Kaṃsa
1. Kaṃsa.– Another name, according to the scholiast, for Brahmadatta, king of Bārāṇasī and father of Samuddajā. J.vi.198 (25).
2. Kaṃsa.– King of Bārāṇasī, and called Bārāṇasiggaha because he was ruler of Bārāṇasī. According to the Seyya Jātaka (J.ii.403), he was the king who was seized by the monarch of Kosala, owing to the treachery of a disloyal courtier, and who was later set free on account of his great piety. In the Ekarāja Jātaka, which purports to relate the same story, and again in the Mahāsīlava Jātaka, the king is referred to by other names. We probably have here a confusion of legends due to an effort to make three similar stories into one and the same.
It is probably this same Kaṃsa Bārānasiggaha who is referred to in the Tesakuṇa Jātaka, by the owl Vessantara (J.v.112). There the scholiast explains Bārāṇasiggaha as “catūhi saṅgahavatthūhi Bārāṇasiṃ gahetvā vattanto.”
3. Kaṃsa.– Son of Mahākaṃsa and brother of Upakaṃsa and Devagabbhā. Later he became king of Asitañjana in Kaṃsabhoga in the Uttarāpaṭha. He was killed by Vasudeva, one of the Andhakaveṇhudāsaputtā (J.iv.79 f).