Early India and Pakistan to Ashoka c10.4

c10.4

Here we are not concerned with the details, true or supposititious, of Ashoka's life and administration. The writings of Vincent Smith and F. W. Thomas are accessible¹⁰⁸ and, in spite of needed modifications and additions,¹⁰⁸ wear well with time. It will suffice to recall that Ashoka's grandfather, Chandragupta, who in 326 B.C. had met Alexander the Great in the Punjab, usurped the throne of Magadha beside the Ganges in Bihār within the next two or three years, and so established the Maurya dynasty at the head of the most powerful and wealthy kingdom in northern India. About the same time he attacked and destroyed the garrisons left by Alexander in the Indus basin; and the attempt by Seleukos, one of the four heirs to Alexander's empire, to recover the lost ground in the latter years of the century ended in victory for Chandragupta and a patched-up peace. The peace-terms may possibly have included a marriage between the victor and a daughter of Seleukos.