Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c15.s1.t2.8

c15.s1.t2.8

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.