The Dynastic History of Northern India (Early Mediaeval Period) v1.c10.6

v1.c10.6

Achaemenian invasion of India (*c.* 520-18 B.C.) and the date of Alexander's irruption (*c.* 326-25 B.C.) are still the earliest landmarks known for certain in Indian history. By calculating backwards from these dates, and with the assistance of the information contained in the chronicles of the Brahmans, Jains, and Buddhists a rough chronological framework has been established from about 600 B.C. downwards. It seems that about this period Northern India and a portion of the Deccan were parcelled out into small independent principalities. A stereotyped list of sixteen such states is probably contained in the *Aṅguttara Nikāya* of the Buddhists. Before the death of Buddha, however, in the eighties of the fifth century B.C. a considerable change appears to have taken place in the political geography of Northern India. Some of the smaller states seem to have been absorbed in four principalities of considerable size, viz., Avanti, Vatsa, Kosala and Magadha. About the last quarter of the 4th century B.C., the last of these had swallowed up the other three. When Alexander crossed the Ravi in 326 B.C., he was opposed on the Beas by an Indian prince who was most probably a king of the Nanda dynasty of Magadha. Under the Mauryas the Magadhan empire grew until it embraced the whole of India excepting the extreme south, where a few Tamil states were suffered to exist by the peaceful policy of Aśoka. This practical unification of India under the hegemony of Magadha is an event of great importance in the history of India before the advent of the British. It was twice nearly achieved under some of the Tughluqs and the Mughuls. But during the Hindu period India was never again united under one sceptre. Historians have, of course, tried to add unity to pre-Muslim history by clustering the political events round this or that dynasty of Northern India which grew powerful from time to time; but it must be pointed out that none of these ruled even over the whole of Northern India, not to speak of the peninsular portion, where often equally powerful if not stronger dynasties ruled contemporaneously, with them. The Magadhan empire did not long survive the death of Aśoka. The pressure of successive hordes of Yavanas, Śaka-Pahlavas, and Yueh-chi invaders from the north-western gates and the rise of the Sātavāhanas in the Deccan gradually reduced the successors of the Mauryas to little more than Magadhan princes. The establishment of the Kuṣāṇa empire in the North-west removed the centre of political interest, at least in Northern India, from Pāṭaliputra to Peshawar. In the time of Kaniṣka the Kuṣāṇa dominions stretched across the Punjab to the Ganges valley as far east as Sarnath, and may have even included Magadha. By the beginning of the 3rd century, the Kuṣāṇas were reduced to the position of local rulers in the Punjab, while the rest of Northern India was probably parcelled out amongst the Satraps of Ujjayinī, the Nāgas, the Licchavis, and other minor powers, and in the Deccan the position of the Sātavāhanas appears to have been taken up by the Vākāṭakas. Further south, in the Guntur, Bellary and the Northern Tamil districts, we find the first beginnings of the rise of the Pallava power. The end of the 3rd century brings us to a revival of the power of Magadha under the Guptas. By the end of the 4th century the Magadhan empire under Candragupta II embraced a large portion of Northern India. But Sind, portions of Rajputana and the Punjab, Kashmir, portions of Nepal, Assam, and large areas of Bengal and Orissa remained permanently outside the orbit of the Gupta empire, though some of them may have acknowledged a nominal allegiance to the Gupta emperor. The Southern contemporaries of the Guptas during this period were in the Deccan, the Vākāṭakas and further south the Pallavas and Kadambas.