Tribes in Ancient India c61.s3.16

c61.s3.16

They were fond of manly pastimes such as elephant training and hunting. Among the *Psalms of the Brethren* (*Theragāthā*), we find one composed by Vajjiputtaka, the son of a Licchavirājā at Vaiśālī, who, in his early life, was engaged in training elephants.³ The *Aṅguttara Nikāya* narrates how a large number of Licchavi youths, armed with bows, ready with strings, set and surrounded by a pack of hounds, were roving about in the Mahāvana, but finding the Buddha seated at the foot of a tree in the forest, threw away their bows and arrows and sending away the pack of hounds sat by the Great Teacher, subdued by his presence. A Licchavi of advanced years, named Mahānāma, who came to pay his respects to the Buddha, expressed his great wonder at the sight of the Licchavi youths, full of life and vivacity, notorious for their insolent and wanton conduct in the city, thus sitting silent and demure, in an attitude of reverence before the Great Teacher. ‘The Licchavi youths, O Lord!’ he goes on, ‘are rude and rough and whatever presents are sent to the families, sugarcane or plums, cakes, sweetmeats or preparations of sugar, these they plunder and eat up, throw dust at the ladies of respectable families and girls of good families; such young men are now all silent and demure, are doing obeisance with joined palms to yourself, O Lord.’⁴ ‘In the Buddha’s time, the young Licchavis of the City’, says Watters, ‘were a free, wild, set, very handsome and full of life, and Buddha compared them to the gods in Indra’s heaven. They dressed well, were good archers, and drove fast carriages, but they were wanton, insolent and utterly irreligious.’¹ This is an exaggeration and is probably based on the Chinese translations of such passages as the one in the *Lalitavistara*, where some of the Tuṣita gods point out the defects in the character of the Vaiśālans when their city was recommended by others among them as a suitable place of birth for the Bodhisattva.² Whatever might have been the opinions of these ‘sons of heaven’ before the birth of the Buddha, they must later have changed their opinions about the people of Vaiśālī, who showed such remarkable veneration towards the Buddha and received such marked favour from him. We may, however, assume that the Licchavis were rather independent in character and would not easily accept a subordinate position to any one, whether in politics, religion, or ordinary daily life.