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Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c15.s1: The Moriyas of Pipphalivana

Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c15.s1

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The Moriyas of Pipphalivana

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*Name and Origin*

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The only source which contains an account of the origin and name of the Moriyas as a tribe, rather than as a ruling family, is the *Mahāvaṁsa Ṭīkā*.³ According to one explanation, the Moriyas were so called because they rejoiced, *modāpi*, in the prosperity of their city. The commentator explains that by changing the *da* of the *modāpi* to *ra*, the word Moriya is obtained.⁴ He further adds that being oppressed by king Viḍūḍabha, some Sakyas escaped into a delightful region of the Himālayas, which had the convenience of cool water, the shade of a grove of *pipphali* trees⁵ (*pipphalivana*) and the fresh breezes. At this pleasant spot they established a boundary wherein they measured out excellent cities.⁶

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³ *Vaṁsaṭṭha*, i, pp. 180ff.

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⁴ *Ibid.*, p. 180.

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⁵ Normally *pipphali* means pepper. This, however, does not fit the context, and moreover pepper vines do not grow in the Himālayan foothills. Probably we are to take the term as equivalent to *pipphala*, the fruit of the *ficus religiosa* or *pīpal* tree; also *cp. MPS*, Skt., pp. 448-50.

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⁶ *Vaṁsaṭṭha.*, i, p. 180.

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According to the same source, there is another tradition which connects the name with the Pāli and Sanskrit word *mayūra*, peacock. The city which they founded had buildings of blue stone, like the neck of a peacock (*mayūragīvasaṅkāsa*), and the place always resounded with the shrill cries of peacocks.⁷ The masters (*sāmino*) of the city, continues the commentator, were the Sakyas, but their sons and grandsons from then onward became known in the entire Jambudīpa only by the name of the Moriyas. This is why the following generations speak of their clan as the *Moriyavaṁsa*.⁸

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⁷ *Loc. cit.*

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⁸ *Loc. cit.*; *Cf. DPPN*, ii, p. 673; *PHAI*, p. 194.

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According to the first explanation, the word Moriya is derived from the root *mud*, to rejoice, and the commentator explains the change of *da* to *ra*. Then he gives an alternative etymology connecting the name with *mayūra*, peacock. The commentator states both traditions without committing himself to either, though his detailed explanation of the first might indicate his preference. But to us the first story seems more fantastic than the second. Neither story proves the connection of Moriya with either *mud* or *mayūra* any better than does that relating the Koliyas to the *kola* tree. However, we suggest that the name is not connected with *mud*, but with *mayūra*, which might well have given the name to these people, who perhaps originally looked on the peacock as their totem. The explanation that they also had buildings of blue stone, like the colour of a peacock's neck, is simply absurd.

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A close examination of both stories points to the Buddhist writers' arduous attempts to establish a relationship between their Master's clan and that of the Moriyas, probably in order to connect the Mauryan emperor Aśoka with the line of the Śākyamuni. No reference to such a relationship occurs in the Pāli Canon itself and there is no other source to confirm such a blood-bond. If the tradition of the *Parinirvāṇa* is correct, the Moriyas were certainly not the later descendants of the Sakyas as we find both the Sakyas and the Moriyas claiming their share in the relics of the Buddha at his death.¹ The Moriyas were contemporary with the Sakyas and were probably of an old Aryan stock like the other republican peoples of the Buddhist and the Jaina texts. The only known early Buddhist source which mentions the Moriyas is the *Dīgha Nikāya*. Raychaudhuri and Law have both accepted the connection of the Moriyas and the Sakyas without any solid evidence.²

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¹ *MPS*, pp. 448ff; *Dīgha*, ii, pp. 165ff; *Buddhavamsa*, chap. xxviii, 4.

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² *Cf. PHAI*, p. 194; Law, *TAI*, pp. 288-9.

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The first tradition³ also attempts to explain the naming of the Moriyan capital by stating that the spot where they founded the city was located in a *pipphalivana*. We have no other source indicating such a basis for the name of Pipphalivana. It would normally mean "a grove of pepper vines;" not at all suitable for giving shelter to the refugees of the tribe.

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³ *Vamsaṭṭha.*, i, p. 180.

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The *Dīgha Nikāya*,¹ the *Buddhavamsa*,² and the *Mahāvamsa Ṭīkā*³ all indicate that the chief town and centre of Moriyan power was at Pipphalivana. This town is apparently identical with the *Nyagrodhavana* or Banyan Grove, a village in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh which contained the famous Embers' *stūpa* and is mentioned by Hsüan Tsang.⁴ Fa-hsien tells that the *stūpa* lay four *yojanas* to the east of the river Anomā (Rāpti) and twelve *yojanas* to the west of Kusinārā.⁵ Cunningham commented that as Kāsiā (Kusinārā) lay 35 miles to the east of Gorakhpur, the Moriya town could not have been situated very far from the last mentioned city.⁶ There are no serious arguments against this identification, which we provisionally accept.

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¹ *Dīgha*, ii, pp. 166-7; *MPS*, pp. 448-50.

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² *Buddhavamsa*, chap. xxviii, 4.

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³ *Vamsattha.*, i, pp. 180ff, which also calls it *Moriyanagara* (p. 183); *cf. CHI*, i, p. 175.

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⁴ Watters, *op. cit.*, ii, pp. 23-4; *CAGIM*, pp. 491ff, 496ff; *PHAI*, p. 194; Pandey, *op. cit.*, p. 145.

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⁵ Legge, *Travels of Fa-Hsien*, p. 79; Watters, *ibid.*, i, p. 141; *cf. CAGIM*, p. 491; *PHAI*, p. 194.

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⁶ *CAGIM*, p. 493.

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The territory occupied by the Moriyas does not appear to have been very extensive. On the basis of the above evidence the Moriyas also seem to have been close neighbours of the Koliyas, situated to the west of them. To the southwest of the Moriyas the river Anomā (Rāpti) divided them from the Kosalan kingdom. The Mallian country lay to the east, and south of the Moriyas flowed the river Ghāgrā, the Sarayū of the Epic. The region, if measured on the map, does not seem to have been more than 25 miles from east to west up to the river Anomā, and about 50-55 miles from north to south up to the river Ghāgrā.⁷ To our knowledge no other town of the Moriyas is mentioned in the Buddhist texts.⁸

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⁷ *Loc. cit.*; map xi, pp. 444-5; *cf. PHAI*, p. 194 fn. 4.

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⁸ See our map A.

Government and Organization

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The Moriyas were Kṣatriyas like other republican communities of the Buddhist period, and it is on this basis that they advanced their case for a share in the relics at Kusinārā. We hear of no single Moriyan king in the Buddhist sources which refer to them, except, of course, the imperial Mauryas of later times. On the other hand, there is ground to believe that they were ruled by a republican or quasi-republican form of government. Upon hearing that the Buddha had passed away, it was the Moriyas of Pipphalivana, and not an individual Moriyan ruler, who sent an envoy to the Mallas asking for a share in the remains of the Exalted One.¹ The *Buddhavamsa* also alludes to the same fact,² and the Tibetan tradition further strengthens this view that the embers went to the *Nyagrodhika* country (Pipphalivana).³

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¹ *MPS*, p. 448; *Dīgha*, ii, pp. 165ff.

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² *Buddhavamsa*, chap. xxviii, 4.

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³ Rockhill, *op. cit.*, p. 147; *cf. PHAI*, p. 194

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The *Mahāvamsa Ṭīkā* refers to them as the Moriya kings of the Moriya city. The *Ṭīkā* always mentions them in the plural, i.e. *Moriyarājānam*, and the young Moriyas are invariably called *rājakumāras* or princes.⁴ This clearly shows that the Moriyas of Pipphalivana were a republican people like the Sakyas, the Mallas, and the Licchavis, and that the college of Moriyan rulers were all called *rājās*. We have no definite evidence with regard to their internal administration and judicial system. But it would be legitimate to suggest that they had a general assembly of elders who chose a chief from amongst themselves, probably for life. He probably ran the administration of the republic with the help of a few members of the assembly, which was the source of his power. It was this body of the Moriyas which most likely sent an envoy to Kusinārā to claim a share in the relics of the Buddha. We do not know the number of the Moriyas who constituted this assembly and council.⁵

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⁴ *Vamṣaṭṭha.*, i, p. 183.

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⁵ *Cp.* Altekar, *State and Government*, pp. 121-2, 132.

Political History

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We have suggested above that the Moriyas were probably an ethnic group which had moved with the eastward march of the Aryans. We have also shown that the story of the *Mahāvamsa Ṭīkā* has no historical truth in representing the Moriyas as an offshoot of the Sakyas. Moreover, the geographical location of the former also strengthens the evidence against the Sakya-Moriyan relationship. The Moriyas inhabited a land southeast of that of the Sakyas, while north of the Moriyas lay the Mallian territory, bordering on the Himālayan mountains. This shows that the Moriyas, as compared with the Sakyas, were by no means in the Himālayan region as the *Ṭīkā* would have us believe.¹ Moreover, the Koliyan territory, to the west of the Moriyas, lay between the Sakyas and the Moriyas, separating the two.

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¹ *Vaṁsaṭṭha.*, i, p. 180; *CAGIM*, map xi, pp 444-5; our map A.

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The *Mahāvaṁsa Ṭīkā* continues the history of the Moriyas, saying that, "then did the Brāhmaṇa Cāṇakka anoint a glorious youth, known by the name of Candagutta, as king over all Jambudīpa, born of a noble clan, the Moriyas [*Moriyakula-sambhavo*], when, filled with bitter hate, he had slain the ninth Nanda Dhanananda."² The *Mahāvaṁsa Ṭīkā*³ and the *Dīpavaṁsa*⁴ also record the same tradition. These sources not only connect the founder of the Magadhan Mauryan dynasty, Candragupta, with the Moriyas, but the *Mahāvaṁsa Ṭīkā* further states that Aśoka's mother, Dhammā, was also a Moriyan princess.⁵

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² *Mahāvaṁsa comm.*, chap. v, 16-17; *cp.* *Arthaśāstra*, concluding verse.

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³ *Vaṁsaṭṭha.*, i, pp. 183ff.

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⁴ *Dīpavaṁsa*, vi, 19; tr. p. 148.

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⁵ *Vaṁsaṭṭha.*, i, p. 189.

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There was a Sinhalese clan so called,⁶ probably taking its name from the ancient republican Moriyas, hence connecting them with Aśoka and the Buddha. But curiously enough, Cāṇakya as a rule addresses Candragupta Maurya as *Vṛṣala*, i.e. a person of low birth, in Viśākhadatta's *Mudrārākṣasa*. He is also said by the commentaries of the play to have been an illegitimate son of the last Nanda king by a Śūdra woman named Murā.⁷ This is an imaginative etymology, concocted by someone who was not aware of the existence of the Moriyas in the Buddha's day. Raychaudhuri⁸ and Law⁹ both support the relationship of the Moriyas of Pipphalivana and the Maurya dynasty of Magadha on the basis of evidence produced by the Ceylonese texts, and there seems to be no valid objection to Raychaudhuri's view when he says that "the Moriyas (Mauryas) were the same clan which gave Magadha its greatest dynasty".¹⁰ But Law goes further and declares that "there may be some truth in the suggestion that the Moriyas were in some way connected with the Śākyas of Kapilavastu.” Moreover, Law states, without giving his arguments or quoting his sources, that the royal family of the Nandas was connected by matrimonial alliance with the Moriyas of Pipphalivana.¹ We have seen above that there seems to have been no historical basis for the relationship between the Moriyas and the Sakyas, and to our knowledge there is no source which would support Law’s claim of matrimonial alliances being contracted between the Moriyas and the Nandas.

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⁶ *Cūlavaṁsa*, chaps. xxxviii, 13; xli, 69.

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⁷ *Mudrārākṣasa*, act iii, pp. 82ff; *cf.* notes p. 232.

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⁸ *PHAI*, pp. 194ff.

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⁹ Law, *TAI*, p. 288.

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¹⁰ *PHAI*, p. 194.

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¹ Law, *TAI*, pp. 288-9.

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In the absence of further positive evidence we can only tentatively suggest, from the linguistic and ethnographical points of view, that it is not impossible that the Moriyas of Pipphalivana and the Maurya dynasty of Magadha were related to each other, and that Candragupta Maurya was a scion of some Moriyan family, originally of Pipphalivana. But the stories so elaborately expanded and dwelt upon by the Buddhist writers, in their arduous attempt to establish a blood-relationship between the Moriyas and the Sakyas, appear to be false or at least extremely suspect.

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In the unhistorical atmosphere of the times, it would be natural for the earnest Buddhist monks to conceive, from their extreme devotion to the Sakyan sage, that their great patron, Aśoka, must himself have been a blood relation of the Buddha. Such being the case, a story to account for his relationship would be concocted and implicitly believed, perhaps even by the monks who devised it. This would be especially true if they had felt themselves inspired by some supernatural insight. Alternatively, it is possible that the story of the connexion of the Moriyas with the Sakyas arose in Ceylon itself. The powerful Moriyan clan in Ceylon would have appreciated evidence linking it to the race of the Buddha. The monks of the Island, as well, might have wished to connect Aśoka, by whose missions Ceylon was first converted to Buddhism, with the founder of their faith.

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We believe that the Moriyas were not the descendants but the contemporaries of the Sakyas. They appear to have ceased to be a political force soon after the death of the Buddha. They were probably defeated by Ajātasattu after he had subdued the Vajjis and their territory became part of the expanding empire of Magadha.

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