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Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c15.s1.t2: Political History

Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c15.s1.t2

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English

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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