Map of the Buddha’s India

This map is a highly stylized representation of the political division of the Buddha’s culture and marks some of the important places in his long life. The area covered by the map is roughly the east central part of the Gangetic Plain, the immensely fertile lowlands between the Vindhya Mountains to the South and the Himalayas to the North.

The kingdoms. Two major kingdoms were emerging at the time that the Buddha lived and taught. North of the Ganges was the Kingdom of Kosala, with its capital city of Savatthi (modern Sravasti); south of the Ganges, and toward the East, was the Kingdom of Maghada, with its capital at Rajagaha (modern Rajghir). King Pasadeni of Kosala and King Bimbisara of Maghada were contemporaries of the Buddha; he knew them both, and they were, each in his own way, his followers. Both men make fairly frequent appearances in the canonical texts, Pasenadi more often than Bimbisara; both are presented as skillful at the art of statecraft, masters of realpolitik. Pasenadi has a more distinct personality—proud but warm-hearted, devoted to his wife and children, with a sense of irony. The Buddha and Pasenadi were almost exact contemporaries; Pasenadi died just a few months earlier than the Buddha. The Buddha seems to have been genuinely fond of him. For most of the Buddha’s life, Kosala and Maghada preserved a wary peace between them; by the end of his life, however, after Bimbisara’s son had taken the throne of Magadha and had his father put to death, the two kingdoms went to war. Magadha was the eventual victor, and eventually became the great Mauryan Empire, which united most of the Indian Subcontinent.

The tribal republics. The dominant form of governance in Northern India prior to the rise of the kingdoms of Kosala and Magaha was a form of representative democracy based on a structure of clans and tribes. Each clan head was a member of the governing assembly, and matters affecting the tribe or the geographical resources that the tribe shared were decided either by concensus, or, if that could not be achieved, by majority vote. The Buddha’s father Suddhodana was such a clan leader in the Sakyan republic, one of the last to lose its independence; it was finally conquered, and pretty much shattered by Pasenadi’s Kingdom of Kosala shortly before the Buddha died. The federation of tribal republics known as the Vaijjian Federation was the last to go, succumbing to the Kingdom of Magadha in the final year of the Buddha’s life. We’ll look at that episode a little more closely in the final class in the Teachings of the Buddha course.

The trade routes. One of the advantages that came with the centralization of power in the emerging kingdoms was a pacification of the routes that connected the major cities and market towns of the region, and all of that was bound up with increasing trade, increasing regional wealth, and the increasing power of merchants, bankers, and tradesmen. The trade routes marked on the map are guesswork, based on the cities that the Buddha was known to have spent time in; the places marked on the map as Market Towns and Capital Cities were probably entry points for additional trade routes, connecting to merchant caravans coming into the Gangetic Plain from the powerful kingdoms to the Northwest, from the Silk Road in the North, the seaports to the East, and the mining areas to the South and Southwest. And all of that merchant traffic brought with it new ideas, new fashions, and new technologies. It was a rich and exciting time.

Buddhist shrines. Several of the places on the map have become Buddhist shrines:

• Lumbini, in the North, an area that is now part of Nepal, was the Buddha’s birthplace.
• Kapilivatthu, to the Southwest of Lumbhini, was the center of the Sakyan republic and the home city of Siddhatta’s clan of the Gotamas; it is the town in which he grew up.
• Bodh-Gaya, near the town of Uruvela, just Southeast of Bimbisara’s capital of Rajagaha, was where the Buddha attained his Awakening.
• Isipatana, a village just Northwest of the Brahmin holy city of Kasi (modern Varanasi), is the location of the Deer Park in which the Buddha delivered his first discourse, which set the Wheel of the Dhamma in motion.
• Kusinara, a remote village in a relatively undeveloped part of the country Southeast of Kapilivatthu, was where the Buddha attained his final parinibbana.

It would be a good idea to print this map out and bring it with you to the classes. It will give you a useful resource for the ongoing references we will be making to events in the Buddha’s life.