Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/54

28 the mother of Ajatasatru, also called Kunika, or Kuniya, the son who was selected as heir apparent and crown prince. If tradition may be believed, the reign of Bimbisara lasted for twenty-eight years, and it is said that, toward its close, he resigned the royal power into the hands of this favourite son, and retired into



private life. But the young prince was impatient, and could not bear to await the slow process of nature. Well-attested tradition brands him as a parricide and accuses him of having done his father to death by the agonies of starvation.

Orthodox Buddhist tradition affirms that this hideous crime was instigated by Devadatta, Buddha's cousin, who figures in the legends as a malignant