stone Pillar Inscription of Kumāra Gupta of the year 96⁵ and the Bihar Stone Pillar Inscription of Skandagupta.⁶ On the other hand, the variant Licchivi occurs in the Bhitarī Stone Pillar Inscription of Skandagupta⁷ and the Gayā Copperplate Inscription of Samudragupta⁸ (which is considered to be spurious). Some coins of Candragupta I bear the name Licchavi. Moreover, in the inscriptions of the Nepal kings, who claim to be descended from the family of the Licchavis, the expression used is always *Licchavikula-ketu*, ‘the banner (or glory) of the Licchavi family’.⁹ We have seen that in the Chinese translations which are based on Sanskrit Buddhist texts, the form is Licchavi or Lecchavi; Fā-Hien speaks of them as Licchavis,¹⁰ while in Hsüan Tsang (Beal’s *Records of the Western World*) the form is Li-ch’e p’o, which would correspond to the form Licchavi.¹¹ The Tibetans, who began to have the Buddhist books translated into their own language from the eighth century A.D., also have the form Licchavi.¹

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³ *Inscriptions of the Early Gupta Kings*, ed. J. F. Fleet—*Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum*, Vol. III, p. 8.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, p. 27.

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⁵ *Ibid.*, p. 43.

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⁶ *Ibid.*, p. 50.

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⁷ *Ibid.*, p. 53.

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⁸ *Ibid.*, p. 256.

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⁹ *Ibid.*, p. 177 f.n.; *Indian Antiquary*, Vol. IX, pp. 168ff.

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¹⁰ Legge, *Fā-Hien*, pp. 71, 76.

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¹¹ *Buddhist Records of the Western World*, by S. Beal, Vol. II, p. 73.

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¹ Tibetan *Dulva*, quoted by Rockhill in his *Life of the Buddha* (pp. 97 *et seq.*); Tārānātha’s *Geschichte des Buddhismus in Indien*, translated into German by Anton Schiefner, pp. 9, 41, 146.

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There is clear evidence in the Buddhist literature to show that the Licchavis belonged to the Aryan ruling caste—the Kṣatriya. In the *Mahāparinibbāna Suttanta* we read that after the decease of the Buddha, the Licchavis claimed a share of the remnants of his body. They sent a messenger to the Mallas of Kuśīnara, where he had died, saying: ‘The Exalted One was a Kṣatriya and so are we. We are worthy to receive a portion of the relics of the Exalted One.’² Here we see that the claim of the Licchavis was based on the fact that they were Kṣatriyas or people of the same caste as the Buddha.

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² *Dīgha Nikāya*, P.T.S., Vol. II, pp. 164 *et seq.* Trsl. Prof. and Mrs. Rhys Davids, in *Dialogues of the Buddha*, Vol. III, p. 187.

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Moreover, we are told that a Licchavi named Mahāli says, ‘I am a Khattiya (Kṣatriya), so is the Buddha’³; while in the introduction to the *Sigāla Jātaka* we read of a Licchavi girl, ‘the daughter of a Kṣatriya and high-born.’⁴ Dr. Richard Fick in his work, *The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha’s Time*, is rather sceptical as to whether the word Kṣatriya as used in the Pāli texts has exactly the same connotation as in the ancient Brahmanical literature; but Professor Oldenberg observes⁵ that there is no ground for this scepticism.

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³ *Sumaṅgalavilāsinī*, Pt. I, P.T.S., p. 312.

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⁴ *Jātaka*, ed. V. Fausböll, Vol. II, p. 5.

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⁵ Prof. H. Oldenberg, *On the History of the Indian Caste System*, *Z.D.M.G.*, Vol. LI; translated into English by Prof. H. C. Chakladar, *Ind. Ant.*, Vol. XLIX, December, 1920, p. 227.

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That the Licchavis were Kṣatriyas appears also from the Jaina sacred literature. Just as the Licchavis of Vaiśālī honoured the Buddha at his death by erecting a noble monument (*stūpa*) over their share of the remnants of his body, so they had, before this, done honour to the memory of Mahāvīra, the founder of Jainism. The *Kalpasūtra* narrates: ‘In that night in which the venerable ascetic Mahāvīra died...., the eighteen confederate kings of Kāśī and Kośala, the nine Mallakis and nine Licchavis, on the day of new moon, instituted an illumination on the Poshadha, which was a fasting day....’⁶ The Jaina works further tell us, as Professor Jacobi points out, that these nine Licchavis were tributary to Ceṭaka, king of Vaiśālī and maternal uncle of Mahāvīra,⁷ who was a Jñātṛi Kṣatriya of the Kāśyapa *gotra*, as we read in the *Kalpasūtra*. There are reasons to believe that Mahāvīra was a native of a suburb of Vaiśālī.¹ That the Licchavis were looked upon as persons of high pedigree appears from a passage in another Jaina work, the *Sūtrakṛtāṅga*, where we read of the ‘renowned *gotra*’ (family) of the Licchavis.²

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⁶ *Kalpasūtra*, paragraph 128, trsl. Prof. H. Jacobi, S.B.F., Vol. XXII, p. 266.

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⁷ Jacobi, *op. cit.*, note 1, p. 266.

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¹ *Kalpasūtra*, pp. x-xii.

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² Jacobi, *Jaina Sūtras*, Part II, S.B.E., Vol. XLV, p. 321.

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The Licchavis were Kṣatriyas of the Vāsiṣṭha *gotra*, and were addressed as ‘Vāsiṣṭhas’ by the Buddha (*Mahāvastu-Avadāna*, ed. Senart, Vol. I, p. 283, and elsewhere) and by Maudgalāyana, one of the pillars of the Buddhist Church (Rockhill, *Life of the Buddha*, pp. 97ff.). Further, the Jaina sacred works state that the Kṣatriyāṇī Triśalā, mother of Mahāvīra, and sister of Ceṭaka, one of the kings of Vaiśālī, belonged to the Vāsiṣṭha *gotra*.³

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³ S.B.E., Vol. XXII, p. xii. See Jacobi, *Jaina Sūtras*, S.B.E., Vol. XXII, p. 193 (*Āyārāṅga-sūtra*, 11.15.15).

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In the *Nepal Vaṃśāvalī*, the Licchavis are allotted to the Sūryavaṃśa or solar race of the Kṣatriyas.⁴ This is quite in agreement with the fact elicited from the Buddhist records that they were Vāsiṣṭhas by *gotra*, for we know from the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* that the *gotra* or *pravara* (family) of a Kṣatriya is the same as that of his purohita or family priest.⁵ Sir R. G. Bhandarkar also points out that the *gotra* of a Brāhmaṇa ‘could be assumed for sacrificial purposes by a Kṣatriya, for, according to Āśvalāyana (*Śr. S.*, XII, 15), the *gotra* and the ancestors of the Kṣatriyas invoked are those of their priests or chaplains, and the only Ṛṣi ancestors that all the Kṣatriyas have, are Mānava, Aila and Paurūravasa. The names of these do not distinguish one Kṣatriya family from another, and to answer the purposes of such a distinction, the *gotra* and ancestors of the priest are assumed’.⁶ The Vāsiṣṭha *gotra* was, therefore, the *gotra* of their family priest, and we know that the Vāsiṣṭhas were the family priests of the kings of the solar race, especially of the Ikṣvākus. In this connection it is interesting to note Prof. Jacobi’s observation: ‘According to the Jainas, the Licchavis and Mallakis⁷ were the chiefs of Kāśī and Kośala. They seem to have succeeded the Aikṣvākas who ruled there in the times of the *Rāmāyaṇa*.¹ The *Rāmāyaṇa* tells us that the city of Vaiśālī was founded by Viśāla, a son of Ikṣvāku and the heavenly nymph Alamvuṣā,² while the *Viṣṇupurāṇa* substitutes Tṛṇabindu, a later member of the Ikṣvāku family, as the father of the eponymous hero who founded the city. This shows that the ruling family of Vaiśālī was traditionally believed to have been descended from the Ikṣvākus.

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⁴ *Indian Antiquary*, Vol. XXXVII, p. 79.

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⁵ *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*, Ch. 34, Kāṇḍa 7, verse 25.

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⁶ Sir R. G. Bhandarkar, *Vaiṣṇavism, Śaivism, and minor Religious Systems*, p. 12.

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⁷ The kinship of Licchavis and Mallas is confirmed by the *Mahāparinibbāna Suttanta* (*Buddhist Suttas*, S.B.E., Vol. XI, pp. 121-2), and the *Saṅgīti Sutta* of the Dīgha Nikāya (*Dialogues of the Buddha*, Pt. III, p. 202), where the Mallas are likewise addressed as ‘Vāseṭṭhas’ (=Vāsiṣṭhas).

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¹ Jacobi, *Jaina Sūtras*, Pt. II, p. 321, note 3.

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² *Rāmāyaṇa*, Bombay edition, *Bāla Kāṇḍa*, Chap. 47, verses 11-12.

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The Licchavis were also associated with the Śākyas. We read in the *Karma-Śataka*³ that Prabodha, king of the Vṛjis, gave away his two daughters, Māyā and Mahāmāyā, as brides to Śuddhodana, son of Simhahanu, and father of the Buddha. Rockhill in his *Life of the Buddha* (derived from Tibetan works) speaks of a tradition, according to which the Śākyas and the Licchavis were branches of the same people.⁴

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³ *Karma-Śataka*, 20, ii, 7, trsl. from Tibetan by M. L. Feer. Reprint, p. 40.

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⁴ Rockhill, *Life of the Buddha* (popular edition), p. 203, note.

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We now come to the mythical account of the origin of the Licchavis, which can be gathered from Buddhaghosa’s *Paramatthajotikā* on the *Khuddakapāṭha*. It came to pass that the chief queen of the king of Benares was with child. When her time came, she was delivered, not of a child, but of a lump of flesh, ‘of the colour of lac and of bandhu and jīvaka flowers’. Fearing the displeasure of the king if he should hear of this, the other queens put the lump of flesh into a casket marked with the royal seal and placed it on the flowing waters of the Ganges. However, a certain god, wishing to provide for its safety, wrote with a piece of cinnabar on a slip of gold the words ‘The child of the chief queen of the King of Benares’, tied it to the casket, and replaced it in the river. The casket was discovered by an ascetic, and taken by him to his hermitage, where he cared for the lump of flesh. After the lapse of some time, the lump broke up into two pieces of flesh, which gradually assumed shape, till finally one of them became a boy resplendent like gold, and the other a girl. Whatever entered the stomach of these two infants looked as if put into a vessel of precious transparent stone (*maṇi*), so that they seemed to have no skin (nicchavi). Others said: ‘The two were attached to each other by their skin (līnā-chavi) as if they had been sewn together’; so that these infants came to be designated ‘Licchavis’. The ascetic, having to nurse these two children, had to enter the village in the early morning for alms and to return when the day was far advanced. Accordingly the neighbouring cowherds, seeing his difficulty, offered to look after the children for him. The ascetic gladly agreed, and handed over the two children with these words: ‘The children are possessed of great virtue and goodness, bring them up with great care and when they are grown up, marry them to each other; please the king and getting a piece of land, measure out a city, and instal the prince there.’ But the children, when grown big, used to beat and kick the children of the cowherds. Then the parents of these other children would say, ‘These children harass the others and trouble them, they are not to be kept, they must be abandoned (Vajjitabbā).’ Thenceforward that country measuring 300 yojanas is called Vajji. Then the cowherds securing the king’s permission, obtained that country, and measuring out a town there, they anointed the boy king. After giving the girl in marriage to the boy, who was then sixteen years of age, the old king made it a rule that no bride was to be brought in from outside, nor any girl from within the settlement to be given away outside. Sixteen pairs of twins were born to the couple (a boy and a girl each time), and as these children were growing up, and there was no room in the city for their gardens, pleasure groves, residential houses and attendants, three walls were thrown up round the city at a distance of a quarter of a yojana from each other; as the city was thus again and again made larger (Visālikatā), it came to be called Vesālī. This is the history of Vesālī.¹

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¹ *Paramatthajotikā* on the *Khuddakapāṭha*, ed. H. Smith, P.T.S., pp. 158-60.

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The Pūjāvaliya,² a Ceylonese Buddhist work, gives the same account with slight variations. These stories are, of course, entirely mythical and must have grown up in recent times, there being no evidence in the sacred canon itself to corroborate any part of them.

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² Spence Hardy, *Manual of Buddhism*, 2nd Ed., 1880, pp. 242-3.

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The two derivations of the name Licchavi which are suggested by Buddhaghosa are entirely fanciful. Licchavi is the name of a race or tribe. The people must have acquired that name long before they come to our notice in the pages of the Buddhist or Jaina literature, or in the Arthaśāstra. Buddhaghosa’s derivations must have been invented much later, when the Licchavis had acquired renown and power, and it was thought necessary to find some meaning for the word, which defies easy analysis. It should be observed that the two derivations suggested by Buddhaghosa are almost identical with those given in Chinese Buddhist works,³ indicating a common source.

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³ *Shan-hsien-lü* (Chap. 8), T. Watters, *On Yuan Chwang*, Vol. II, p. 77.

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It is clear that at the time the Buddha and Mahāvīra lived and preached, the Licchavis were recognised as Kṣatriyas with whom the highest-born princes of eastern India considered it an honour to enter into matrimonial alliance. The powerful king Ajātaśatru was always designated ‘Vedehiputto’, the family name of his mother in the Pāli Buddhist Tripiṭaka. Even two centuries later, in the time of Candragupta Maurya, the Licchavis were of equal rank and position with the great Kṣatriya peoples of Northern India, viz. the Madras in the north-west, the Kuru-Pañcālas in the central region, and the Mallas and others in the east—the tribes who were organised as corporations of warriors and lived upon their position as rājās, that is as owners of land deriving an income from their tenants.

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At the time when the present code of Manu was composed, we find that the Licchavis were still looked upon as Kṣatriyas, though of the Vrātya variety.¹ Regarding the Vrātyas, Manu says: ‘Those (sons) whom the twice-born have by wives of equal caste, but who, not fulfilling their sacred duties, are excluded from the Sāvitrī, one must designate by the appellation Vrātyas.’² Here ‘not fulfilling their sacred duties’ stands for ‘avratāḥ’, which means ‘not being initiated at the proper time’, on the authority of what Manu himself states in an earlier chapter, where he fixes the upper limits of the age before which the initiation of the twice-born castes must take place. After those periods, men of the three upper castes who had not received the sacrament become Vrātyas (outcastes) excluded from the Sāvitrī (initiation) and despised by the Aryans. Here Manu is in agreement with the earlier lawgivers, Gautama, Āpastamba, Vaśiṣṭha and Baudhāyana.³ There is no question, then, that the Licchavis were pure Kṣatriyas by origin but were not very careful in obeying the regulations about initiation and perhaps similar other matters.⁴

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¹ Manu, X, 22; Bühler, Laws of Manu, p. 406.

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² Manu, X, 20; Bühler, Laws of Manu, pp. 405-6.

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³ See Bühler, Laws of Manu, pp. 405-6, note 20; Gautama, XXI, 11; Āpa., I, I, etc.; Vaś., XI, 74-9; Baudh., I, 16, 16.

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⁴ For further information regarding the Vrātyas, see J. W. Hauer, Der Vrātya: Untersuchungen Über die nichtbrahmanische Religion Altindiens; and Haraprasad Sastri’s Annual Address, J.A.S.B., 1921, No. 2 (Vol. XVII, New Series).

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From what we know of the religious history of the Licchavis as a people, it is natural to expect that they would depart from the strict observance of the Brahmānic regulations. We have seen that Mahāvīra, the founder of Jainism, was of their very kin, and we also know that he had many followers among the residents of Vaiśālī, even among the highest officers. Then again, between the sixth century B.C. and 200 B.C., the earliest estimated date of the *Manusaṃhitā*,¹ the Licchavis had won the good graces of the Buddha as well as of the followers of the religion he preached, as we shall see later. During this long interval, when the two great ‘heretic’ faiths flourished in their country, it is but natural to expect that the Licchavis were not over-particular about initiation and similar other ceremonies and practices that the regulations of the orthodox Brahmins required. Hence we can understand how Manu, the great Brahmin law-giver, came to refer to the Licchavis as Vrātyas. To claim the authority of this passage of Manu in support of a theory of non-Aryan origin of the Licchavis is quite unwarranted.

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¹ According to Bühler, the *Manusmṛti* was compiled at some time between 200 B.C. and 200 A.D. (Bühler, *Manu*, Introduction, p. cxvii).

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The above discussion, we hope, will also explain what the lexicographers and the author of the *Vaijayantī*, following Manu, declare regarding the origin of the Licchavis, viz. that they were sons of a Kṣatriya Vrātya and a Kṣatriyā.²

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² Monier Williams, *Sanskrit-English Dictionary*, 1899, p. 902; *Vaijayantī*, ed. Gustav Oppert, p. 76.

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Before leaving the question of origin, we must refer to the two theories about the Tibetan and Persian affinities of the Licchavis, originated by the late Drs. V. A. Smith and Satis Ch. Vidyābhūṣaṇa respectively. Dr. Smith’s conclusion about the Tibetan affinity rests on the agreement that is observed between the Tibetans and the Licchavis in the custom of exposure of the dead and in judicial procedure. We shall discuss these two points separately.

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The prevalence among the Licchavis of the practice of exposing the dead to be devoured by wild animals is vouched for by a passage in Beal’s *Romantic Legend of Śākya Buddha*,³ derived from Chinese sources. There we have a description of a visit paid by the Bodhisattva (future Buddha) to a cemetery at Vaiśālī, where the Ṛṣis are stated to have told him: ‘In that place the corpses of men are exposed to be devoured by the birds; and there also they collect and pile up the white bones of dead persons . . . ; they burn corpses there also, and preserve the bones in heaps. They hang dead bodies also from the trees; there are others buried there, such as have been slain or put to death by their relatives, dreading that they should come to life again; whilst others are left there upon the ground that they may return, if possible, to their former bodies.’ Dr. Smith argues that this passage proves a belief that the ancient inhabitants of Vaiśālī disposed of their dead sometimes by exposure, sometimes by cremation, and sometimes by burial. The tradition is supported by the discoveries made at prehistoric cemeteries in other parts of India, which disclose very various methods of disposing of the dead.’¹ He then concludes from the similarity between these customs of the disposal of the dead, and those of Tibet, that the Licchavis had Tibetan affinities. But we need not go to Tibet for these customs, inasmuch as they were prevalent among the Vedic Aryans from whom the Licchavis were descended. We read in the well-known funeral hymn of the *Atharvaveda*²: ‘They that are buried, and they that are scattered (*vāpa*) away, they that are burned and they that are set up (*uddhita*)—all those Fathers, O Agni, bring thou to eat the oblation.’³ Whitney, whose translation of the verse we have quoted here, observes on the expression *Uddhitāḥ*, ‘it evidently refers to exposure on something elevated, such as is practised by many people’.⁴ Whitney also refers to an analogous passage in *Āpastamba* (I, 87) which contains a further reference to the customs of burial and exposure on a raised platform.⁵ The Vedic literature shows that cremation was one of the methods of the disposal of the dead. Methods other than cremation were in vogue, it seems, in particular localities and among particular classes or peoples; and the custom of exposure of the dead was most probably brought into India by the Vedic Aryans, as we find the same custom among the closely allied Iranians. To seek for the origin of this ancient Aryan custom in Tibet is absolutely unwarranted. The other argument of Dr. Smith, that the ancient judicial procedure at Vaiśālī as given in the *Aṭṭhakathā* is substantially identical with the modern procedure at Lhāsā as observed by the Bengali traveller in Tibet, the late Rai Bahadur Sarat Chunder Das, C.I.E., need not detain us very long. This procedure the Tibetans may well have imbibed along with Buddhism from the province of Tirhut, which was nearest to their frontiers, and which was inhabited by the descendants of the Licchavis of old.

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³ pp. 159-60.

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¹ *Indian Antiquary*, Vol. XXXII, 1903, p. 234.

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² XVIII, 2, 34. ‘*Ye nikhātā ye paroptā ye dagdhā ye coddhitāḥ sarvāmstānagna āvaha pitṝn haviṣe attave.*’—*Atharvaveda Saṃhitā*, ed. Roth and Whitney, p. 339.

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³ *Atharva Saṃhitā*, trsl. W. D. Whitney, revised and ed. C. R. Lanman, Harvard Or. Series, Vol. VIII, p. 840.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, p. 841.

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⁵ With regard to this passage see also Zimmer, *Altindisches Leben*, p. 402; and Macdonell and Keith, *Vedic Index*, Vol. I, p. 8.

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Satis Chandra Vidyābhūṣaṇa held that the Licchavis were of Persian origin. His strongest argument is the verbal coincidence between Nisibis in the Persian Empire, and the word Nicchivi which occurs in *Manu*. He continues: ‘It appears to me very probable that while about 515 B.C., Darius, king of Persia, sent an expedition to India, or rather caused the Indus to be explored from the land of the Pakhtu (Afghans) to its mouth, some of his Persian subjects in Nisibis (off Herat) immigrated to India, and having found the Punjab over-populated by the orthodox Brāhmaṇas, came down as far as Magadha (Bihar) which was at that time largely inhabited by Vrātyas or outcaste people.'¹ This is absurd on the face of it. The Licchavis were already a flourishing people, long established in the Videha country, and had built up a splendid capital at Vaiśālī at the time of the Buddha's death; and whether we take the date of this event to be 487 B.C., as the late V. A. Smith thought, or 544 B.C., the traditional date maintained by the Ceylonese Buddhist monks, it is absurd to identify the Licchavis with the followers or subjects of Darius who were exploring the Indus about 515 B.C.

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¹ Indian Antiquary, Vol. XXXVII, 1908, p. 79.

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It remains for us to refer to another theory about the foreign origin of the Licchavis, started by Beal, viz. that they were 'Yue-chi'.² It hardly requires to be refuted, as the Yue-chi came to India about the beginning of the Christian era, and the Licchavis were a highly civilised and prosperous people in the fifth and sixth centuries B.C. when the Ephathalites or White Huns had not started from their original home in the east.

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² The Life of Hiuen-Tsiang by Beal, Intro. p. xxii.

Cites (28)