Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c10.s3.22

c10.s3.22

Buddhaghosa seems to close his eyes to the fact that this almost inseparable epithet of Ajātasattu occurs in most of the books of the Pāli Canon, and like so many similar cognomens is obviously a metronymic. This is undoubtedly an older tradition and more reliable than the later *Jātaka* tradition making his mother a Kosalan princess. It may well be that his father, Bimbisāra, had a Kosalan princess for one of his queens,¹ but we object to the commentator's conclusion that Ajātasattu was born of the Kosalan princess. The older tradition, found both in the early Jaina and Buddhist texts,² shows that Ajātasattu's mother was a Videhan lady or a Licchavian princess. Samudra Gupta is always referred to as *Licchavidauhitra* from the fact that his mother was a Licchavi princess. *Gautamīputra* is another similar name taken by Sātakarṇi from his mother's *gotra* name. We assume that the commentator Buddhaghosa himself invented the meaning "wise" to explain away the difficulty, just as he did in deriving the name Licchavi from *Līna-chavī*, "thin skin" or "no skin."³ Mayrhofer firmly rejects the possibility of the word being derived from *vid*, to know. He states that *deha* in the sense of a wall or rampart, is found not only in Vedic Sanskrit but also in all the cognate languages, Avestan, Persian, etc.⁴ Thus, no faith can be put in Buddhaghosa's ingenious interpretation. The word is probably connected with *deha*, neaning a "wall" or "rampart around the city."