History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c16.s1.14

c16.s1.14

to pass the night with his daughter, who is possessed by a rākṣasa, and thus encompasses their death; this suggests the traditional antipathy of the historical Mahāpadma to the two higher castes. Finally he is reported to have said: "It is impossible to bar the course of fate, whose dispensations are wonderful."¹ We have here a further legend of a cruel king of Eastern India with a fatalist philosophy, but the link with the historical Mahāpadma is still very tenuous.