Political History of Ancient India, from the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty c15.s2.49

c15.s2.49

⁵ In the play Chandragupta is styled ‘*Nandānvaya*’ and *Vṛishala*. As to the former appellation we should note that the play describes Nanda as *abhijana*. Further it calls Chandragupta *Mauryaputra*, and though commentators try to reconcile the epithets *Nandānvaya* and *Mauryaputra*, we learn from early Buddhist writers that Maurya is not a metronymic of Chandragupta or of his father, but the designation of an old clan. The Greeks, too, refer to a tribe called Morieis (Weber IA. ii. (1873) p. 148; Max Muller, *Sans. Lit.*, 280; Cunn. *JASB*, XXIII, 680). As to the epithet *Vṛishala* it should be remembered that a Purāṇic text applies it even to the founder of the so-called Andhra dynasty (Pargiter, DKA, 38). But we learn from contemporary epigraphs that the dynasty regarded itself as 'Bamhaṇa.' According to Manu (X. 43) the epithet *Vṛishala* could be applied to degraded Kshatriyas (cf. IHQ, 1930, 271 ff. *Cf.* also Mbh. XII. 90, 15 ff., "The Blessed Dharma is *Vṛisha*. He who deals with it in such a way that it ceases to be of any use, *i.e.*, transgresses it, is called a *Vṛishala, Vṛisho'hi Bhagavān Dharmo yastasya kurute hyalam*). The Mauryas by their Greek connection and Jaina and Buddhist leanings certainly deviated from the Dharma as understood by the great Brāhmaṇa law-givers. Attention may be invited in this connection to the epithet *Vasalaka* (*Vṛishala*) applied by Brāhmaṇas to the Buddha himself (Mookerji, *Hindu Civilization*, 264).