page_title: Vaishali (ancient city)
section_title: History
hierarchical_section_title: Vaishali (ancient city) / History
caption_attribution_description: English: Map of places mentioned in ancient Buddhist Texts (like Anguttara Nikaya), Ramayana and Mahabharata. Sources: (2005) The Hindu Equilibrium: India C.1500 B.C. - 2000 A.D., Oxford University Press, p.&#160;xxxviii ISBN&#58; 978-0-19-927579-3.&#32; Approximate boundaries are described by H.C. Raychaudhuri (p. 96-150), and https://books.google.com/books?id=8qvY8pxVxcwC&amp;pg=PA386 Habib, Irfan, and Habib, Faiz (1995). "A Map of India 600-320 B.C." in Proceedings of the Indian History Congress, vol. 56, pp. 95–104. www.jstor.org/stable/44158590 Kenoyer, J. M. (1995), “Interaction Systems, Specialised Crafts and Culture Change: The Indus Valley Tradition and the Indo-Gangetic Tradition in South Asia”, in G. Erdosy, The Indo-Aryans of Ancient South Asia: Language, Material Culture, and Ethnicity, Berlin: Walter de Gruyter, ISBN&#160;9783110144475 Raychaudhuri, H.C. (1972), Political History of Ancient India: From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty, Calcutta: University of Calcutta. Schwartzberg, J. E. (1992), A Historical Atlas of South Asia: University of Oxford Press Singh, U. (2009), A History of Ancient and Medieval India: From the Stone Age to the 12th Century, Delhi: Longman, ISBN&#160;978-81-317-1677-9 Background from http://www2.demis.nl/mapserver/mapper.asp Made with GIMP
context_page_description: Vaishali or Vesali was a city in present-day Bihar, India, and is now an archaeological site. It is a part of the Tirhut Division.
  It was the capital city of the Vajjian Confederacy of, considered one of the first examples of a republic around the 6th century BCE. Gautama Buddha preached his last sermon before his death in c. 483 BCE, then in 383 BCE the Second Buddhist council was convened here by King Kalasoka, making it an important place in both Jain and Buddhist religions. It contains one of the best-preserved of the Pillars of Ashoka, topped by a single Asiatic lion.
  The city finds mention in the travel accounts of Chinese explorers, Faxian and Xuanzang, which were later used in 1861 by British archaeologist Alexander Cunningham to first identify Vaiśālī with the present village of Basarh in Vaishali District, Bihar.
context_section_description: Even before the advent of Buddhism and Jainism, Vaiśālī was the capital of the  republican Licchavi state. In that period, Vaiśālī was an ancient metropolis and the capital city of the republic of the Vaiśālī state, which covered most of the Himalayan Gangetic region of present-day Bihar state, India. However, very little is known about the early history of Vaiśālī. The Vishnu Purana records 34 kings of Vaiśālī, the first being Nabhaga, who is believed to have abdicated his throne over a matter of human rights and believed to have declared: "I am now a free tiller of the soil, king over my acre."  The last among the 34 was Sumati, who is considered a contemporary of Dasaratha, father of the Hindu god, Lord Rama.
  Vaiśālī is also renowned as the land of Amrapali, the great Indian courtesan, who appears in many folktales, as well as in Buddhist literature. Ambapali became a disciple of Buddha. Manudev was a famous king of the illustrious Lichchavi clan of the confederacy, who desired to possess Amrapali after he saw her dance performance in Vaishali.
  A kilometer away is Abhishek Pushkarini, the coronation tank. The sacred waters of the tank anointed the elected representatives of Vaiśālī. Next to it stands the Japanese temple and the Vishwa Shanti Stupa (World Peace Pagoda) built by the Nipponzan Myohoji sect of Japan. A small part of the Buddha's relics found in Vaiśālī have been enshrined in the foundation and in the chhatra of the Stupa.
  Near the coronation tank is Stupa 1 or the Relic Stupa. Here the Lichchavis reverentially encased one of the eight portions of the Master's relics, which they received after the Mahaparinirvana. After his last discourse the Awakened One set out for Kushinagar, but the Licchavis kept following him. Buddha gave them his alms bowl but they still refused to return. The Master created an illusion of a river in spate which compelled them to go back. This site can be identified with Deora in modern Kesariya village, where Ashoka later built a stupa. Ānanda, the favourite disciple of the Buddha, attained Nirvana in the midst of the Ganges outside Vaiśālī.
caption: The Vajji or Vrijji Mahajanapada, 600 BCE.
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