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76 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
ruler, has been suggested by Mr. Haritkrishna Dev.' The Matsya and Vayu Puranas refer to a group of one hundred (i. e. many) Brahmadattas :
Satam vai Brahmad attānāṁ
virānāṁ Kuravaḥ satam.2
The "hundred" Brahmadattas are also mentioned in the Mahabharata.3 In the Dummedha Jataka the name is borne both by the reigning king and his son (Kumāra),5 In the Gangamala Jataka king Udaya of Benares is addressed by a Pachcheka Buddha as "Brahmadatta" which is distinctly stated to be a kulanuma or family designation.
The Brah madattas were not, however, all of the same extraction. The king-elect of the Darimukha Jataka was originally a Magadhan prince. Some of the other Brahmadattas were of Videhan lineage. The Matiposaka Jātaka, for instance, referring to a Brahmadatta of Kasi, has the following line :
mutto'mli Kasirajena Vedehena yasassinā ti.
In the Sambula Jatakas prince Sotthisena, son of Brahmadatta, king of Kasi, is called Vedehaputta:
Yo putta Kasirajassa Sotthiseno ti tam vilu tassaham Sambula bhariyā, evam jānāki dānava, Vedelaputto bhaddan te vane vasati aturo. Ajataśatru, Janaka's contemporary on the throne of Kasi, may have been a Brahmadatta though his exact
1 The suggestion has been accepted by Dr. D. R. Bhandarkar, Carmichael Lectures, 1918, p. 56.
2 Matsya, Ch. 273, 71; Vayu, Ch. 99, 454.
3 II. 8. 23.
4 No. 50; Vol. I, p. 126.
5 Cf. also the Susima Jataka (411), the Kumma Sapinda Jataka (415), the Aṭṭhāna Jataka (425), the Lomasa Kassapa Jataka (433), etc.
6 421.
7 No. 455.
8 No. 519.
