Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c12.s8.17

c12.s8.17

The barber ancestry of Agrammes, recorded by the classical writers is quite in keeping with the Jaina story of the extraction of the Nanda line. That the Magadhan contemporary of Alexander and of young Chandragupta was a Nanda king is not disputed. The real difficulty is about his identity. He could not possibly have been the *first* Nanda himself. The words used in reference to Agrammes, "the present king," *i.e.*, Alexander's contemporary in Curtius' narrative, make this point clear. He (Agrammes) *was born in purple to one who had already "usurped supreme authority" having secured the affections of a queen*. That description is scarcely applicable to the founder of the dynasty who was, according to Jaina testimony, the son of an ordinary courtesan (*gaṇikā*) by a barber apparently without any pretensions to supreme power in the state.