Dictionary of Pali Proper Names v1.c16.1121

v1.c16.1121

Cetāvigāma.—A village in Ceylon. When Mattābhaya was ordained under Mahinda he was followed by five hundred youths from this village.¹ The village was to the south of Anurādhapura.² 1. Ceti, Cetiya.—One of the sixteen Mahājanapadas,¹ probably identical with Ceḍi of the older documents.² The people of Ceti seem to have had two distinct settlements: one, perhaps the older, was in the mountains, probably the present Nepal.³ It is evidently this older settlement which is mentioned in the Vessantara Jātaka; it was passed by Vessantara on his way into exile in the Himālayas, and was thirty yojanas distant from Jetuttara.⁴ The other, probably a later colony, lay near the Yamunā, to the east, in the neighbourhood of and contiguous to the settlement of the Kurus; for we are told⁵ that the Buddha, having dwelt in the Ceti country, went to Bhaddavatikā, where, at the Ambatittha, Sāgata tamed a Nāga, and from there he went to Kosambī. This part of the country corresponds roughly to the modern Bundelkhand and the adjoining region.⁶