Buddhists and Jains both tell the story of King Ajatashatru, very differently
Ajatashatru seized the throne of Magadha from his father and jailed him, yet he met both the Buddha and Mahavira and appears in the scriptures of both faiths. Jains call him Kunika, Sore Finger, after a childhood wound his father nursed. He made Magadha the strongest kingdom in northern India.
Even his dates depend on whose chronology you trust. Placing the Buddha's death in 483 BCE, the historian A. L. Basham put Ajatashatru's accession at 491 BCE, while K. T. S. Sarao's later dating of the Buddha moves his reign to around 405 to 373 BCE. He was a son of King Bimbisara of the Haryanka dynasty. Jain texts name his mother as Queen Chellana, daughter of King Chetaka of Vaishali; Buddhist ones name Kosala Devi, a princess of Kosala. An inscription in the Mathura museum calls him son of Vaidehi, a title both queens shared.
Both traditions tell a strikingly similar birth legend. His pregnant mother had an ominous craving involving her husband, and fearing the child would bring ruin, she had the baby abandoned near a rubbish heap. There, the Jain version says, a rooster pecked his little finger, and Bimbisara rushed out and soothed the wound himself for days until it healed. The sore finger gave him his Jain name.
As king he expanded relentlessly. He beat the king of Kosala in a war that ended with a marriage to Princess Vajira, took Kashi, and fortified the village of Pataliputra, later a great capital. His longest struggle was with the Vajjika League, a confederacy led by the Licchavis of Vaishali. The Jain account turns it into an epic sparked when his half-brothers refused to hand over a prized elephant and a divine necklace and fled to their grandfather Chetaka, with gods lending Ajatashatru their aid. In the Buddhist telling, his minister Vassakara asked the Buddha why the Vajjis were invincible and heard seven reasons, including punctual assemblies and respect for elders; the minister then set about dividing them.
The Jain story adds that Vaishali's walls held until a monk was lured from his vows and persuaded the citizens to tear out a protective shrine. The confederacy fell, and Ajatashatru was succeeded by his son Udayabhadra. The accounts of his death disagree, one placing it around 461 BCE and others nearly a century later.
Source: Ajatashatru
