Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.5

c11.5

Many of the prominent figures that strutted on the Indian stage in the twenties of the fourth century B.C.—Agrammes, Āmbhi, Porus, to name only a few—did not show any proper realisation of the problems that faced their country, or the destiny that awaited her. To preserve and augment the nascent empire of Magadha, to deal effectively with the foreign menace, to "unify the innumerable fragments of distracted India" and bring the ideal of the *Chakravartain* into the realm of practical politics, to inspire Indians with a zeal for mighty endeavour in various fields of activity and bring her politically and socially into close touch with the outer world—all this required a man of heoric proportions. Such a man did not take long in coming. If Plutarch and Justin are to be believed there appeared before Alexander in the Punjab (326—25 B.C.) a ‘stripling’¹ of humble birth about whom tradition records signs and portents significant of an august destiny². He conceived the grand design of reversing the condition of things that must have filled the mass of his countrymen with despair. For nearly a quarter of a century he did bestride the Indian world like a colossus. For generations the country had to follow in the lines laid down for her by Chandragupta.