Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c3.s2.t1.54

c3.s2.t1.54

Dr. Raychaudhury⁵ draws our attention to the Jaina Uttarādhyayana Sūtra which mentions a king Iśukāra ruling at the town called Iśukāra in the Kuru country.⁶ We are at once reminded of a king of the same or similar name Esukārī of the Hatthipāla Jātaka,⁷ who seems to have been passed unnoticed by the learned Doctor. The story of Esukārī, as related in the above Jātaka, agrees remarkably well with that found in the Jaina Sūtra. Even some of the gāthās in both the versions agree literally.⁸ These facts lead us to identify the two kings—Iśukāra and Esukārī. But there is one chief difference between the two that cannot be passed over. The Jātaka-Esukārī reigned in Benares and not in Iśukāra (in Kuru kingdom) as the Jaina Sūtra says. But here again, is not the Jātaka in all probability guilty of foisting upon the Kuru king its own pet kingdom of Benares? It seems the Jaina tradition is much more reliable, and we may take it that Esukārī was a Kuru king. The interesting and untoward reference in a gāthā of our Jātaka,⁹ to the fact that Esukārī’s queenconsort was a Pañcālī, may, indeed, lend a significant support to our conclusion.