Page:Sacred Books of the East - Volume 22.djvu/16

xii gaina sOtras. that Siddhârtha was but a baron; for he is frequently called merely Kshatriya--his wife Trisalâ is, so far as I remember, never styled Devî, queen, but always Kshatriyânî. Whenever the Gñâtrika Kshatriyas are mentioned, they are never spoken of as Siddhârtha's Sâmantas or dependents, but are treated as his equals. From all this it appears that Siddhârtha was no king, nor even the head of his clan, but in all probability only exercised the degree of authority which in the East usually falls to the share of landowners, especially of those belonging to the recognised aristocracy of the country. Still he may have enjoyed a greater influence than many of his fellow-chiefs; for he is recorded to have been highly connected by marriage. His wife Trisalâ was sister to Ketaka, king of Vaisâlî. She is called Vaidehî or Videhadattâ, because she belonged to the reigning line of Videha.

Buddhist works do not mention, for aught I know, Ketaka, king of Vaisâlî; but they tell us that the government of Vesâli was vested in a senate composed of the nobility and presided over by a king, who shared the power with a viceroy and a general-in-chief. In Gaina books we still have traces of this curious government of the Likkhavis; for in the Nirayâvalî Sûtrâ it is related that king Ketaka, whom Kûnika, al. Agâtasatru, king of Kampâ, prepared to attack with a strong army, called together the eighteen confederate kings of Kâsî and Kosala, the Likkhavis and Mallakis, and asked them whether they would satisfy Kûnika's demands or go to war with him. Again, on the death of Mahâvîra the eighteen confederate kings, mentioned above, instituted a festival to be held in memory of that event, but no separate mention is made of Ketaka, their pretended sovereign. It is therefore probable that Ketaka was simply one of these confederate kings and of equal power with them. In addition to this, his power was checked by the