Virudhaka
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Virudhaka (IAST: Virūḍhaka, Pali: Viḍūḍabha, Hindi: विरूढक) was son of Raja Prasenjit and king of Kashi Kosala.
Soon after usurping the prosperous kingdom built up by his father Bimbisara, the parricide Ajatashatru (ruled 491-461 BCE) went to war with his aged uncle Prasenjit, and gained complete control of Kashi. Just after this Prasenjit, like Bimbisara, was deposed by his son, and died. The new king, Virūḍhaka (in Pali Viḍūḍabha), then attacked and virtually annihilated the little autonomous tribe of Shakyas, in Himalyan foothills, and we hear no more of the people which produced the greatest of Indians, the Buddha. [1]
Probably Virudhaka, like Ajatashatru of Magadha, had ambitions of empire, and wished to embark on a career of conquest after bringing the outlying peoples, who had paid loose homage to his father, more directly under the control of the centre; but his intentions were unfulfilled, for we hear no more of him except an unreliable legend that he was destroyed by a miracle soon after his massacre of Shakyas. A little later his kingdom was incorporated in Magadha. [2]
[edit] References
- ^ A.L. Batham, The Wonders that was India, 1967, p. 47
- ^ A.L. Batham, The Wonders that was India, 1967, p. 47
Basham, A. L. The Wonder That was India. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963.
