Malla

Two confederacies

The Malla country lay between the Kosalan and Vajjian spheres and was divided between two assemblies, one seated at Kuśinagara and one at Pāvā. Like the Vajjis they were governed by clan heads meeting in council, and the Buddhist sources treat the two peoples as belonging to the same political type.

The two deaths

The Buddha died at Kuśinagara, in a grove of sal trees on the outskirts of the town, having taken his last meal at the house of the smith Cunda in Pāvā. The Mallas of Kuśinagara conducted the cremation and claimed the relics; the ensuing dispute among eight claimants, settled by the brahmin Droṇa dividing the remains, is the origin story of the relic stūpas.

Mahāvīra died at Pāvā, and the Jain tradition dates the beginning of its era from that night. The two towns are a few days' walk apart, and the coincidence has kept the Malla country a pilgrimage landscape for both religions.

End

The Mallas were absorbed into Magadha during its expansion in the fifth and fourth centuries BCE, along with the other clan polities of the region. The name survived as a designation for the area, and Kuśinagara, long deserted, was re-identified in the nineteenth century and has since been rebuilt as a pilgrimage centre.