Pre-Buddhist India: A Political, Administrative, Economic, Social and Geographical Survey of Ancient India Based Mainly on the Jataka Stories c3.s3.t3.3

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