Pramāṇa · Search · About · API

Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c3.s3.t3: The Daṇḍaka Empire

Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jātaka Stories c3.s3.t3

Language
English

The Daṇḍaka Empire

c3.s3.t3.1

Towards the end of the period which witnessed the waning power of Videha, the South of India was, it seems, undergoing a process of Rise and Fall of some states of which no sufficient connected records survive. A delightful ray of light coming from the *Sarabhaṅga Jātaka*⁹ enables us, however, to peep a little through the darkness that surrounds this period.

c3.s3.t3.2

⁹ J., V, pp. 127 *ff*.

c3.s3.t3.3

The *Jātaka* mentions a king named Daṇḍaki,¹⁰ as ruling over an extensive realm of sixty *yojanas* with Kumbhavatī¹¹ as his capital city. We are further told that within his realm ruled his three subordinate kings, (*assa raṭṭhasssa antararaṭṭhādhipatino*) viz., Kaliṅga, Aṭṭhaka and Bhīmaratha.¹² Of these, Daṇḍaki evidently represents the *Saṃskṛta* Daṇḍaka, associated with the forest of that name in the South. Bhīmaratha, again, must represent a South Indian king. The *Mahābhārata*,¹³ the *Purāṇas*¹⁴ and even the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa*¹⁵ know Bhīma or Bhīmaratha (of which Bhīma is a shortened form)¹, as kings associated with the southern kingdom of Vidarbha,² modern Berar. Kaliṅga is of course a king of the Kaliṅga country. Now what about Aṭṭhaka? No king of this name is, as far as we are aware, to be found elsewhere, except the one mentioned before as belonging to the Ancient Period, and identified with King Aṣṭaka, son and successor of Viśvāmitra, or more appropriately, Viśvaratha.³ But that ancient Aṭṭhaka referred to as an inspiring example of ideal kingship seems, most probably, to be a different personage from this Aṭṭhaka of the Sarabhaṅga Jātaka, who is more real and intimately associated with the other South-Indian kings.⁴ How is it possible for a North-Indian king to be associated so intimately with the far-off kings of the south separated by the great monarchies and even physical barriers of Central India? We are inclined to think that, if the Jātaka is not to be accused of inconsistency, in the present case at least,—and we have no strong reason so to believe—, Aṭṭhaka should be taken here as a corrupted form of Assaka,⁵ and all our difficulties vanish in a moment. Assaka or Aśmaka, as we know, was a prominent South Indian state, situated on the river Godāvarī, and closely related to the neighbouring kingdoms of Daṇḍaka, Vidarbha and Kaliṅga.⁶

c3.s3.t3.4

¹⁰ Besides the prose, two *gāthās* also mention him: J., V, p. 143. GG. 68, 69.

c3.s3.t3.5

¹¹ According to the *Rāmāyaṇa*, VII, 79, 18, the capital was Madhumanta, while the *Mahāvastu* (Senart's ed.) p. 363, places it at Govardhana (Nāsik): *P. H. A. I.*, p. 64.

c3.s3.t3.6

¹² J., V, pp. 135, 137-G. 50; 149-G. 85.

c3.s3.t3.7

¹³ III, 53, 5 *ff*; 69, 1 *ff*.

c3.s3.t3.8

¹⁴ e. g., *Vāyu P.*, 95.

c3.s3.t3.9

¹⁵ VII, 34; *Vedic Index*, II, p. 106.

c3.s3.t3.10

¹ Cf. Pargiter, op. cit., p. 169.

c3.s3.t3.11

² Vidarbha is mentioned in the Jaiminīya Brāhmaṇa, II, 440, Vedic Index, II, p. 297.

c3.s3.t3.12

³ Supra.

c3.s3.t3.13

⁴ Dr. B. C. Sen, op. cit., p. 7, apparently takes the two Aṭṭhakas identical and comes to a synchronism which, we admit, seems alluring.

c3.s3.t3.14

⁵ We searched in vain, we should admit here, to find if there was any difference of readings of this 'Aṭṭhaka' in Fausböll's texts. Other texts like the Siamese, we have not been able to consult.

c3.s3.t3.15

⁶ See Bhandarkar, C. L., 1918, pp. 19, 22, 40 etc., P. H. A. I., p. 62.

c3.s3.t3.16

It then comes to this. Daṇḍaka, Bhīmaratha, Assaka and Kaliṅga were contemporaries. But unfortunately none of these, except Bhīmaratha, is a personal name, and therefore it is very difficult to identify any of them. Daṇḍaka is not known to the Brāhmaṇas or the Upaniṣads. The Paurāṇic Daṇḍa or Daṇḍaka is, as rightly pointed out by Pargiter,⁷ an eponym to account for the name of the forest, because it clashes with the other statements about the many kings that occupied the Deccan. But whatever may have been the personal name of our Daṇḍaki, he is most certainly identical with Dāṇḍakya of Kauṭilya⁸ and Daṇḍaka of the Rāmāyaṇa⁹ and the Mahābhārata¹⁰ and also of the Jaina Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacarita of Hemacandra.¹¹ For, all of these refer to the dire destruction that befell his realm. He was most probably a post-Vedic king as may be judged by his absence from the Vedic texts, though this argumentum ex silentio is never conclusive, we admit. We cannot say for certain, again, with which of the several Bhīmas of Vidarbha of the Purāṇas mentioned in Pargiter's list¹ are we to identify our Bhīmaratha, or whether the identification is possible at all. Nor is his identification with Bhīma of the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* possible, for in that case we shall have to carry him back to the early *Brāhmaṇa* period to make him contemporaneous with such comparatively ancient kings as Dummukha and Naggaji, which is, to our mind, inconceivable. It appears therefore that Bhīmaratha was later than the *Brāhmaṇic* Bhīma. Similarly, the Kaliṅga king mentioned in our *Jātaka* must be taken as later than Karaṇḍu of the earlier period. Assaka's identity remains uncertain. So from all this it appears reasonable to hold that these four kings, whosoever they in reality may have been, lived at a time when the Northern powers like the Pañcāla and Videha of the later Vedic period were showing signs of collapse and when Kāsī had not yet risen to its Imperial status capable enough to capture Assaka and other powers of the South.² The period may with a fair approximation be dated as 800 B. C..³

c3.s3.t3.17

⁷ A. I. H. T., p. 258; Cf. G. Ramdas, J. B. O. R. S., XI, p. 47.

c3.s3.t3.18

⁸ Arthaśāstra, I, 6.

c3.s3.t3.19

⁹ VII, 81. 7-19.

c3.s3.t3.20

¹⁰ XIII, 153, 11; also II, 30, 16-7.

c3.s3.t3.21

¹¹ G. O. S., LI, pp. 44-5; Cf. Jain, Jaina Jātakas, pp. 47-8.

c3.s3.t3.22

¹ A. I. H T., pp. 146, 148 numbers 41 (Kṛtha Bhīma), 50 (Bhīmaratha), and 66 (Bhīna Sātvata).

c3.s3.t3.23

² See for instance J., II, p. 155.

c3.s3.t3.24

³ The fact that a town of Lambacūlaka in the province (*vijite*) of Caṇḍapajjota is referred to in our *Jātaka* in a manner which may suggest that he was contemporaneous with the group of kings, mentioned above, does not carry much weight. For in another place, J., III, p. 463, the name of the king, in the same context, is Pajoka. It seems natural to think therefore that the story-teller, while reciting an ancient story where the name was different, incorporated the name of that king who was more familiar and nearer to him. It may be said to be an anachronism. See Sen, op. cit., p. 7.

c3.s3.t3.25

The fate of Daṇḍaki and his kingdom must be regarded as historical fact, since all our authorities are, as we saw before, at one on this point, though they ascribe different causes to it. That he made a 'lascivious attempt on a Brāhmaṇa girl' is attested by the *Arthaśāstra*⁴ and the *Rāmāyaṇa*⁵ and also by the Jaina *Triṣaṣṭiśalākāpuruṣacarita*,⁶ while our *Jātaka*⁷ says that he treated the holy sage Kīsavaccha very contemptuously. These causes, of course, cannot be viewed in any other light except as later-day inventions of moralists and sectarian propagandists who, to suit their own purposes, explained away a fact of natural phenomena as resulting from a human sin.⁸ Any way, the fact remains, as the unanimous testimony of the above sources forces us to think, that the kingdom of Daṇḍaki round the river Godāvarī and the districts of Nāsik and adjoining parts of Mahārāṣṭra suffered from some terrible natural visitations. The statement of the *Jātaka*⁹ that the land was destroyed by a shower of 'fine sand' (*sukhumavālukavassam*) is in striking agreement with that of the *Rāmāyaṇa* (*pāṃśuvarṣeṇa*).¹⁰

c3.s3.t3.26

⁴ I, 6.

c3.s3.t3.27

⁵ VII, 80, 16.

c3.s3.t3.28

⁶ I. c.

c3.s3.t3.29

⁷ J., V, p. 143-G, 69; also p. 267-G. 95.

c3.s3.t3.30

⁸ Did we not hear in this twentieth century the same thing with regard to the recent earthquake havoc in Bihār?

c3.s3.t3.31

⁹ J., V, p. 135.

c3.s3.t3.32

¹⁰ VII, 8, 7-18; Mr. G. Ramdas disbelieves this; says he: "this forest (of Daṇḍaka) is said to have been devoid of trees, animals, and water and was converted into a region of ashes. If it had been so, how did so many hermitages exist there? From the descriptions of its parts visited by Rāma, it appears to have been full of rivers and lakes, and consequently habitable to men." The very name of Daṇḍaka in Sabara language, according to the same writer, denotes a region full of water." J. B. O. R. S., XI, pp. 45-7.

c3.s3.t3.33

Finally let us note, that the great sage Sarabhaṅga, to whom the three southern kings discussed above are said to have approached for instruction, living in a hermitage on the river Godāvarī with a large number of pupils, figures also in the *Rāmāyaṇa*¹ in a similar setting. It is again interesting to note, that Sarabhaṅga is styled ‘Kondañña’ (Kauṇḍinya) in two of the *gāthās* of our *Jātaka*.² And we hear of a sage called Vidarbhi Kauṇḍinya even in the *Bṛhadāraṇyaka Upaniṣad*.³ The two sages may or may not have been identical, but this fully bears out Sarabhaṅga’s association with Vidarbha,⁴ and also the fact of Bhīmaratha’s being a Vidarbha king.

c3.s3.t3.34

¹ III, 5.

c3.s3.t3.35

² J., V, pp. 140-1-GG, 59, 64.

c3.s3.t3.36

³ See Vedic Index, II, pp. 297.

c3.s3.t3.37

⁴ “The name Kauṇḍinya is apparently derived from the city of Kauṇḍina, the capital of Vidarbha, represented by the modern Kauṇḍinyapura on the banks of the Wardhā in the Chandur taluk of Amroati.” Raychaudhury, *P. H. A. I.*, p. 61.

c3.s3.t3.38

With Daṇḍaki, fell his great Empire of the South. We do not hear what happened of his three subordinate kings. Far from renouncing the world, as the *Jātaka* would have us believe,⁵ each of these three kings, must have engaged himself in right earnest, first to make his own position secure and then to gain the overlordship that had been left vacant.⁶ And not long after we shall hear of their descendants quarrelling among themselves for power and, in their turn, falling a prey to the fast-growing powers of the North, like Kāsī and the rest.

c3.s3.t3.39

⁵ J., V, p. 151.

c3.s3.t3.40

⁶ What happened after Aśoka, after Samudragupta and after Harṣa, Akbar and Śivājī ? What after Frederick the Great and Napoleon ? It is History psychologically repeated.

Linked texts (7)