Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c3.s2.t1.48

c3.s2.t1.48

The story relates, that once a rebellion broke out in the frontier. The king went to suppress it, leaving his son Prince Somanassa (by queen Sudhhammā¹⁰) in charge of the government. On his return a false charge was brought against his son by a deceitful ascetic. Trusting upon the ascetic, the king ordered the prince to be executed. He however soon came to realize the falsity of the charge, and then began to implore his son to take the charge of the kingdom which the latter forsook in disgust and turned an ascetic. This is a story on which little reliance can be placed, in absence of further evidence to corroborate it. A king by the name of Reṇu is indeed mentioned in the Dīgha-Nikāya¹ and the Mahāvastu,² but the name of the kingdom over which he ruled is not specified.³ The Epic and the Purāṇas also mention a king Reṇu of Ayodhyā whose daughter Reṇukā was married to Jamadagni, father of Paraśurāma⁴. But these scanty and imperfect evidences carry us no further.