Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c3.s2.t1.37

c3.s2.t1.37

For Sutasoma’s historical existence, we cannot vouch. In the long, dreary and epic-like story related in the *Mahāsutasoma Jātaka*,¹ we find him as the Lord of the Kurus.² The king of Benares turns out a man-eater. Sutasoma, with his masterly genius, restores him to his senses and, at the end, establishes him on his throne. In the intervening *gāthās* we are given a glorious description of Sutasoma’s virtuous reign.³ The man-eater king, who is in the *gāthās* towards the end⁴ named Kammāsapāda, restores the kings whom he had captured to liberty. The story of Kalmāṣapāda, the king of Ayodhyā, is well-known in the *Mahābhārata* and the *Purāṇas*.⁵ But it has no reference to Sutasoma or any other person named in the *Jātaka* story. The story, with almost the same oft-repeated *gāthās*, occurs in the *Jayaddisa Jātaka*,⁶ where however the hero-king is Jayaddisa of Pañcāla. All this makes us doubtful of the real existence of Sutasoma.⁷