Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c12.s3.1

c12.s3.1

Their country is designated as *Malla-Janapada* in the Sanskrit version of the *Mahāparinirvāṇa Sūtra*,¹⁰ and references to Malla- *raṭṭha*,¹ the *Malla-rāṣṭra* of the *Mahābhārata*,² *Malla-bhū* or *Malla-bhūmi*³ and *Malla-gaṇa*⁴ are by no means lacking. It is fairly certain that the territories of the Mallas of Pāvā and those of Kusinārā were divided during the lifetime of the Buddha by a natural frontier, the river Hiraññavatī.⁵ The *Dīgha Nikāya* mentions a river Kakutthā⁶ and Rhys Davids, without comment or criticism, takes this very Kakutthā to be the boundary river which the Buddha crossed going from the territory of the Paveyya-Mallas into that of the Kosināraka-Mallas.⁷ This, however, is a mistake that can be easily corrected by examining the various versions of the text in Sanskrit, Pāli, Tibetan, and Chinese. The account of the last journey of the Buddha is almost the same in all the texts, save for one major disagreement which concerns the name of the river dividing the territories of the Mallas of Pāvā from that of the Mallas of Kusinārā.