The Cast of Rajagriha
Behind the hills, groves and ruins of Rajgir stand a few people whose names recur in the early Buddhist texts. Knowing who they were makes the sites easier to read. This article follows three: King Bimbisara, his son Ajatashatru and the physician Jivaka. The accounts of them come from Buddhist and Jain texts written down well after their lifetimes, so details, and even dates, should be held loosely.
King Bimbisara
Bimbisara was the ruler of Magadha in the time of the Buddha, according to tradition, with his capital at Rajagriha. The Pali Canon describes an early meeting in which the young renunciant, not yet awakened, was seen begging for alms in the city. The king is said to have offered him a share in his kingdom, which the ascetic declined, promising to return and teach after he found what he sought.
After the Buddha’s awakening he is said to have kept that promise and visited Rajagriha, where the king became a lay follower. The most lasting result, in the traditional account, was the gift of the bamboo grove of Venuvana, offered to the Buddha and his monks as a place to stay. The grove and a stone-paved track toward the hills are among the sites the tradition links to the king. Whether the modern ground is the same as the ancient is uncertain.
Bimbisara has a place in Jain tradition as well, where he appears under a similar name as a patron of Mahavira. This is not surprising, since rulers of that time supported many teachers.
Ajatashatru
Ajatashatru was Bimbisara’s son. In Buddhist accounts, he was influenced by Devadatta, the Buddha’s cousin and rival, and he imprisoned his father in order to seize the throne. Some versions say Bimbisara died in captivity. Ajatashatru is later shown as full of remorse. The Samannaphala Sutta presents him visiting the Buddha, confessing his deed and receiving a response; the text is traditionally set in the mango grove of Jivaka. Jain texts give their own, different, picture of him, and historians treat the stories as moral narrative as much as record.
Ajatashatru is also remembered as a military and political figure. Magadha grew in power under him and his successors, and the capital eventually moved from Rajagriha to Pataliputra. In the Buddhist tradition he is named as the supporter of the First Council, said to have been held at Rajagriha shortly after the Buddha’s passing, and as the recipient of a portion of the relics. Historians weigh both claims cautiously, and the Buddhist councils are better treated as a tradition than a documented event. Tradition adds that Emperor Ashoka, who ruled from Pataliputra generations later, reopened early relic deposits, including the one attributed to Ajatashatru.
At Rajgir, visitors are shown ruins said to be Bimbisara’s prison, a small cluster of stones near the road to Vulture Peak. Tradition says that from it the king could see the hill where the Buddha stayed. This is a poignant story, but it cannot be verified.
Jivaka
Jivaka Komarabhacca appears in the Vinaya as a physician who trained at Taxila, in what is now Pakistan, and then served at Rajagriha. According to the texts he treated King Bimbisara and later the Buddha. In monastic tradition he is the figure to whom several medical allowances in the monks’ rules are linked. He is also said to have offered his mango grove to the Buddha’s community, and the foundations still shown at Jivakamravana are traditionally connected with this gift.
How much of the medical detail is legendary is unknown. The stories associated with Jivaka are often marvellous, with remarkable surgeries described, and many readers regard them as devotional literature. His importance is easier to state modestly: he stands for the care of the sick, a theme that runs through Buddhist monastic life. Nothing here is medical advice.
Reading the Sites Through the People
Seen through these three, much of the valley falls into a pattern. The bamboo grove is the king’s gift. The hilltop road and the prison ruins recall the family drama of the palace. The mango grove commemorates the physician. Beyond them are the shrines and hills tied to the Buddha’s other disciples, who are discussed in the article on the Buddha disciples, and to Sravasti and other cities in the neighbouring kingdom of Kosala, with whose king Bimbisara’s family had ties by marriage.
Visiting
Check current official sources for opening times and access, take care in the heat, and respect those at worship. These sites are shared with other communities, and practice varies among them.