Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c11.26

c11.26

The Jainas, both the Śvetāmbaras and the Digambaras, state that Mahāvīra was the son of a king Siddhārtha of Kuṇḍapura or Kuṇḍagāma.¹ They would have us believe that Kuṇḍagāma was a large town. But in fact they have misrepresented the matter by a gross exaggeration, just as the Buddhists did with regard to Kapilavatthu.² For Kuṇḍagāma is called, in the *Ācārāṅga Sūtra*³ and the *Uvāsagadasāo*,⁴ “Kuṇḍapura-Sannivesa” (*Kuṇḍapura-Saṁnevesāo*), a term which the commentator interprets as denoting a halting place of caravans or processions.⁵ It must therefore have been a relatively insignificant place of which it is recorded only that it lay in Videha. The texts inform us variously that “Mahāvīra was a Nāya, the son of a Nāya-Khattiya; the moon of the clan of the Nāyas; a Videha, the son of Videhadattā, native of Videha (*Videha-jacce*); a prince of Videha (*Videha-kūmāle*), who had lived 30 years in Videha when his parents passed away”.⁶