- Virudhaka
Virudhaka (
IAST : Virūḍhaka,Pali : Viḍūḍabha,Hindi : विरूढक) was son of Raja Prasenjit and king ofKashi Kosala .Soon after usurping the prosperous kingdom built up by his father
Bimbisara , the parricideAjatashatru (ruled 491-461 BCE) went to war with his aged uncle Prasenjit, and gained complete control ofKashi . 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 ofShakya s, in Himalyan foothills, and we hear no more of the people which produced the greatest of Indians, the Buddha. [A.L. Batham, The Wonders that was India, 1967, p. 47]Probably
Virudhaka , likeAjatashatru ofMagadha , 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 inMagadha . [A.L. Batham, The Wonders that was India, 1967, p. 47]References
Basham, A. L. "The Wonder That was India." New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963.
Wikimedia Foundation. 2010.