An ancient kingdom of northeast India. It was especially powerful from the fourth century bc to the fifth century ad , particularly under the emperor Asoka (third century bc ).
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Magadha Sentence Examples
In later times it was included in the powerful Hindu kingdom of Magadha or Behar, and in the 7th century A.D.
It was in the reign of Bimbisara that Vardhamana Mahavira, the founder of Jainism, and Gautama, the founder of Buddhism, preached in Magadha, and Buddhist missionaries issued thence to the conversion of China, Ceylon, Tibet and Tatary.
The name here used by the chronicler for Pali is "the Magadhi tongue," by which expression is meant, not exactly the language spoken in Magadha, but the language in use at the court of Asoka, king of Kosala and Magadha.
Bali, the ancient language of the kingdom of Magadha, in which the sacred writings of Buddhism were made, was largely instrumental in forming all the languages of Further India, including Siamese - a fact which accounts for the numerous connecting links between the Mon, Burmese and Siamese languages of the present time, though these are of quite separate origin.
(c. 535), after whom it passed "by an obscure transition" into a dynasty of eleven Gupta princes, known as "the later Guptas of Magadha," who seem for the most part to have been merely local rulers of Magadha.