Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c14.s1.15

c14.s1.15

The ancestry of Chandragupta is not known for certain. Hindu literary tradition connects him with the Nanda dynasty of Magadha.² Tradition recorded in Mediaeval inscriptions, however, represents the Maurya family (from which he sprang) as belonging to the solar race.³ From Māndhātṛi, a prince of that race, sprang the Maurya line." In the *Rājputāna Gazetteer*,⁴ the Moris (Mauryas) are described as a Rājput clan. Jaina tradition recorded in the *Pariśishṭaparvan*⁵ represents Chandragupta as the son of a daughter of the chief of a village of peacock-tamers (*Mayūra- *poshaka*).¹ The *Mahāvaṁsa*² calls him a scion of the *Khattiya* clan styled Moriya (Maurya). In the *Divyāvadāna*³ Bindusāra, the son of Chandragupta, claims to be an anointed Kshatriya, *Kshatriya Mūrdhābhishikta*. In the same work⁴ Aśoka, the son of Bindusāra, calls himself a Kshatriya. In the *Mahāparinibbāna Sutta*⁵ the Moriyas are represented as the ruling clan of Pipphalivana, and as belonging to the Kshatriya caste. As the *Mahāparinibbāna Sutta* is the most ancient of the works referred to above, and forms part of the early Buddhist canon, its evidence should be preferred to that of later compositions. It is, therefore, practically certain that Chandragupta belonged to a Kshatriya community, *viz.*, the Moriya (Maurya) clan.