History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c12.s6.40

c12.s6.40

According to the Pāli record the war is said to have arisen, not over a wonderful elephant, but over an unnamed river-port (*Gaṅgāyam ekam paṭṭana-gāmam*),⁴ half of which was in Magadhan territory and half in that of the Licchavis. There, from the foot of a mountain, descended a very costly fragrant material.⁵ When King Ajātasattu went to claim this strange substance he found that the Licchavis had preceded him, and had removed it; he therefore planned the war in order to gain possession of the scent-producing mountain. Plans seem to have been laid very carefully; according to the *Mahā-parinibbāna Sutta* Ajātasattu’s first step was to send the minister Vassakāra to the Buddha, to inquire as to the probable outcome of an immediate attack.¹ Vassakāra’s visit is said to have been made while the Buddha was at Gijjhakūṭa near Rājagaha, the Magadhan capital, just before his journey northwards, at the end of which he died. According to Buddhaghosa it was on the Buddha’s advice that Ajātasattu decided not to wage immediate war on the Vajjis, but to bide his time.² The *Sutta* further states that the Buddha, as he proceeded northwards, once more met the minister Vassakāra, who, together with another minister named Sunīdha, was supervising the erection of a fort at Pāṭaligāma,³ and that he correctly prophesied the future greatness of the city that would arise on the site.