The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c25.198

v1.c25.198

The European invasion of India was an event of too great magnitude not to have far-reaching consequences. As other overflowings of foreign conquests have done, it swept away internal barriers which prevented the unification of the lands concerned. The confederacies of free tribes, which had maintained their proud isolation from other political systems, were left utterly broken. Smaller principalities were swallowed up in a realm such as that given by Alexander to the Paurava. This, no doubt, made it a simpler matter for the Maurya king a few years later to take these countries into his great Indian empire.