By Amlan Home Chowdhury
Did Lord Buddha, the world’s ancient-most peace-preacher, anti-war protagonist and a patron of the Republicanism as a socio-political system, die due to the fall of his birth place Kapilavastu (Nepal) and the land he loved too dearly Vaishali (Bihar in India)?
Storming the brains of historians, archaeologists and the Buddhist scholars the world over since the excavation at Kesaria —- known as Kesaputtanigama in 6th century B.C. —- in 1814 by Col. Mackenzie, this question continues to remain one of the deeply shrouded mysteries of Indian history.
Buddha, however, had become mater of extensive researches and intensive study for the first time in the 3rd century B.C. when the Magadh Emperor Asoka, the Great, ordered the scholars of his entire empire to fan out all over Aryavarta to find out to record the minutest details on the Tathagata.
The East India Company’s soldier-turned archaeologist Col. Mackenzie might have busied himself to find out the link of fall of Kapilavastu and the Lichhavi Republic of Vaishali with Buddha’s Mahaparinirvana or departure to heavenly abode but as early as 411 A.D. the Chinese traveler Fa Hien had attempted to get into the roots of the Lord’s demise.
Buddha succeeded in saving many territories of Aryavarta from the war mongers through his peace keeping attitude but failed totally in saving his own Shakya tribe cum kingdom of Kapilavastu and the Vaishali Republic of Lichhavis that he loved the most.
The researches on the ancient Buddhist scriptures, discovery of the actual places associated with Buddha’s life mentioned in the travel accounts of Fa Hien and Hiuen Tsang whose names changed drastically over the centuries and archaeological excavations carried out in Nepal, Bihar and Uttar Pradesh say the fall of Kapilavastu shattered Buddha and the ruining of Vaishali by King Ajatshatru acted as a double blow to his persona, hastening his Mahaparinirvana.
According to the scripture Mahaparinirvanasutta, written around 400 B.C., after the destruction of Lichhavis, Buddha stopped for a night at Kesuputtanigama en route Kushinagara.
Starting from Rajgriha (Rajgir), he reached there via Nalanda and Pataligrama (Patna). Looking very tired, when Buddha reached at the Chapal Chaitya at the destructed Vaishali, he said he would survive only for three months more.
He, as per the scripture, said he would attain his Nirvana on the night of full moon in the month of Vaishakh (April). The Jataka, Mahaparinirvanasutta and the other Buddhist texts do not say directly that Gautama chose to take Nirvana due to the fall of Kapilavastu and Lichhavi Republic but mentioned it very clearly that his heart was broken when the Shakya tribe or clan was annihilated.
The collapse of Vaishali came as a final blow to him.
The Buddhist texts and scriptures, however, say it repeatedly that Buddha strained his every nerve to protect Kapilavastu and Vaishali. But failed! The scriptures like Lalitvistara, Tripitaka, Buddhacharcha, Mahabagga and Sutanipat-Magandiya Sutta say Bidura and Ajatshatru, the rulers of Sravasti and Magadh respectively, were appealed repeatedly by the Gautama not to invade Kapilavastu and Vaishali, but failed.
A Japanese team of archaologists, led by Prof. Zuiryu Nakamura of Risso University, had discovered the exact site of Kapilavastu after nearly 18 years of research. It is believed that Tilorakota in Nepal, site of ancient Kapilavastu, was destroyed due to violent wars in the 6th century B.C. when Buddha was alive. It corroborates the fact found in Buddhist texts and scriptures that Kapilavastu was destroyed.
According to Dr. Jagadishwar Pandey, the ex-director of Patna-based K. P. Jaisawal Research Institute, the fief of maternal grandfather of Buddha was located at Deodah, 25 km from Tilorakota. A sealing bearing the inscription “SAKANAS” (Shakya Naam) has also been found there.
Till now, it was commonly held by the historians that Piparahwa village in Basti district of Uttar Pradesh was Kapilavastu after K. M. Srivastava, during an archaeological survey there, excavated a sealing carrying the word KAPILAVASTU. The present Kapilavastu in Nepal was only a part of the Shakya kingdom — Piparahwa too was located within this kingdom.
The Shakya tribe had established Kapilavastu nearly 800 years before the birth of Gautama. Buddha directly descended from the Ikshaku clan to which Lord Rama too had belonged. Okak, a prince of Ikshaku clan of Ayodhaya, had founded Kapilavastu by migrating there.
The Tilorakota-excavations reveal that there had been several layers of civilization belonging to different phases of history. Bidura, the king of Sravasti, had destroyed Tilorakota or lancient Kapilavastu to avenge the ruse adopted by the Shakyas to marry of a lowly born girl from Passi (caste that extract juice from palm tree) community by posing her a princess to his father Prasenjit.
King Prasenjit wanted to marry a Shakya princess to forge a political alliance with Kapilavastu. Though favouring such an alliance to avert any wars with Sravasti, the family members of Buddha did not actually want to marry off a Shakya girl with Prasenjit. Hence, they accepted the proposal of marriage from Sravasti but shrewdly posed a Passi girl as a princess of Kapilavastu.
But this fraud was soon detected.
Bidura invaded Tilorakota after he became the king of Sravasti to avenge this royal fraud. Buddha, visiting Sravasti many times, had tried to forestall the invasion on Tilorakota but failed. Fall of Kapilavastu had shattered Buddha completely as most of his own blood kin were killed in that war. Ancient Sravasti’s ruins are located about 32 km from Gonda.
According to the Bauddhist scripture Lalitvistara, the fall of Lichhavi Republic at Vaishali by the Magadh Emperor Ajatshatru was virtually a mortal blow to Buddha’s persona, because he had most fervently tried to save it. He had great respect for the collective decision that used to be taken by the Lichavis at their Parliament. Despite being a royal prince in his first life, Buddha started hating absolute monarchy as a socio-political system in his later life.
According to the research paper “On the Footprints of Buddha”, reproduced and reprinted from The Journal of Bihar Research Society (Vol. LXXVI, Part I –IV), Ajatshatru used to pester Buddha persistently to know the secret of destroying Vaishali as he hated republicanism and never wanted a system opposite to absolute monarchy to exist just across the River Ganga from the last outpost of his empire Pataligram (Patna).
Whenever Buddha stayed at Rajgriha, the Magadh capital, despotic ruler Ajatshatru would sent his two Brahmin ministers Vassakara and Sunidha to extract information on the weak points of Lichhavi Republic from him. Buddha would refuse every time to give even a faintest clue on it.
The two Buddhist scriptures —- Mahasudssanasutta and Janavasabhasutta —- describe very vividly how Ajatshatru and Buddha fought battle of nerves for cross purposes: Ajatshatru to destroy the Lichhavi Republic and Buddha to protect it.
Buddha failed. Ajatshatru succeeded in turning Vaishali into a veritable funeral ground, hastening the Tathagata’s Mahaparinirvana. But fall of Lichhavis also, ultimately, made Ajatshatru turn into a devout Buddhist.
These two Buddhist texts say Ajatshatru, during the stay of Tathagata at Rajgriha in a rainy season, sent his wily minister Vassakara to the Lord to extract the secret of how to trounce Vaishali, as in the contemporary Aryavarta no person knew the internal affairs of the Lichhavi Republic better than Buddha.
Exasperated at the repeated queries of Ajatshatru, Buddha turned his face towards his favourite disciple Ananda to say “Ananda, the Lichhavis would be invincible so long as the Rajas (Members of Parliament) of Vaishali took decision by majority unlike monarchic system in which the king decides everything. So long the Rajas trusted each other none can harm Vaishali……”
According to the text Janavasabhasutta, when Vassakara, failing to grasp what Buddha had said to Ananda, reported this verbatim to Ajatshatru, the emperor’s shrewd eyes sparkled because he felt he found the key to the secret of Vaishali Republic’s strength. Ajatshatru-Sunidha-Vassakara trio, subsequently, hatched the most thrilling plot of the history that would dim the suspense of any fast moving spy story.
Among the words uttered by Buddha to Ananda, Ajatshatru adopted only two of them as his keys to destroy the Lichhavi Republic:
- Majority decision of Vaishali Parliament and
2. Unity among the Rajas.
The wily Ajatshtaru wove the history’s strangest ever politico-diplomatic booby trap to snare the Rajas under which Vassakara was declared a spy of Lichhavis and a secret sympathizer of the Republican system.
It even surprised Buddha who too could not fathom the conspiracy.
Vassakara was exiled and brought to Pataligram as it was the last outpost of Magadh Empire from which a banished man would be left with only one alternative: to cross the River Ganga and take shelter into the Lichhavi Republic.
Vassakara, naturally, entered into Vaishali and was accorded massive welcome by the Rajas because they wanted to extract secret information on Ajatshatru’s clandestine plans to attack the republic.
Acting on the theory of enemy’s enemy is our friend, the Rajas unanimously decided to make Vassakara a Member of Parliament as he not only had constructed Pataliputra township together with Sunidha, but happened to be the most powerful minister of the Magadh Empire.
As a Raja, Vassakara had free access to all the classified information meant for the other leaders of the Lichhavi Parliament. Besides sending secret reports to Ajatshatru, Vassakara also started sowing the seed of difference among the Rajas of Republic. He succeeded dividing the Rajas in such a way that nobody could anymore trust each other.
In fact, Ajatshatru had told Vassakara that Buddha inadvertently hinted that the unity and trust among the Rajas must be broken to win Vaishali.
When the divide and rule strategy was complete, the Magadh Empire invaded the Republic to destroy it completely.
In circa 487 B.C. Buddha died at Kushinagara in Vaishakha on the last quarter of the full moon under a twin Saala Tree which is the rarest of rare things in any thick jungle. The scripture Dighanikaya says, the flowers in the Saal Trees blossomed just out of season.
A strange phenomenon that the botanists are not able to unravel even today as the Saal trees just cannot yield flowers in the month of Vaishakha.
Source of Photographs: Wikipedia / World History Encyclopedia
Photo-1: The east gate of the palace of King Suddhodana (Lord Buddha’s father) at Tilaurakot archaeological site in Taulihawa, Kapilvastu District, Nepal
Photo-2: Buddhist Stupa, Kapilavastu
Photo-3: Artistic representation of Maya giving birth to the Budha. This depiction is part of the altar in the “Mother Temple of the Graduated Path to Enlightenment”, an Austrian Buddhist temple located at the West Monastic Zone-9 in Lumbini Rupandehi, Nepal.
Photo-4: Tilaurakot, Kapilvastu Ancient Shakya Capital (Credit: Sabina Bajracharya – Own work)
The Daily Asian Report 