Vatsa

Vatsa was one of the sixteen mahajanapadas, the great kingdoms of ancient northern India. Its territory lay south of the Ganges in the lower Doab, between the Ganges and the Yamuna, and its capital was Kaushambi on the Yamuna, identified with the modern village of Kosam near Allahabad. According to tradition the Vatsas were a branch of the Kuru dynasty. After Hastinapura was destroyed by a flood, the Kuru king Nicakshu moved his capital and people to Kaushambi, and in the post-Vedic period the Kuru realm divided between the Kurus in the upper Doab and the Vatsas in the lower Doab. Vatsa became one of the most important states of the Gangetic plain. Its best-known ruler was Udayana, celebrated in Sanskrit literature, including Bhasa's plays, as a cultured and romantic king. The kingdom was ultimately conquered by Magadha, which absorbed Vatsa during its expansion in the fifth century BCE. Kaushambi remained a major city and a centre of early Buddhist monasticism.