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Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c3.s1.t3: 3. Some Less Known Kings

Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jātaka Stories c3.s1.t3

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3. Some Less Known Kings

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Here may also be included, we think, the names of some less-known, but apparently ancient, kings who are known to the *Jātaka gāthās* as ancient and traditional ones.

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With Ajjuna leading, these kings stand in one line i.e., those who according to the *Jātakas* were remembered to have perished long before for their wrong deeds.

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The *gāthā*,¹ which contains the names of four kings together is this :—

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¹ J., V, p. 143-G. 68.

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*Yathā ahū Daṇḍakī Nālikīro*
*Ath' Ajjuno Kalābu cāpi rājā*
*tesam gatim brūhi supāpakammanam*
*katth' upapannā isinam viheṭhakā*

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From amongst these four kings, Ajjuna has already been dealt with. Daṇḍaki is a later king as will soon appear. Here we should therefore take up the other two.

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Kalābu

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The *Khantivādi Jātaka*,² relates the whole story in detail, how a faultless and forgiving sage met his unhappy end at the hands of this cruel and arrogant king, Kalābu. Towards the end of the story there are two *gāthās*,³ which contain the purport of the story in short. The prose-portion says that Kalābu was the king of Kāsī. So also does the *Sarabhaṅga Jātaka*⁴ which also knows the story and has the traditional *gāthā*.⁵ We have no mention of this king, as far as we can gather, in any other literary or traditional source. It may be noted, en passant, that ‘lābu’ and ‘alābu’ from which is apparently derived the word *kalābu*, are words of Austro-Asiatic origin and mean, in Malaya language, ‘gourd’—*Lagenaria vulgaris*.⁶ Kalābu, then, may perhaps be found out to be a king of one of the islands of further India or Greater India. But this is only a delightful surmise, a speculation.

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² J., III, pp. 38 ff.

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³ Ibid., GG. 49, 50.

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⁴ J., V, p. 135.

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⁵ Ibid., p. 144-G. 72.

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⁶ See J. Przyluski, ‘*Non-Aryan Loans in Indo-Aryan*’—Bagchi, *Pre-Aryan and Pre-Dravidian in India*, pp. 155 ff. ‘*Ka* is a prefix frequently met with in these languages. e.g., timnu-Katimun : lābu-alābu-Kalābu.

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Ālikira

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*Nālikira* is a curious word indeed. It seems *Nālikira*, *Nālikera*, *Nalikela* and *Nārikela* are all only different pronunciations of one and the same word connected with the cocoanut tree.⁷ The *gāthā*⁸ cited for him is in the same line as the others. For torturing a sinless ascetic, Nālikira, it says, perished.

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⁷ The change of ‘ra’ into ‘la’ and vice versa is a well-known phonetic rule. *Cf.* Pāṇini; ralayorabhedaḥ.

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The commentary on the *gāthā*, which also gives the story of this sinning, makes Nālikira a king of Kalinga.¹ This is suppported by the Ceylonese tradition also.² It is not improbable, for Kalinga is rich in cocoanuts.³

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¹ J., V, pp. 144-5.

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² Hardy, *Manual of Buddhism*, p. 55.

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³ See J. B. O. R. S., xv, p. 628.

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Bharu

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The *Bharu-Jātaka*⁴ relates the story where two bands of ascetics fall in dispute with regard to a banyan tree. They go to the king to settle their dispute. Each gives him bribes. The case is settled, and both the parties have to repent. But the king, it is said, was destroyed with all the land submerged into the sea, because he took bribes. So the *abhisambuddha gāthā*:

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⁴ J., II, pp. 171-2.

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"The King of Bharu, as old stories say,⁵
Made holy hermits quarrel on a day :
For the which sin it fell that he fell dead,
And with him all his kingdom perished."

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⁵ Mark the phrase 'iti me sutaṃ'—thus I hear—quite in the Paurāṇic traditional fashion.

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*Bharu* is obviously the *Pāli* form of *Bhṛgu*.⁶ We cannot ascertain at present whether here is any indication of some historical or a geological fact.⁷

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⁶ Cf. Bharu-Kaccha—Bhṛgu-Kaccha.

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⁷ Does the *Jātaka gāthā* refer to the submerging of Dvārakā which was not very far from Bharukaccha and could well have been included in the 300-leagues-wide Bharu realm. See *Viṣṇu P.*, V, 38; *Purātattva*, IV, pp. 101 *ff*. The scholiast commenting upon the *gāthā* says that after the submerging of the kingdom there sprang up some islands which now form the Nālikera islands—perhaps referring to the Western coast of India.

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Mejjha

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There is a *Gāthā* in the *Mātanga Jātaka*,⁸ repeated elsewhere,⁹ which speaks of King Mejjha thus:

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⁸ J., IV, p. 389-G, 24.

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⁹ J., V, p. 267-G, 96.

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"Mejjha, for famed Mātanga's sake fell from its place of pride
The land became a wilderness and king and people died."

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Thence it was, it is said, that the land was called *Mejjhāraññam* 'the forest or desert of Mejjha'. The story is told, in full, in the *Mātanga Jātaka*,¹⁰ where from we learn that the sixteen thousand Brāhmaṇas of Benares who were made to taste the leavings of a Caṇḍāla and were put out of caste by other Brāhmaṇas, departed, in shame, from Benares and went to the kingdom of Mejjha where they lived with the king of that country. The above fact, we mean that of the excommunication and the consequent migration of the Brāhmaṇas of Benares to a presumably foreign country,¹ may have some historical significance, though we have nothing to ascertain it. Mejjha, it is however interesting to note, seems to be a Pāli rendering of the Saṃskṛta Medhya and from the Mahābhārata,² at least we do get the name of Medhyāraṇya corresponding to our Mejjhāraṇṇam, and also of a river called Medhyā. But this identification does not lead us any further. It may, moreover, be mentioned in this connection that some of the Pāla Inscriptions³ name the Medas along with the Andhrakas and the Caṇḍālas, as low-caste people, thus suggesting a possible affinity with our Mejjha. But this again gives us nothing more than that it raises a suspicion whether Mejjha had any connection with the Medes of Ancient Persia. M. de St. Martin connects the Medas referred to by Manu and named in the Pāla Inscriptions mentioned above as low caste people, with the Maccocalingae of Pliny and with the Maga peoples who are in their turn to be associated with the Median Magi.⁴

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¹⁰ J., IV, pp. 388-9.

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¹ It must have been a foreign country or one inabited by Non-Aryan people, which would not object to these 'defiled' Brāhmaṇas, but rather, welcome them as it seems to have been uoggested in the Mejjha king's favourable treatment towards these Brāhmaṇas.

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² III, 222; 295; See Sorensen, op. cit., p. 477.

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³ Cf. The Bhagalpur Plate of Nārāyaṇapāla, I. A., XV, p. 306. The Mungir Copper-plate grant of Devapāladeva, I.A., XXI, p. 256. Cf. also Manu, X, 36; 48. See McCrindle, Megasthenes and Arrian, pp. 133-4 notes.

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⁴ See McCrindle, op. cit., pp. 133-4 notes.

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Maga

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This very naturally brings us to an interesting reference to a Maga king in a gāthā of the Saṃkicca Jātaka⁵ which runs as follows :—

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⁵ J., V. p. 267-G, 103.

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*yo ca rājā adhammattho raṭṭhaviddhaṃsano Mago*
*tapayitvā janapadaṃ Tapane pecca paccati.*"

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From the nature of its occurrence, it is difficult to hazard even a surmise of what is meant by this Maga king. We have no reference, as far as we know, in any other Indian literary source to a Maga king, excepting one of the Edicts of Aśoka⁶ which does mention a Maga king of Cyrene along with other Hellenistic kings—Antiochos Theos of Syria, Ptolemy Philadelphos of Egypt, Antigonos Gonatas of Macedonia and Alexander of Epirus (or of Corinth).

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⁶ Rock Edict XIII, See Mookerji, Aśoka p. 166 n., Bhandarkar Aśoka, pp. 45-6, also C. H. I., I, p. 502; Raychaudhury, P. H. A. I., pp. 225-6.

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But as regards the Maga Brāhmaṇas, we have ample authorities. These Brāhmaṇas gave the name to the country of their last adoption—Magadha, i.e., magān dhārayati or Maga-land. "The inhabitants of this region still call it Maga," says Rapson,⁷ "a name doubtless derived from Magadha." The Viṣṇu and the *Bhaviṣya Purāṇas*, it is interesting to note, relate in detail the traditional migration of the Magas from Śākadvīpa or Persia into India.¹ Even one of our *Jātakas* knows a Brāhmaṇa boy of Magadha styled Magakumāra.² These sun-worshipping Maga Brāhmaṇas are doubtless the Magi of Iran as Sir R. G. Bhandarkar³ showed long ago. However, for us it is quite impossible to see anything substantial in the solitary *gāthā* quoted above—as to whether it refers to a king of the Maga Brāhmaṇas domiciled in India or to one of the Magis of Persia.⁴

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⁷ C. H. A. I., I, p. 182.

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¹ See Wilson, *Viṣṇu P.*, Intro., pp. XXXIX-XLI.

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² *J.*, I, p. 199.

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³ *Collected Works*, IV, pp. 218-21; For Maga Brāhmaṇas and their connection with the Magi of Persia, see Spooner, *J. R. A. S.*, 1915, pp. 422 ff.; McCrindle, *Megasthenes and Arrian*, pp. 133-4 and notes; A. Banerji-Sastri, *Asura India*, p. 72; Hodiwala, *Parsis of Ancient India*, pp. 28, ff. 73 ff.

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⁴ What does "*raṭṭhaviddhaṃsana*" "the destroyer of the realm" of our *gāthā* refer to? Does it refer to the revolt of the Magians against the Zoroastrian religious revolution, the setting up by them as king of the false Smerdis, and the suicide of Cambyses at Harran (522 B. C.) which brought the sternly Zoroastrian Darius, son of Hystashis to the throne of Egypt? See *Cambridge Ancient History*, III, p. 313.

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