Magadha

“ Suppose he should think, “Strange is it and wonderful, this issue of meritorious deeds, this result of merit! Here is this king of Magadha, Ajātasattu, the son of the Videha princess—he is a man, and so am I. But the king lives in the full enjoyment and possession of the five pleasures of sense—a very god, methinks—and here am I a slave, working for him, rising before him and retiring earlier to rest, keen to carry out his pleasure, anxious to make myself agreeable in deed and word, watching his very looks. Would that I were like him, that I too might earn merit. ”

“ Crossing the pleasing Sarayu, and seeing the whole of the eastern Koçaladesa, they marched through Mithila and Malla and crossed the Charmanvati river; then crossing the Ganges and the Sona, these three brave men of unwearied courage, clothed in cloth of the Kusa grass, turning eastwards, arrived at the boundary of the Magadha kingdom. ”

“ Just before the time of the Buddha—about the seventh and sixth centuries B.C.—a fierce contest for the mastery of northern India was waged between the kingdoms of Magadha and Kosala. This contest, as Dr Rhys Davids points out, "was decided in the time of the Buddha's boyhood by the final victory of Magadha."331 About 320 B.C. the Mauryan dynasty under Chandragupta (Sandrakottos) overthrew that of Dhana Nanda and seated itself on the throne of Magadha, which, under a strong ruler, became more powerful than ever. ”

“ Riding up proudly, kings, indeed, of their world, holders of untold wealth in priceless gems and gold--gold, unminted, almost valueless, jewels recklessly strung, like pebbles on a string.
This legend, indeed, of countless uncounted gold, of fair women, and almost weird, rough luxury, lingers still around the very name of Snake-King, and holds its own in the folk-lore of India.
In these days the kingdom of Magadha--so far as we can judge, a Scythic principality--was just entering the lists against that still more ancient Aryan kingdom of Kosâla, of which we read in the Râmâyana. ”

“ Magadha seems to have continued in the possession of the king for a long time. In the eleventh year of the king an image of Buddha was dedicated in or near the temple of the Mahābodhi at Bodh-Gaya, and in the same year the great temple at Nālanda was restored, as it had been burnt down in a fire. After the conquest of Magadha, Mahīpāla seems to have attacked Tīrabhukti or Mithilā which continued in the possession of the king at least till his 48th year. ”

“ He had instantly to face war with Kosâla, the murdered man's wife--who, it is said, died of grief--being sister to the king of that country. Round this war, long and bloody, legend has woven many incidents. At one time Magadha, at another Kosâla, seems to have come uppermost. Ajâta-sutru himself was once carried a prisoner in chains to his opponent's capital; but in the end, when peace came, Kosâla had given one of its princesses in marriage to the King of Magadha, and had become absorbed in that empire. ”

“ At last Râjahansa was victorious, the enemy was completely defeated, their king taken prisoner, and all Mâlwa lay open to the conqueror. He, however, having no wish to enlarge his dominions, released his prisoner on very easy terms, and returning to Pushpapuri, thought only of governing his own kingdom in peace, not expecting after such generous treatment any further trouble from his ambitious neighbour.
Though prosperous and happy in every other respect, the King of Magadha had one great cause of sorrow and anxiety—he had no son to succeed him. ”

“ This is not to be wondered at as it is now certain that Magadha formed an integral part of the dominions of Mahīpāla's father Mahendrapāla. During this war Gopāla II of Bengal may have taken the opportunity of recovering some of the traditional possessions of his family and pushed the Western frontier as far as the eastern banks of the Sone. This re-occupation of the Magadha may have been temporary, and Mahīpāla may have recovered the possession of his Eastern Provinces, with the help of the Candella Yaśovarmman. ”

“ When a new idea wins converts it is the instinct of the older sects to declare that it is compatible with their teaching or that they have something similar and just as good. It was in this fashion that the Buddhists of Magadha accepted Śâktist and tantric ideas. If Hinduism could summon gods and goddesses by magical methods, they could summon Bodhisattvas, male and female, in the same way, and these spirits were as good as the gods. In justice it must be said that despite distortions and monstrous accretions the real teaching of Gotama did not entirely disappear even in Magadha and Tibet. ”

“ In the Aitareya Āraṇyaka the Vanga tribe finds only a bare mention in conjunction with the Magadha people. Some early references relating to the people of Magadha, of Anga and of other neighbouring barbarian tracts in such a fashion, that they were beasts or snakes, have been misinterpreted by some scholars. We cannot forget the fact that almost all the tribes were known by the totem names of their clans or tribes; it is therefore strongly suspected that when the Aryans knew the totem names of different tribes, they had some intimate knowledge of them. ”

“ Further, it is clear that in Magadha itself the great ages of sculpture were felt to be already past. Talking of Pataliputra, which had been the capital of Asoka, "the palaces in the town have walls," says our traveller, "of which the stones were put together by genii. The sculptures and the carved work which adorn the windows are such as cannot be equalled in the present age. They still exist." ”

“ Even to this day Behar, where there are extensive remains of Buddhist buildings, remains a sacred spot in the eyes of the Chinese and other Buddhist nations.
Bimbisara was murdered by his son Ajatasatru, who succeeded him, and whose bloodthirsty policy reduced the whole country between the Himalayas and the Ganges under the suzerainty of Magadha. According to tradition, it was his grandson, Udaya, who founded the city of Pataliputra (Patna) on the Ganges, which under the Maurya dynasty became the capital not only of Magadha but of India. The remaining history of the dynasty is obscure ”

“ Death in battle is the sure cause of triumph like Indra's. It is graced by numerous merits. It is for this reason that he of a hundred sacrifices (Indra) hath become what he is, and by vanquishing the Asuras he ruleth the universe. Hostility with whom else than thee is so sure of leading to heaven, proud as thou art of the excessive strength of thy vast Magadha host? Don't disregard others, O king. Valour dwelleth in every man. O king of men, there are many men whose valour may be equal or superior to thine. ”

“ N. Great King, it is. General Siha stands in the field with a strong force ready to strike. There are another fifty thousand within call to make a sudden dash upon any of our neighbors should they dare come to the aid of Sakya. Our treasury is well filled, and the people of Magadha are prosperous. We could stand even a protracted war far better than any other state in India. ”

“ He seems to have been a peaceably inclined, weak, old man, studious in his habits, and a patron of Brāhmanism. Both he and his father seem to have belonged to the Śaiva sect, as their inscriptions begin with an invocation to Śiva.
Step by step, the Gāhaḍavāla Kings of Kanauj advanced towards the East. Govindacandra seems to have conquered the whole of Magadha in the earlier part of his reign (1114 = 54 A.D.) . Gāhaḍavāla Conquest of Magadha.In 1127 he was in a position to grant a village in the Patna District to a Brāhmaṇa. ”

“ We get the name of a tribe called Gomanta (those who keep cattle) just after the name of the Magadha people, in the enumeration of the eastern tribes in the 44th verse of the 57th chapter of the Mārkaṇḍeya Purāṇa. In the Vāyu Purāṇa (XLV, 123) , after enumerating the tribes of Assam and North Bengal, the Videhas and other tribes of north Bihār have been mentioned ”

“ In the instant revolt of conquered India which followed, he took a prominent part, and found himself, in B.C. 321, with an army at his back which, having accomplished its purpose and given its leader paramount power in Punjâb, was eager to follow his fortune elsewhere.
He led it to Magadha, and taking advantage of the Nanda king's unpopularity, slew every male member of the family.
This was the Eastern etiquette on such occasions; the sparing of a brother or an uncle being considered a weakness sure to bring speedy repentance in its train. ”

“ The flowing white dress of the Bengali male people is now coming into fashion in other provinces also, but the Bengalis and Oriyas are only found to use no head-dress at all. I mention these facts with the object of showing, how deep and abiding, how intense and extensive, has been the influence of Magadha culture in Bengal. We may, I daresay, be fully justified to assert, what has been asserted before, that we in Bengal represent to-day the old Behar, more than the modern Beharis do in Behar. ”

“ It is in this part of Patna alone that stone, rubble and dressed, are to be met with in any quantity, and this, as before noticed, tends to show that the old capital of Magadha with its numerous stone towers and buildings existed on this side, the stone used in the river revetments being the last remnants of the old city which the river had not swallowed up when modern Patna was founded by Shir Shah. ”

“ The time hath, therefore come for the destruction of Jarasandha. He is incapable of being vanquished in battle even by all the celestials and the Asuras (fighting together) . We think, however, that he should be vanquished in a personal struggle with bare arms. In me is policy, in Bhima is strength and in Arjuna is triumph; and therefore, as prelude to performing the Rajasuya, we will certainly achieve the destruction of the ruler of Magadha. When we three approach that monarch in secret, and he will, without doubt, be engaged in an encounter with one of us. ”

“ For forty-four years after the great struggle beneath the Bo-tree, Buddha taught in the Deer Park at Benares, beneath this sacred Bo-tree at Uruwela, or in the Bamboo Grove at Rajagriha during the rainy season; and for the rest of the year wandered through Magadha, preaching the religion that has held sway over a great part of Asia for twenty-five centuries, and in corrupt form now holds more adherents than any other faith. Preaching the equality of men, he yet attracted disciples of high birth and station ”

“ In the time of Asoka the dialect of Magadha must have been understood over the greater part of India, like Hindustani in modern times, but in some details of grammar and phonetics Pali differs from Mâgadhî Prakrit and seems to have been influenced by Sanskrit and by western dialects. Being a literary rather than a popular language it was probably a mixed form of speech and it has been conjectured that it was elaborated in Avanti or in Gândhâra where was the great Buddhist University of Takshaśîlâ. ”

“ For instance, a husband- man cannot become a herdsman, nor can he take a wife from the herdsman or artizan class. An exception was made in favour of the philosopher alone, who may be from any class, for his life was not an easy one, and few attained the gift of prophecy. [27]
In the above description of the classes of society in ancient Magadha, Megasthenes was clearly mistaken in reckoning spies or overseers and councillors as separate classes. The other classes correspond exactly with those amongst the ancient Tamils. ”

“ The process of its evolution really began long before the Christian era, when Sanskrit—the language of the Aryan conquerors—began to commingle with the languages of the peoples in Upper India, or Hindustan. From this union came the prakrits, or vernaculars. The one which at the time of the Buddha was current in Magadha—parts of the present British Behar and Orissa and the United Provinces of Agra and Oudh—was known as Magdhi, and the message delivered by the great Teacher was recorded in that vernacular. ”

“ That, a collection entitled "The Great Storybook," and a Sanskrit Grammar all belong by repute to the reign of this king. Finally, the inevitable collision occurred between the powerful Andhra dynasty and the degenerate, dissolute monarchy at Magadha, which resulted in the annihilation of the latter. But before turning to this, the course of the years since the Maurya kings disappeared from sheer inanition must be traced briefly. It was in B.C. 194 that Pusŷa-mitra, commander-in-chief to the last of the Mauryas, lost patience with his weak master, assassinated him, and founded the Sunga line. ”

“ In the last-named kingdom we know that the writing down had begun at least two or three centuries before the visit of Fa-Hian, and he would seem to have benefited by this fact. We gather then that as Magadha and Kosala were the source of Buddhistic doctrine in its different phases, and the source of successive waves of Buddhistic symbolism, so also they were the first region to feel the impulse of a literary instead of a verbal transmission of the canonical scriptures. ”

“ Sanjchaya, a general in the service of the Karnas, the rulers of the Magadha empire, arrived with one hundred dancing girls, two hundred and eight musicians, one hundred pole-dancers, one hundred chariots, ten thousand horse, twenty thousand waggons and one thousand body guards. The officer at the gate having announced the arrival of Sanjchaya and his company, the Chera. king was pleased to command that Sanjchaya and his chief attendants be admitted to his audience. Accordingly Sanjchaya appeared before the king and bowing low addressed him as follows :—
“Long live thou ruler of this earth! ”