The Personality of India: Pre- and Proto-historic Foundation of India and Pakistan c10.87

c10.87

In the historic period, we see the emergence of full-fledged States and the political history of India is one of struggles between the various States for power and hegemony. Of the 16 States that emerged in N. India in the 6th century B.C., Magadha, by a series of struggles and matrimonial alliances, controlled the whole Gangetic basin by the time of the advent of the Nanda rule in the 5th centurty B.C. According to the tradition, the Nandas conquered Kalinga and took away a Jaina image. This naturally paved the way for the conquest by the Mauryans of the Punjab which was earlier unified by the armies of Alexander. With their firm grip on the Indo-Gangetic basins, the Mauryan conquest of the rest of India became easy and, if we are to believe the tradition, parts of Mysore were acquired by Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the dynasty in the late 4th century B.C. Thus came into existence the first empire of Indian history. This political fabric led to a great development of communications within the country and is it surprising to find Asokan inscriptions in Brahmi spread over the whole empire at critical points along the ancient higways? The architect of the Mauryan imperialism was the great pioneer of Political economy in the country, Kautilya, who has left a treatise called the Arthasastra. He describes the whole land between the Himalayas and the sea as a " Chakravarti kshetra" (an emperor's realm) and that it is the supreme duty of king to proclaim his suzerainty over this land. Earlier, Buddhists developed the concept of an ideal, spiritual *chakravarti*, and it is based on the political concepts of *Samrat* and *Chakravarti* by the later vedic and Smriti writers, who elaborated royal and coronation rituals. Are not the elaborate *Rajasuyas* and *Asvamedhas* the political sanctions behind the story of imperialism, inaugurated by the Nandas and the Mauryas? Thus this ideal remained a vital force in Hindu political theory and it was the ambition of each and every ruler to become a *Samrat* or *Chakravarti*. Even as late as the 10th century, Rajasekhara defines a Samrat as the one who conquers the land from the Himalayas to the southern sea.¹ It is very amusing to go through the inscriptions of the Historic period, when even small rulers made highly exaggerated claims about the extent of their kingdoms and performed Asvamedhas as a symbol of their power over their neighbours (the greatest example being the mythical accounts of Sahadeva's protection of Yudhistira's horse, or the one of Kalidasa's description of Raghu's conquests where the whole country, with its geographic names of a later period, has been described as being conquered).