The Social Organisation in North-East India in Buddha's Time c11.90

c11.90

The less formal the participation of the king’s relations in the administration was, the more must the state have lost the character of an absolute monarchy and approached that of an oligarchy. Whether we have to suppose the existence of oligarchies for the Vedic age, or whether in course of time, along with monarchies, States with an oligarchical form of government gradually developed themselves, I cannot decide.¹ As a matter of fact, according to Buddhist and Jaina sources, there were oligarchies in Buddha’s time in Eastern India. “The proper constitution of the city of Vaiśālī” which Lassen¹ mentions and of which he says that it is found nowhere else in ancient India, is in no way the only example of an oligarchical régime. According to the Jaina accounts,² there reigned, as subject States of Vaiśâlî, nine confederate Licchavi princes in Kośala and nine Mallaki princes in Kâśi land. The Pali texts deviate from this tradition in so far as they know of only one aristocratic confederacy of the Licchavis in Veśâlî and place the seat of the Mallas—I suppose that this is identical with the Mallakis of the Jainas³—at Kusinârâ and Pâvâ; also according to the Buddhist sources, the two princely houses are absolutely independent of each other. The Licchavis, the rulers of the Vajjis,⁴ played, according to the Pali texts, an important part in the political life and gave the neighbouring king of Magadha much trouble; we learn from the Mahâparinibbâna Sutta that Ajâtasattu, the son and successor of Bimbisâra, wanted to exterminate the powerful Vajjis, and to guard against their attacks caused a fortress to be built by his ministers Sunidha and Vasakâra which later become Pataliputra, the capital of the Magadha kingdom. Of much less political significance was the family, from which Buddha himself was descended, the Sâkyas of Kapilavatthu; our source further mentions that they stood in a relation of dependence (*aṇápavattitthána*, IV. 145) to the Kośala king.