The Cambridge History of India, Vol. I: Ancient India v1.c28.63

v1.c28.63

In another respect the old system of caste had received a shock. To the contemporaries of Buddha and Mahāvīra the conception of a king who was not of the Kshatriya order would have seemed preposterous. But the Mauryas were of low extraction, as were the Nandas whom they succeeded. Henceforth the spectacle of the low-born man in power was never a rarity in India; and soon it was the foreigner. The vast empire, with its army of officials and spies, introduced a bureaucratic rule in place of the old quasi-feudal system.