Vaishali - Historical Background

After the Mahaparinibbana, the Vajjian confederacy was defeated by Ajatasattu, whose son Udayibhadda slew his father and moved the capital from Rajgir to Pataliputta, across the Ganges river from Vaishali. According to the Mahavamsa (Great Chronicle of Ceylon), the dynasty of Udayibhadda was succeeded by three generations of parricidal kings, namely: Anuruddha, Munda and Nagadasa, who each slew his own father to take over the throne. By then, the people could not tolerate this dynasty of parricides. Nagadasa was deposed by the minister Sisunaga, son of a Licchavi prince. Sisunnaga was succeeded by his son, Kalasoka, and by then a hundred years had passed since the Mahaparinibbana.

At that time in Vaishali, many shameless bhikkhus of the Vajji clan were practising the Ten Points, which were not in conformity with the Vinaya or monastic rules. The Venerable Yasa of Kosambi, while in Vaishali, noticed the deviations and strongly protested against them, resulting in his expulsion by the Vajji monks. Ven. Yasa, together with other monks appealed to Ven. Revata of Soreyya, the chief of the Sangha to settle the dispute. Thereupon, the Second Council was convened at Valukarama monastery in Vaishali during the reign of King Kalasoka and attended by seven hundred Arahants. The Venerable Sabbakami, the most senior Arahant, questioned by Ven. Revata, adjudged the Ten Points as unlawful according to the Vinaya. Although the decision was accepted unanimously by the Council, the Vajjian monks did not accept the verdict. This resulted in a schism in the Sangha and the secession of the Mahasanghika (Vajji monks), who held a great assembly of their own called the Mahasangiti, from which the sect derived its name, and decided matters according to their own light. From then on, further schisms led to the formation of dif­ferent subsects, and in the course of time, eleven sub-sects arose out of the Theravada while seven issued from the Mahasanghika, leading to the well-known Eighteen Schools of Buddhism.

Asoka, the Mauryan emperor who had his capital in Pataliputta, near Vaishali, raised a stupa in which he enshrined some of the Buddha’s relics and erected beside it an Asokan column with a lion capital when he visited Vaishali during his pilgrimage to the holy places in 249 BC. Fa Hsien visited Vaishali around 400 AD and mentioned the stupas built in its vicinity in honour of the Buddha. He also saw a stupa built at the site of the Second Council as well as a stupa built over half the remains of Ven. Ananda.

According to a story, when Ven. Ananda reached the age of 120 years he knew that his end was near and went from Rajgir to Vaishali, following the Buddha’s example. Hearing of his intention, the citizens of Magadha and Vaishali hurried from both directions to bid him farewell. To do justice to both sides, Ven. Ananda levi­tated in the air and entered into the Samadhi of the Fire Element, whereby the body was consumed by spontaneous combustion and reduced to ashes, which fell on both sides. So the people of each city taking half the relics, returned and erected stupas over them.

Hsüan Tsang, who came in 630 AD, described Vaishali as cover­ing an area of 26-31 sq. km, but it was in ruins. He saw the stupa built by the Licchavi princes over their portion of the Buddha’s relics from Kusinara, the Asoka stupa and stone pillar surmounted by a lion capital and nearby the pond dug by a band of mon­keys (Markata-hrada) for the Buddha’s use. Not far to the south were two more stupas; one at the site where the monkeys, tak­ing the Buddha’s alms-bowl, climbed up a tree to gather honey and another at the site where the monkeys offered honey to the Blessed One. Hsüan Tsang wrote that both within and without and all around the city of Vaishali, the sacred monuments were so numerous that it was difficult to remember them all. After Hsüan Tsang’s visit, the history of Vaishali remained blank for over twelve centuries. It lay in ruins, unknown and unheard of until the late 19th  century, when Cunningham identified the ruins at and around Basrah in Muzaffapur district of Bihar with ancient Vaishali. Today, most of the principal ruins are located in the vil­lage of Kolhua, about 55 km from Patna.