Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c12.s4.1

c12.s4.1

There are a few scattered references in the Buddhist Canon and the sacred books of the Jainas that attest to the existence of the Mallas before and after the death of the Buddha. These texts mainly preserve traditions of the time when the founders of their faith preached, and hence only indicate that the Mallas existed as political powers at that time. Kauṭilya also refers to them.³ But in Pāṇini they are only implied in the term *Vṛji*,⁴ and hence they do not figure in Kātyāyana or Patañjali.⁵ The Mallas did not survive as long as did the Licchavis. (They disappeared as a republican tribe during the Mauryan period, or a little later.) Manu, following the unfavourable attitude of the Brāhmaṇa writers, brands the Mallas, as *Vrātyakṣatriyas*, or Kṣatriyas who had not gone through the initiation ceremony and were therefore degraded like their other neighbours.⁶ This is perhaps because their rites and customs were not orthodox. Though individual families of the Malla chiefs crop up now and then in Tibet and Nepal upto c. 11th century A.D. and even later,⁷ the Mallas of Pāvā and Kusinārā, at whose republican centres the two greatest teachers of 6th century B.C. India had taught and died, never again attained the political power and system of government which they certainly had during the lifetime of the Buddha and Mahāvīra.