History and Doctrines of the Ajivikas: A Vanished Indian Religion c9.s1.8

c9.s1.8

In the time of the Buddha, which was also the time of Makkhali Gosāla, we find the territory of what is now Utta Pradesh and South Bihār occupied by two great kingdoms, Kosala and Magadha. Both were expanding, and had recently absorbed lesser states on their borders, Kāsī (the district of Benares) having fallen to Kosala,¹ and Aṅga (E. Bihār and N.-W. Bengal) to Magadha.² To the north of the two great kingdoms were small tribal oligarchies, precariously maintaining their existence against the greater states. The most famous of them, that of the Śākyas, was already tributary to Pasenadi or Prasenajit of Kosala, and was soon to be devastated by his son Viḍūḍabha³; while the largest of the so-called republics, the confederacy of the Vajjis, which seems to have superseded the kingdom of Janaka in Videha, was also soon to be conquered by Viḍūḍabha’s contemporary, Ajātasattu, the son of king Bimbisāra of Magadha.⁴