Virudhaka

Virudhaka (IAST: Virūḍhaka, Pali: Viḍūḍabha, Sanskrit: विरूढक) විරූඩක was a king of Kosala during the lifetime of the Buddha. Virudhaka was the son of Raja Prasenajit.

Soon after usurping the prosperous kingdom built up by his father Bimbisara, the parricide Ajatashatru (ruled 491-461 BCE) went to war with his aged uncle Prasenajit, and gained complete control of Kashi. Just after this Prasenajit, 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 of Shakyas and Koliyas, in Himalyan foothills of Nepal.^[1]

Probably Virudhaka, like Ajatashatru of Magadha, 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 in Magadha.^[1]

Biography

Virudhaka was the son of Prasenajit (king of Kosala).^[2]

Notes

References

• Sastri, K. A. Nilakanta, ed. (1988) [1967], Age of the Nandas and Mauryas (Second ed.), Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, ISBN 81-208-0465-1 
• Basham, A. L. The Wonder That was India. New York: Hawthorn Books, 1963.