Tribes in Ancient India c61.s5.28

c61.s5.28

There does not appear to have been any outstanding figure among the Licchavis, comparable to Śuddhodana among the Śākyas. The preamble to the *Ekapaṇṇa Jātaka*⁵ relates that of the *Rājās* who lived in Vaiśālī permanently exercising the rights of sovereignty, there were seven thousand, seven hundred and seven, and there were quite as many *Uparājās* (subordinate officials), *Senāpatis* (generals), and *Bhāṇḍāgārikas* (treasurers). A passage in the preamble to the *Cullakāliṅga Jātaka*⁶ also mentions seven thousand, seven hundred and seven Licchavi *rājās*, who lived at Vaiśālī. The number seven thousand, seven hundred and seven cannot be the number of all the Licchavis living in the town of Vaiśālī; in fact we are told in the *Mahāvastu* that the Licchavis, who went out of Vaiśālī to meet the Buddha on his first visit to that city, numbered as many as twice eighty-four thousand, which was not an incredible number for such an extensive city as Vaiśālī. But 7,707 is evidently an artificially concocted number, seven being used from the idea that it had some magic potency. It is significant that none of the canonical texts themselves gives this number, which occurs only in a later commentary, the *Nidānakathā* of the Jātakas.