Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s1.5

c12.s1.5

The eastern peoples, *prāchyas*, are not enumerated in the same manner as those of the southern, the northern and the central regions. But it may be safely assumed that the name used in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* stands for the Prasii of the Graeco-Roman writers. The most famous nations of the east in the *Brāhmaṇa-Upanishad* period were the Kāśis, the Kosalas and the Videhas. But a new star was soon in the ascendant. Under the vigorous kings of the race of Bimbisāra and Nanda Magadha played the same part in ancient Indian politics as Wessex did in pre-Norman England and Prussia in Hohenzollern Germany. Several circumstances contributed to the pre-eminence of the new aspirant for imperial power—its position of vantage between the upper and lower parts of the vast riparian plain of Northern India, the possession of an almost unassailable stronghold amidst five hills, and another at and near the confluence of several rivers, the arteries of commerce and navigation in those days, a superbly rich and fruitful soil, and resources including a powerful elephant corps which greatly impressed the classical writers and writers in polity.