History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c12.s6.49

c12.s6.49

In the Jaina story the war is said to have taken place at some unspecified time after the self-inflicted death of the imprisoned King Seṇiya. No definite statement is given of the time which elapsed between the death of Seṇiya and the war, but between the two events there occurred the repentance of King Kūṇiya (Ajātasattu), the funeral ceremonies of his father, and the removal of the court from Rājagṛha to Campā. Although the interval does not appear to have been very great it may have lasted for one or two years. This probability is strengthened by the Buddhist account of a war with Kosala soon after Ajātasattu’s accession.¹ In the Buddhist story the visit of Vassakāra which initiated Ajātasattu’s schemes against the Vajjis and was the first in a chain of events culminating in the Buddha’s death, must have taken place at least six or seven years after the death of Bimbisāra-Seṇiya, since the *Mahāvaṃsa* states that the Buddha’s *nirvāṇa* occurred in the eighth year of the reign of Ajātasattu-Kūṇiya.²