The Annihilation of Lord Buddha's Family', by Paripurnanand Verma Pioneer18.5.56

[Pioneer .
of 18-5-56]
THE ANNIHILATION OF LORD

BUDDHAS FAMILY
IT is a strange phenomena in history that the families or clans of
all great preachers in the world were annihilated either in their own
life-time or within a few years of their exit from this world. In our
own country, the destruction of the yadu clan of Shri Krishna is
known to all of us. But it was an immense surprise to me to find
that during the life-time of Lord Buddha his family and clan of
Sakyas was given such a terrific blood-bath that hardly a few
escaped extinction. I came face to face with the story when I
visited Lumbini, the birth-place of Lord Buddha, last summer.
I was among a group of visitors who undertook this pilgrimage.
We stopped at the residence of Mr. Peppy, at the head-quarters of
his Howard Lehra Estate. After the abolition of the Zemindari, Mr.
Peppys beautiful bungalow has been sold to the U.P. Government
but the household has not been transferred so far and in that nicely
furnished place, over a sumptuous breakfast table, I learnt of the
old documents and relics which the owner possessed regarding the
history, ancient monuments and historical finds of immense
importance of that locality. The discovery may have been new to
me, and to my shame, although I was a student of ancient history
in my college days, I had little knowledge of the great things in
store for us. The most ancient and yet to be deciphered relic in
possession of historians in India is the inscription on a sandstone
dating back to 482 B.C. It was found in the excavations of
Piperahwa Stoop, excavated by the father perhaps the grandfather
of Mr. Peppy. It reveals something unknown or undiscovered in
the great history of the life of Lord Buddha. We shall describe
about the find. Let us first deal with the history of the place.
Gorakhpur Terai
The oldest and perhaps most authenticated book on Gorakhpur
Teraithe area called Nepal Teraiwas written by Mr. W.
Gibbons nearly 60 years ago. It was published in Buckingham,
England, and contains valuable information. In Nepal, the area
leading from the Trivem Ghat on Narayani river to the district of
Arrah in Bihar , i.e., a distance of 60 miles, is called
GorakhpurTerai. In 1801, the East India Company purchased this
plot of land from Nawab Wazir of Avadh on payment of
Rs.1,33,47,135|12|9. The whole region was covered with rich Sal
forests and was famous in Buddhist history.
In the year 1846-47, the Company earned Rs.2,11,68,175 from this
forest. During the same year the total income from land Revenue to
the East India Company from Gorakhpur district was Rs.23,86,990
while from Kanpur district its income was Rs.23,34,700. Due to
dense forests, the Board of East India Company decides that it
would not be possible for them to have any administrative or
business control over the area and therefore, the land was given to
some Englishmen on long leases. One of such leases gave a big
and prosperous estate to Mr. Peppy. While managing the land,
cutting the jungles and levelling the ground , the Peppy family
discovered Piperahwa Stoop. Pipraerhwa is 10 miles from Naugarh
railway station in Basti District on the North-Eastern Railway, in
the property of Mr. W.C. Peppy in his Howard Lehra estate. It is
east of Kapil-Waththu (now called Kapil Vastu), the capital of
Shuddodhan, father of Buddha. Lumbini forest is north-east of this
place. In the south is the Birdpur Estate of another Englishman.
Piperahwa is 19.75 miles on Nepal-Uska Road, half a mile from
th
the 45 pillar on Indo-Nepal border. The excavated stoop is 16 feet
in length. 10 feet in breadth and 2 feet in height. Its discovery
created such a commotion among the historians that the famous
scholar, Mr. Vincent Smith, visited this place in October, 1898.
After digging 10 feet in the mound, a broken sandstone vase was

found which contained nothing but earth, a few stone beads, some
beautiful gold ornaments ornaments for the nose called laung a
necklace and a gold baton one foot in length. After further
excavation, 12 feet below, a sandstone box was discovered which
was 4 feet in length, 2 feet in breadth and 2 14 feet in depth. It was
4 inches in thickness. It contained another sandstone box which
had a gold pot, ornaments, valuable stones and jewels and bone
relics, i.e., ashes. The inscription on the vase was in Pali which
could not be deciphered in our country. It was sent to the famous
Professor of Oriental languages at Vienna University, Dr. Boehler.
he deciphered it thus:-IYAM SALILA NIDHANE BUDDHAS BHAGWATE
SAKAYANAM SUKITI BHATINAM SA SABHAGINIKANAM
SA PUTTA DALANAM.
The Story
In January, 1906, the Royal Asiatic journal published a very
learned article by Mr. J.F. Fleet, I.C.S., on this stoop and it was
then that the world came to know of the great event which we shall
narrate now. With the growth in eminence and importance of Lord
Buddha and the spreading of his religion, it became a question of
honour and prestige to the ruling families to give alms to the
Bhikkus i.e. the mendicants, when they came to the town with their
begging bowls for food. It is interesting that although the Bhikkus
were not allowed to live in the towns, they had their monasteries
quite near to the town to facilitate begging. It was thus that the
Srawasti (Sahet in Bahraich
District), Sarnath (Banaras) and Sanchi (Bhhopal District), etc.,
grew to be important Buddhist centres. The kingdom of Sakyas
(i.e., Shuddhodhan of Kapil-vastu) was subordinated to the
kingdom of Srawasti where king Pasenedi ruled. While Sakyas
claimed to belong to purest Kshatriya blood, the ruling family at
Sawasti was considered to be of lower rank and, therefore, Sakya

Bhikkus did not receive alms from the family of Pasendi. This was
an inherent weakness in the Buddhists and it is a surprise that even
Lord Buddha did not condemn it in unequivocal terms because
when King Pasenedi asked Lord Buddha who were the people
from whom Bhikkus should receive alms, the Lord replied that the
giver must be neither of their own family or should possess the
confidence of the Bhikkus.
The king was disappointed with this reply, in order to attain higher
rank in Kshatriya clan, he decided to marry in the family of
Shuddhodan. Therefore, a message was sent to Shuddhodan,
asking for the hand of a daughter of the family. It was hard for
Shuddhodhan to refuse his King, yet he did not wish to give a
daughter of his family married to one of lower rank.
The maternal uncle of Buddha, named Mahanam advised him to
cheat the king by marrying a slave girl to him and declaring her to
be born in the Sakyas family. Thus, the marriage took place. For
full 20 years the fact remained unknown to the Srawasti family and
the mother of the Prince Virudhak did not allow this fact to reach
the ears of either her husband or son. When Virudhak came to the
throne, he decided to pay a visit to the family of his maternal grand
father. Naturally the mother got anxious as she did not wish her
child to know the real story of his birth and, therefore, she sent a
confidential message to Kapil-Vastu, requesting the then living
members to conceal the fact as best they could.
According to ancient custom all youngers must bow to their elders
and therefore, at the official reception of king of Srawasti at the
palace hall, in order to avert the ignominy of bowing to one of
lower rank, the elders decided to ask every youngman in the capital
to go to the forest to hunt and remain absent on the official
occasion. Thus when Virdhak was being entertained and received,
he witnessed that everybody around him was elder in age and,
therefore, it was only he who was bowing. He asked the elders
about those younger to him in age and was given some flimsy
excuse, which he sincerely accepted to be correct.
After four days of entertainment and reception in the town, when
the king left and had gone hardly a few miles, it was discovered by
one of his soldiers that some weapons were left in the capital and
he hurriedly returned to pick them up. He discovered in the palace
that a slave girl was cleaning a stool and was murmuring to her
mate that because a child born of a Shudra woman sat on it,
therefore, the stool had to be cleansed thoroughly.
Having overheard this, the soldier returned to his master who,
immediately on arrival at Srawasti, questioned his mother at length
and got the truth from her. Thus, he took a vow to avenge the insult
to himself and invaded Kapil-vastu after a few years.
During the first two attacks, Lord Buddha reached the scene and
persuaded him to return but on the third attack, Buddha was not
present and invasion took place. The king was determined that he
would not spare anyone born of the Sakya family. It was decided
by the elders to avert this calamity, that whenever anyone was
questioned whether he was a Sakya or not, he would reply:--NO
SAKO TRINAM OR SAKO NALO
While replying thus, the Sakya should keep a straw in his mouth.
Both these sentences have got two meanings. The one means that
I am not eating grass while actually it will mean that I am not a
Sakya. Those who spoke this line, on the same way as the famous
episode of Mahabharat when Yudhishthir spoke a lie, the life of
that Sakya was spared but it is said that so much blood was shed in
this invasion that a huge tank of blood was formed there and the
ruins of this tank still remain there.
After a couple of years, the bones and ashes of those destroyed
were safely preserved and stoopas were erected and the ashes
along with the ornaments etc. of those killed were deposited. The
inscription on the Stoop when translated means:

Here lie the ashes of the members of the family, sisters and
children and brethren of the famous lord Buddha.
While returning from this annihilation, the army of Virdhak had to
cross the river Achirawati. At this time such a huge storm struck
that nearly everyone in the army was drowned. Virudhak was
thrown in the jungle without any arms and was devoured by the
beasts of the forest. Thus the Sakya and Srawasti ruling families
and their army perished at the same time.
Sources Of The Story

It is rather surprising that very little reference has been made in
ancient history to this incident. It is true that the topography and
geography of the place has changed immensely within these
thousands of years. The river Achirawati is nowhere to be found
The Lumbini forest possesses but only one tree. The place which
Ashok visited in the 21st year of his reigncalled Lumbini near
Padaria village, 100 miles from Kapil-Vastu the birth-place of
Lord Buddha was also lying in ruins for years. The inscriptions of
Ashok range from 249 to 252 B.C. All of his stoops are nearly 23
feet in height but the Piperahwa stoop and its inscription, which is
at least 200 years older than Ashok inscriptions, remains almost
unknown even today to the lovers of Indian history. It appears that
Buddhists themselves tried to conceal this tragedy. When HuinTsang came to India, he discovered the story and according to him
9,99,000,000 Sakyas were either killed or imprisoned by the king
Virudhak. He made the first international reference to that great
tragedy. But in the famous Maha-Pari-Nirwan- Sutta, there is no
reference to this, incident.
Buddhghosh in this famous commentary of Dhammapad and in
this Buddh- Sal-Ja<>ka has referred to this incident. The finds
from the boxes are extremely interesting to look at. Many of these
have gone to the British Museum, some are in the Calcutta

Museum and some are with Mr. Peppy. I have requested Mr.
Peppy to hand them over to our Lucknow Museum. The ornaments
are strangely like our present decorations. The Bindi on the
forehead has changed from gold to plastic in modern times,
otherwise the design remains the same. The Piperahwa stoop has
opened a new chapter in the history of our ancient land and it is a
pity that we have little notice of it. I would like our Government to
comb the whole area of Piperahwa and find out what strange
history lies buried undergroundmaybe a river-bed, maybe the
bed of a huge tank, maybe more inscriptions and relics waiting for
us to decipher.
By Paripurnanand Verma, MLA

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[Pioneer .

THE ANNIHILATION OF LORD

After digging 10 feet in the mound, a broken sandstone vase was

Sawasti was considered to be of lower rank and, therefore, Sakya

inscription on the Stoop when translated means:

Sources Of The Story

have gone to the British Museum, some are in the Calcutta

By Paripurnanand Verma, MLA

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