Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.71

c11.71

Be that as it may, for details of the momentous events that led to the supersession of the Nandas by the Mauryas we must turn to Indian chroniclers and story-tellers. No contemporary account has survived. The traditional story is told differently by different writers. In some cases only fragments have survived. One of the earliest of these, which lies embedded in the *Milinda Pañho*,² preserves its heroic character as a tale of war between the contending forces of the Nandas and the Mauryas. The lustre of Chandragupta is, as in the narrative of Justin, yet undimmed by that of an all powerful chancellor. His opponent Bhaddasāla is a brave soldier, a general of the Nandas, not an astute minister. The accounts of the Purānic genealogists, the chroniclers of Ceylon and the *Nitisāra* of Kāmandaka are still marked by comparative simplicity. They relate how the Nandas were uprooted and the "earth passed to the Mauryas¹". But the credit for the achievement, for "anointing the glorious youth Chandragupta as king" over the earth (or Jambudvipa) is given to a minister, the *Brāhmaṇa* Kauṭilya, Chāṇakya or Viṣṇugupta. The treatise on statecraft ascribed to the latter goes so far as to omit in this connection all explicit reference to Chandragupta².