Tribes in Ancient India c61.s1.2

c61.s1.2

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