DDK HistoryF.p65 - CSIR

162 GREAT BUDDHIST DISSEMINATION [6.6
Mallas nor Liochavis survived as tribes (except perhaps offshoots in
Nepal) so that Magadhan power was consolidated. Udayin, son or
grandson of Ajatasatru, completed the inevitable shift of the capital
to Patna. It remained the leading Indian city for about eight hundred
years.
The few surviving traditional ksatriya tribes (like those of the Kurus
and Pancalas) were systematically wiped out by about 350 B. c. by king
Mahapadma Nanda of Magadha, who completed the work of Vidudabha
and Ajatasatru. Their internal collapse was certain because of changed
economic conditions, but the new tribeless kings could not allow such
dangerous examples of democracy to survive. The putfanas lament that
all kings thereafter were sudra-like, which was strictly true according
to the ancient vedic tradition. Their own strictures did not hinder brahmin
acceptance of royal gifts from later kings of any caste (as from
Pasenadi), nor their proclamation of successful upstarts as ksatriyas.
The one essential change was that the four-caste class system had finally
become broader than, and independent of, any tribal regulations.
Vassakara is the first known brahmin minister (a new office for a brahmin)
thus amply rewarded for a Machiavellianism without precedent. It is
difficult to reject him as a purely legendary character, for the special
technique of dissension was carefully described by a later brahmin minister,
Canakya (Arth. 11.1) and is the theme of the third section of the famous
brahmanical work, the Pancatantra, which taught policy through
fables.
6.5. The most impressive happenings of the age are not those we
have had to winnow so painfully out of the mass of legend and
fable. The records are dedicated to a totally different purpose, the
spread of religion. The greatest of these, Buddhism, spread far beyond
the frontiers of Magadha. India became a sacred land to millions in Asia
because the Buddhist doctrine arose here. Pilgrims from further China,
Tibet, Mongolia still find their ,way across high mountains, parched deserts,
and stormy oceans, through lands where incomprehensible languages are
spoken, to recite their simple prayers in the shadow of the main stupa at
Sarnath — heedless of an occasional brick that flies perilously off the
dilapidated structure. Buddhisin appeared as the great civilizing
influence in Mongolia.