002 Journal of the Asiatic Society of Bengal. [December, 1910. 



its conquests. At other times it was conquered by a more 

 powerful neighbour, and its area was reduced to a short com- 

 pass. It was finally absorbed in the kingdom of Bengal. 



Sumha was an independent kingdom at the time of the 

 Mahabharat, and we have already stated that its modern name 

 is Rada. It appears from the Jaina works Acharanga Sutra 

 and Kalpa Sutra that at the time of Mahavira or Varddha- 

 mana, the real founder of the Jaina religion, who was born in 

 the 6th century B.C. and who died at a great age in 467 B.C., 

 Rada or Lada extended much beyond its present northern 

 limit, including a large portion of Anga, and it consisted of 

 two divisions called Bajjabhumi and Subbhabhumi. Professor 

 Jacobi is of opinion that of the two divisions, Subbhabhumi 

 was the country of the Sumhas, and he has also identified the 

 Sumhas with the Radas. 1 Subbhabhumi appears to have been 

 the southern part of Rada, as Bajjabhumi included some por- 

 tions of Anga. Mahavira wandered more than twelve years in 

 Bajjabhumi and Subbhabhumi in Lada before he attained the 

 Kevalaship and taught the Nigranthi doctrines, though accord- 

 ing to Dr. Hoernle his peregrinations did not extend beyond the 

 south of Rajmahal before he became a Jina. 2 Dr. Biihler, 

 however, states that he travelled all over Rada after he attained 

 the Jinahood. 3 There is a consensus of opinion among all the 

 antiquarians that Nigrantha Jnatiputra or Nigantha Nata- 

 putta of the Buddhist works, who was the contemporary of 

 Buddha, and Mahavira — the twenty-fourth Tirthankara of the 

 Jainas, who belonged to the Nata clan of the Kshatriyas of 

 Kollaga, a suburb of Vaisali (Besarh) — were identical persons. 4 

 Buddha was born in 557 B.C., and he died in 477 B.C. Hence 

 at the time of Buddha, that is, in the 6th century B.C., Sumha 

 or Rada appears to have been an independent kingdom, and 

 that its northern boundary extended much beyond the northern 

 boundary of what is now known as Rada. In the south also 

 at that period Sumha included Tamralipta or Tamluk, which 

 was an independent kingdom at the time of the Mahabharat. 

 The port of Tamralipta was then called the port of Surama. The 

 two merchants, Tapussa and Bhallika, who gave honey and other 

 articles of food to Buddha just after he attained Buddhahood, 

 came from Oukkalaba (Rangoon) 6 through the port of Surama, 



1 Prof. Jacobi 's A'ch&ranga Sutra, Bk. I, ch. 8, sec. 3; Di\ Biih- 

 ler's Indian Sect of the Jainas. 



* Prof. Wilson's Hindu Religions — Life of Mahavira; Dr. Hoernle's 

 Jainism and Buddhism. 



8 Indian Sect of the Jainas. 



4 Mahavagga, vi, 31; Dr. Hoernle's Uvasagadasao ; Jainism and 

 Buddhism ; Dr. Buhler's Indian Sect of the Jainas ; Jaina-sutras 

 (S.B E-, vol. xxii). 



* Other Buddhist works have Ukkala (see Gogerly's Ceylon Bud- 

 dhism, vol. i, p. 63), which according to Dr. Kern is the same as Utkala 

 or Orissa (Manual of Indian Buddhism, p. 22). 



