[1] The Nāyikas were a sub-group of the Videha tribe who in the eastern Gangetic plain in the Greater Magadha cultural region.

[3][4] In the 7th or 6th century BCE, the Licchavikas invaded the Vaidehas, replaced their monarchy by a republican system, and settled down in the southern part of the former Mahā-Videha kingdom.

Once the Licchavikas had established their own republican state, they founded the Vajjika League led by themselves, and which the Nāyikas, as well as the Vaidehas living in the north of the former Mahā-Videha kingdom, joined.

There were nevertheless occasional tensions between Licchavi and Magadha, such as the competition at the Mallaka capital of Kusinārā over acquiring the relics of the Buddha after his death.

After the failure of this rebellion, Vehalla sought refuge at his grandfather's place in the Licchavika and Vajjika capital of Vesālī, following which Ajātasattu repeatedly attempted to negotiate with the Licchavikas-Vajjikas.

Ajātasattu's hostility towards the Vajjika League was also the result of the differing forms of political organisation between Magadha and the Vajjika League, with the former being monarchical and the latter being republican, not unlike the opposition of the ancient Greek kingdom of Sparta to the democratic form of government in Athens, and the hostilities between the ancient Macedonian king Philip II to the Athenian and Theban republics.

[5][1] Although later Jain texts depict Nāya as a powerful kingdom, the Nāyikas were in fact a small tribe organised into an aristocratic republic.

The Gaṇa Mukhya was more often referred to by the titles of rājā​ (meaning "ruler") or khattiya (that is, the Pāli form of kṣatriya), and whose status was equivalent to those of the much later tāluqdārs and zamīndārs.