Republics in Ancient India, c. 1500 B.C.–500 B.C. c9.s5.88

c9.s5.88

Apart from two striking parallels, that of the break-up of the Confederation and the betrayal of Vesālī by an agent of Magadha, the two stories have little in common.¹ The similar occurrence of the *gandha-hatthi* of the Jaina and the *gandha-bhaṇḍam* of the Pāli texts perhaps indicates that the author of the *Nirayāvalikā* and Buddhaghosa both worked on the same tradition.² One of the two, however, "probably the latter, had received it in a garbled form. The obscure perfumed material of the Pāli account is less plausible than the tame elephant of the *Nirayāvalikā*, and the latter therefore seems more reliable in this particular."³ In our opinion both stories seem to contain some grain of truth. Although there is a contrary Buddhist tradition which makes Ajātasattu the son of a princess of Kosala,⁴ we know from the Jaina as well as the Buddhist sources that Bimbisāra had a Videhan princess as one of his queens. She was the mother of Ajātasattu and he is always referred to in the Buddhist sources as the "son of the Videhan princess" (*Vehehiputto*). The fact that both traditions agree on this point suggests that it is more likely to be true than the alternative account of Ajātasattu's origin.