Just as when the great rivers, the Gaṅgā, the Yamunā, the Aciravatī, the Sarabhū and the Mahī, empty into the Great Ocean, they lose their former designations and become just Ocean; so too, when men of the four castes, khattiya, brāhmaṇa, vessa and suddā, go forth from the home life into homeless in the Tathāgata’s dispensation, they abandon their former names and clans and are known just as samaṇā sakyaputtiyā (“ascetic sons of the Sakyan”). (AN 8: 19)
It should be emphasized that the Buddha’s approach was always to downplay the importance of birth in determining the character of a person. A wise and virtuous person could arise from any of the four vaṇṇas or indeed from “caṇḍālas or pukkusas” (“outcastes and refuse collectors”) (AN 3: 58). The Buddha is recorded as having ordained various low-caste and outcaste individuals, among them Sunīta the refuse collector (Th 12:2) and Upāli the barber.212 In the Buddhist view, caste is only “natural” in that birth into a higher or lower caste is determined by the kamma made by an individual in a previous existence (MN 129).
It is important to qualify these remarks, however, by noting that the Buddha did not attempt to effect a general social reform. He ignored caste distinctions within his own saṅgha, but he never sought to abolish them in the wider society. Indeed, we sometimes see the Buddha defending the primacy of the khattiyas over the brahmins. For example, when seeking to humble the overweening pride of the brahmins he notes that in a mixed marriage of a khattiya and a brahmin, the offspring would be accepted as well-born under existing caste rules by the brahmins but not by the khattiyas (DN 3).
3:1:6 HUMAN SPACE GEOGRAPHY OF JAMBUDĪPA
FIGURE NINE—MAP OF THE MAJJHIMADESA AT THE TIME OF THE BUDDHA [[Modern names of the rivers: Aciravati = Rapti, Sārabhū = Ghagara, Gaṅgā = Ganges, Vettavatī = Betwa213]]
In Part One we looked at the geography of the northern half of Jambudīpa, the southern island-continent (§ 1:11 f.). The southern half, which is roughly speaking the equivalent of the Indian sub-continent, is the abode of familiar human existence. The zone of high civilization and culture was considered to be the Ganges valley; the majjhimadesa (“middle country”). The rest of the known world was considered the paccantimā janapadā (“border countries”) and was thought of as relatively rough and barbarous. The majjhimadesa is the place where Buddhas, paccekabuddhas, cakkavatis and other great and noble beings are born (AN-a 1:170). It is considered relatively rare to be born in the middle country, more common but less fortunate to be born in the border countries where bhikkhus and bhikkhunīs seldom travel and the Dhamma is not heard (AN 8:29). The people of the border countries are characterized as aviññātāra milakkha (“ignorant barbarians”).214 The precise borders of the majjhimadesa are impossible to define, in part because they are defined with place names that are now obscure, and in part because it was an intentionally vague concept. The commentary says that for some purposes all of Jambudīpa can be considered as the majjhimadesa and only the other island-continents as paccantimā janapadā. As well, the same passage gives the district of Anurādhapura in Sri Lanka a kind of honorary middle-country status (AN-a 1:323).
The locale of the majjhimadesa has some legal status in the context of the Vinaya rules of the bhikkhus. Within the middle country a quorum of ten bhikkhus is required to perform an ordination, whereas outside those bounds only five are needed (Vin Mv 5). Some of the minor rules are also relaxed outside the bounds of the majjhimadesa; for example pācittiya 57 forbids bathing more than once a fortnight but this rule is suspended for all bhikkhus living outside the middle-country (ibid.). The most important spot in the majjhimadesa, and indeed in the whole ten thousand fold world-system, is the Bodhimaṇḍa, the site where all the Buddhas attain to full awakening. Located near the town of Gayā, it is the spot where Gotama sat under the Bodhi Tree on the night of his great awakening (Jāt 479).
There is a list of sixteen “great nations” (mahājanapada) existing in India in the Buddha’s time, fourteen of which were within the bounds of the majjhimadesa. This list was not exclusively a Buddhist one, but a common Indian concept as versions existed in the Jain literature as well as the Mahābharata.215 Moving roughly from east to west, the fourteen great nations of the middle-country are listed below216 (Note that the capital or chief cities of these are indicated on the map above).
Aṅga—capital city: Campā. By the time of the Buddha, Aṅga was no longer an independent nation but was subject to Magadha. Its territory likely extended all the way to the coast. Aṅga had a prosperous mercantile economy.
Magadha—capital city: Rājagaha. Magadha was the most important and powerful kingdom in India at the time of the Buddha and for a long time afterward. Magadha became the nucleus around which future pan-Indian empires like the Mauryas and the Guptas coalesced. The kings which ruled during the Buddha’s lifetime were Bimbisāra and his son and murderer, Ajātasattu. Bimbisāra was an early convert to Buddhism and the kingdom became an important centre of the new religion. The Magadhan language, traditionally considered to be the basis of Pali, was held to be the purest form of Aryan speech (Vin-a, Pār 1). Indeed, Magadhi was held to be the “root language” (mūlabhāsa) of all beings; (Vism 1.25) that language which a child would spontaneously speak if it heard no other. It is also the speech which is most commonly used in various non-human realms including niraya, the devalokas and among speaking animals like nāgas and supaṇṇas (Vibh-a 15).
Vajjī—capital city: Vesālī. This was a confederation of several tribal republics, the most important of which were the Licchavī. The Vajjī confederacy, too, fell to Magadha shortly after the passing of the Buddha. The Licchavī nobles were renowned for the beauty of their bodies and their adornments; the Buddha once remarked that those who have never seen the devas of Tāvatiṃsa should look upon the Licchavī to get an idea of what they must be like (DN 16). The Licchavī had a supernatural origin. The queen of Bārāṇasī had given birth to a shapeless lump of meat and the king, being ashamed, had it placed in a casket and put in the Ganges where it was recovered by an ascetic. The lump developed into two children, a boy and a girl. They had the odd characteristic that their abdomens were transparent so that the contents of their stomachs could be seen, hence the name Licchavī, from līna-chavī (“thin skin”). When grown, these two married each other and gave birth to sixteen pairs of twins which were the founders of the Vajjī clans (MN-a 12).
Kāsi—capital city: Bārāṇasī (modern Varānasi or Benares). At the time of the Buddha Kāsi was not an independent kingdom but had been absorbed by Kosala. The capital, Bārāṇasī, was a very ancient and important city. In ancient times it had been the political and cultural centre of all India. Many of the Jātaka stories begin with the words, “when Brahmadatta was king in Bārāṇasī,” just as a European tale might begin with “once upon a time.” The Buddha gave his first sermon, the Dhammacakkappavattana Sutta, (SN 56:11) at the deer park near Bārāṇasī, making this the site where the Buddhist religion began.
Mallā—capital city: Kusinārā. In previous times, Mallā had been a powerful kingdom with a fortified capital named Kusāvatī. By the Buddha’s time it had declined in importance and split into two tribal republics. Kusāvatī was now a small town called Kusinārā, so unimpressive that Ānanda derided it as being no more than a small backwoods settlement unsuitable for the Buddha’s parinibbāna. Nevertheless, the Buddha chose it, recalling the former importance of the place. The Mallā, although a small nation, appear to have had some martial strength, in that they later put up a stiff resistance to Alexander.
Kosala—capital city: Sāvatthi. After Magadha, Kosala was the second most powerful kingdom at that time in India. Its king during the Buddha’s lifetime was Pasenadi who was another early convert to the new faith. Sāvatthi was the site of the Jetavana monastery where the Buddha spent altogether nineteen rainy seasons. Sāvatthi was a city renowned for its wealth, and was said to be home to 57,000 families, (Vin-a Sd 13) so the total population must have been at leas
t five or six times that. Both Kāsi and the Sākyan republic, birthplace of the Buddha, were vassals of Kosala.
Vaṃsa—capital city: Kosambī. Vaṃsa was a kingdom to the west of Kosala. Its capital, Kosambī, was a large city on the Yamuna River and became an important Buddhist centre. It was at one of the monasteries in Kosambī that there occurred a famous quarrel among the bhikkhus over a trivial point of vinaya, causing the Buddha to leave them and spend the rainy season in the forest attended by an elephant and a monkey.
Ceti—capital city: Sotthivati. There were two countries inhabited by the Ceti people; the older nation was located in the far north, in what is now Nepal but by the time of the Buddha a southern colony in the modern district of Bundelkhand had assumed a greater importance. The location of the capital, Sotthivati, is doubtful. It may have been more or less as shown on the map above, or it may have been located in the northern Ceti country. Little more is known about this nation.
Surasena—capital city: Madhūra. Surasena was a kingdom located on the upper Yamuna. In the Hindu epics it was the scene of one of Krishna’s adventures and a Buddhist version of this tale is recorded in the Ghata Jātaka (Jāt 454). The capital, Madhūra, was evidently ill-favoured. A sutta in the Aṅguttara Nikāya lists five disadvantages of Madhūra: the ground is uneven, it is dusty, it has fierce dogs and bestial yakkhas and it is difficult to obtain almsfood there (AN 5: 220).
Pañcāla—capital city: Hastināpura. The nation of Pañcāla was divided into two small kingdoms, North and South Pāñcāla, separated by the Ganges. It was often at war with the Kurus to the north. Several cities are mentioned as Pāñcāla capitals at various times. Hastināpura seems to have been the most important. It was already a very ancient city in the Buddha’s time and is an important locale in the Hindu epic, the Mahābharata.
Kuru—capital city: Indapatta. The Kuru people claimed a fantastic origin; their ancestors were people of Uttarakuru, the earthly paradise on the northern island-continent, brought to Jambudīpa by the cakkavatti Mandhāta (DN-a 15). Descended from this high lineage, they were renowned as being of “sound body and mind” (kallasarīrā, kallacittā) (MN-a 10). and no doubt because of their excellent capabilities, the Buddha spoke some of his most profound suttas there, including the Mahāsatipaṭṭhāna Sutta and the Mahānidāna Sutta (DN 22 & DN 15). There is also a Jātaka story attesting to their remarkably punctilious keeping of the precepts.217 Besides the capital, Indapatta located very near modern Dehli, the other important town was Kammāssadhamma were the Buddha always delivered his teachings when visiting the Kuru country.
Macchā—capital city: Virāṭanagara. Little can be found about these people in the sources. They may been closely associated in some way with Sūrasena, because in one list of nations the two names are given combined in a compound, macchasūrasena (DN 18). The name means “fish”, which is odd for a people living well inland. It is doubtful whether Macchā should be counted as part of the majjhimadesa.
The four remaining mahājanapadas are definitely outside the bounds of the middle-country are:
Avanti—capital city: Ujjenī. Avanti was a powerful kingdom, rivalling Magadha and Kosala. Ujjenī was a very ancient city and a mercantile and cultural rival of Bārāṇāsī. Although several well known arahant bhikkhus, including Mahākaccāna, came from there, Buddhism does not appear to have prospered in Avanti during the Buddha’s lifetime. It was at the request of Mahākaccāna that the Buddha relaxed several vinaya rules for those living outside the majjhimadesa; the request was made because ten bhikkhus could not be found to make a quorum for ordination. Later, however, Ujjenī became a very important Buddhist centre having close relations with Sri Lanka. The great grammarian Kaccāyana lived there and it can be said that the Pali language as we know it was formalized in Ujjenī.218
Assaka—capital city: Potana or Potali. Assaka was a kingdom in the south, centred on the Godavari River. It was home to the hermit Bāvārī who sent sixteen of his pupils to question the Buddha; their dialogues forming the Pārāyanavagga of the Suttanipāta (Sn 5).
Gandhāra—capital city: Takkasīlā. Gandhāra was a wealthy kingdom in the far north-west, in the modern Punjab. Around the time the Bodhisatta was born, Gandhāra fell to the Persian Empire, but it retained its cultural and mercantile links with India. Takkasīla was an important centre of learning and it is a common motif in the Jātakas that the young hero first studies under a famous master at Takkasīla before undertaking his adventures. The education was based on Vedic lore, but was broad enough to include the science and practical arts of the day. A common summary of the curriculum is given as “the three Vedas and the eighteen branches of knowledge.”219
Kamboja—Another country of the far north-west was Kamboja. The people of this country were considered barbarous or anariya (“non-aryan”). As an example of their savage ways it is said that they killed and ate frogs, worms, grasshoppers, snakes and so forth (Jāt 543). Kamboja was located in what is now Afghanistan. The country was famed for the quality of its horses.
One additional nation which is very important for Buddhist history needs to be mentioned, although it is not included in the sixteen mahājanapadas:
Sākya—capital city: Kapillavatthu. Although the commentaries and the later tradition makes Siddhattha a prince, and his father the king, this is nowhere stated in the suttas and according to history the Sākyans were governed by an aristocratic republic. It was under some kind of vassalage to Kosala, and this may be why it isn’t included among the mahājanapadas. Before the end of the Buddha’s lifetime the Sākyan republic was invaded and its people massacred by King Viḍūḍabha who succeeded Pasenadi on the throne of Kosala. The Sākyans claimed a high lineage; they traced their origins to King Okākka, a direct descendent of the primordial king Mahāsammata.220 There is another tradition which gives the Sākyans an even more illustrious ancestry. The Sanskrit form of Okākka’s name is Ikṣvāku, and, according to the Valmiki Rāmāyaṇa, he was the grandson of the sun god Vivasvāna (an epithet of Sūrya).221 That this connection was still present in the mind of the Sākyans of the Buddha’s time is evidenced by his epithet, ādiccabandhu (“Kinsman of the Sun”). At any rate, this pride of birth led directly to the downfall of the Sākyan Republic. When King Pasenadi asked the Sākyans for a woman to be one of his wives, they felt that his caste status was beneath theirs and they avoided polluting one of their own by passing off a slave girl as a true born Sākyan. This was the mother of Viḍūḍabha, and when he learnt the truth he destroyed the Sākyan nation over the perceived insult.
FOREIGN COUNTRIES
Countries outside the Indian sub-continent are seldom mentioned in the Pali sources, and almost never in the oldest texts. When such places are mentioned, it is usually in the context of a sea-voyage. To the Indians of the Buddha’s time, India plus the Himavā was Jambudīpa and any foreign countries they had any inkling of were thought of as being located on one or another of the five hundred minor islands which surrounded the great island-continent. Among those names which do appear we can list the following:
Yona—The Yona were a foreign, i.e. a non-aryan, people usually identified in modern sources with the Greeks; the word yona being taken as derived from Ionian.222 This is certainly accurate for later sources but makes no sense in pre-Asokan India. The only reference to Yonas in the four nikāyas, i.e. in the oldest texts, which definitely predate the invasion of Alexander, is one passage in which the Buddha denies the universality of the caste system, citing the example of the “Yonas and the Kambojas” who had only two castes, master and slave (MN 93). This would certainly have been true of the Greeks, and the close association with the Kambojans would imply a location in or near Bactria but the Buddha lived more than two centuries before there were any Greeks in Bactria. It is possible that the ancient Indians knew of the existence of Greece. From the other side, Herodotus certainly knew something of India, although his History filled it with fantastic monsters. The Niddesa, a relatively late source, cont
ains a long list of places men go to by sea in search of wealth which includes both Yona and Paramayona (“Beyond Yona.”) (Nid 1:15) which would speak against an identification with Bactria. Yona may have originally meant simply “a foreigner” and later came to be specifically identified with the Greeks.
Bāveru—Bāveru was another kingdom to which Indian merchants sailed. A Jātaka tale tells of such a voyage and includes one fantastic detail, that the people of Bāveru had never seen a bird before encountering the merchants’ tame crow (Jāt 339). Modern sources identify this kingdom with Babylon.223
Suvaṇṇabhūmi—“The Golden Land” is mentioned in several stories as a distant land reached by sea to which merchants would sail seeking riches. It must have been a difficult and dangerous passage. Of the six voyages which are described, five end in shipwreck224 and one nearly comes to disaster through a prolonged period without any wind (Pv-a 4: 11). Suvaṇṇabhūmi referred to somewhere in South-East Asia, probably the Burmese coast.
Laṅkādīpa—Sri Lanka, the island of Ceylon, is, despite its great importance to the later history of Theravāda Buddhism, never mentioned in the suttas. One of the Jātaka stories refers to sailors shipwrecked there and encountering man-eating yakkhas (Jāt 196).
We hear nothing at all of places further afield, such as China, Persia or Arabia. To the Buddha’s contemporaries, the known human world was basically the sub-continent, identified with Jambudīpa.
3:1:7 KINGSHIP
The older form of government in India was republican but by the Buddha’s lifetime it was well along the way of an historical shift to monarchy. Most of northern India was already dominated by the two powerful monarchies of Magadha and Kosala. Gotama Buddha himself came from a republic, and there are decidedly republican elements in the original procedures of the saṅgha, as laid out in the vinaya texts. Nevertheless, there is an implicit assumption in the Pali texts that monarchy is the natural form of government.
The Buddhist Cosmos Page 15