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Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s1: Bindusāra

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s1

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Bindusāra

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Chandragupta died after a reign of 24 years, probably some time after 301 B.C. But his work did not perish with him. This was no doubt due in large measure to the vigour and efficiency of the system of government which he had organised, and the wise policy he had followed. But the machinery of administration would by itself hardly have worked smoothly if it had not at its head a man who appreciated the ideals and methods of the dead king and did his best to preserve the traditions of the illustrious founder of his line. This is not the only title of Bindusāra, the son and successor of Chandragupta, to fame. If he sought to preserve unimpaired the heritage of his father, he also prepared in some respects the way for his great son. His reign is not merely a continuation of that of Chandragupta. It also presaged in some respects the glorious epoch of Dharmāśoka.

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Little is known about the early life of the new king. If Jain tradition is to be believed the name of his mother was Durdharā. History does not record if he was one of the young princes who, according to Aelian, amused themselves while fishing in the unruffled sheets of water within the palace grounds of the greatest of all the kings of India, and learning how to sail their boats. In later life he showed an aptitude for government and a taste for culture which in all possibility were acquired in boyhood. The name of Amitrochades (variants, Amitrachates and Allitrochades, the λ λ having arisen from a loosely formed cursive M)¹ by which he is known to the Greeks suggests not a weakling brought up amidst the pleasures of the harem, but a man of steel, fit to bear the weight of a great empire and defend it against all enemies. Fleet takes the Greek appellation as meaning "Amitrakhāda", 'devourer of enemies', which occurs as an epithet of Indra. Lassen and others prefer to equate it with the Sanskrit Amitraghāta, slayer of foes—a term that occurs in the *Mahābhāshya*² of Patañjali. *Amitrāṇāṃ hantā* is a well known title of royalty in the *Aitareya Brāhmaṇa* and *Amitraghātin* is frequently used in the *Mahābhārata* as an epithet of princes and warriors.³

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¹ Fleet *J.R.A.S.*, 1909., p. 24,n.

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² *Ibid.* 2. 2.

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³ *Ait Br.* VIII. 17 : *Mbh.* II. 30. 19 ; 62. 8, VII. 22.16.

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As Chandragupta, according to the evidence of Plutarch and Justin, had not yet mounted the throne in 326—25 B.C. and is traditionally credited with a reign of 24 years, his successor could hardly have obtained the imperial crown before 301 B.C. The new monarch must have ceased to rule before 270—69 B.C. if the king Magas, mentioned in the rescripts of his son written not earlier than the twelfth regnal year, died in 258 B.C. Regarding the actual period of Bindusāra's rule the evidence is discrepant. The Purāṇas allot to him a period of 25 years. Burmese and Ceylonese chronicles raise the figure to 27 and 28 respectively.

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Greek historians say little about the internal affairs of India in the days of Bindusāra. Our main reliance has to be placed on tradition. The accounts of the Buddhist and Jain writers of a late date suggest that the services of the most able and astute of Chandragupta's officials were retained by his son. Among these was Kauṭilya or Cāṇakya who is said to have had a rival in Subandhu.¹ The post of chief minister (agrāmātya) eventually went to Khallāṭaka and later on to Rādhagupta². The name of the principal queen was, according to the Mahāvaṃśa Ṭīkā, Dhammā. The Aśokavadāna calls her Subhadrāngī³.

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¹ Pariśiṣṭaparvan, VIII. 446. ff. Cf. Kathāsaritsāgara Kathāpīṭhalam-baka 5th Taranga, Verse 115 ; Penzer's edition, I. p. 57.

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² Divyāvadāna, p. 372. P.H.A.I. 4th ed. ; pp. 243n, 248. The Divyāvadāna, p. 372 refers to a council of five hundred under Bindusāra.

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³ R. L. Mitra, Sanskrit Buddhist Literature of Nepal, p. 8; Bigandet II, p. 128.

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Bindusāra was fortunate in having in his sons, especially Aśoka, proconsuls of exceptional ability who did much to curb the impetuosity of some of his officials in the outlying provinces. With their help it was not difficult for him to maintain unimpaired the empire he had inherited from his father and even to extend its boundaries. The Divyāvadāna tells the story of a revolt in Taxila, the citizens of which complained of the high-handedness of certain amātyas. That there was a substratum of truth in the complaint appears not improbable in view of certain words of Aśoka himself in the Kaliṅga edicts that refer to the measures adopted by that great emperor to check ministerial oppression in the provinces. When Bindusāra was confronted with a difficult situation in Taxila, he is said to have commissioned Aśoka with the task of restoring order. This the prince accomplished without much difficulty as the people "were not opposed to the Kumāra or even to king Bindusāra" and had grievance only against the "wicked officials" (duṣṭāmātyāḥ). The Maurya prince is said to have pushed on to the Svaśa rājya, evidently a mislection for Khaśa rājya, the realm of the Khaśas, whose settlements extended, according to Stein, in a wide semicircle from Kastvar to the Vitasta (Jhelum) valley in the south and west of Kashmir.⁴

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⁴ J.A.S.B., Extra No. 2, 1899 p. 69

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Some interesting details about the warlike activities of Bindusāra and his Chancellor, the Brāhmaṇ Chāṇakya, are recorded in the history of Tāranātha. We are told that they destroyed kings and nobles of about sixteen cities and reduced to submission all the territory between the eastern and the western seas. In view of the late date of the author it is difficult to say what element of truth is contained in his narrative. The vanquished-monarches "between the eastern and the western oceans" have been taken to refer to the petty sovereigns of the Peninsula.¹ This is not a necessary inference as North India from Kāthiāwar to Bengal may also be said to extend from sea to sea. Kalinga on the eastern coast of the Deccan is known to have retained its independence till the days of Aśoka. The statement of Tārānātha, if based on authentic tradition, need mean nothing more than the suppression of revolts of the type alluded to in the *Divyāvadāna* in the vast stretch of territory between Surāṣṭra and the Gangetic delta. No Greek or Indian record of any early date connects the name of Bindusāra Amitraghāta with the conquest of any large tract of Peninsular India. Inscriptions of Kalinga and Mysore, which tell us so much about the Nandas, Chandragupta and Aśoka, are silent about the second Maurya.

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¹ *J.B.O.R.S.*, II, p. 79 ff.

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Bindusāra seems to have been perfectly pacific abroad. He maintained the relations of friendship with the Hellenic world that had been established in the later days of his illustrious father. Diodorus testifies to the great love of the king of Palibothra (Pāṭaliputra), apparently an early Maurya monarch, for the Graeccians. The policy was reciprocated by the Greek contemporaries of Bindusāra. Strabo refers to the sending of Deimachos to the court of "Allitrochades, son of Sandrokottos"². We learn from Pliny that another envoy named Dionysius came from (Ptolemy II) Philadelphus, king of Egypt (285—47 B.C.)³ The name of the monarch to whom he presented his credentials is not stated. The Egyptian king appears to have been a contemporary of both Bindusāra and Aśoka. The silence of Greek and Latin writers regarding Aśoka, when contrasted with repeated references to Chandragupta and Amitraghāta makes it probable that the monarch in question was Bindusāra, rather than his great son. Athenaeus, a Greek writer of the third century, tells us on the authority of Hegesander, that Amitrochates, king of the Indians, wrote to Antiochus (I of Syria) asking that monarch to buy and send him sweet wine, dried figs and a sophist. The Syrian king replied "we shall send you figs and the wine, but in Greece the laws forbid a sophist to be sold¹".

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² II. 1.9. ; *Megasthenes and Arrian*, pp. 12, 19.

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³ *Ibid.* pp. 13, 20 ; *Ancient India in classical Literature*, p. 108.

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¹ *Inv. Alex.*, p. 409n.

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The passage, brief as it is, is important in more respects than one. It reveals Bindusāra as a man who sought like his father to foster friendly contact with the outer world. The mention of sweet wine and figs coupled with the information vouchsafed by Phylarchus, Strabo and Appian, affords a glimpse of the kind of pacific intercourse between India and the west, diplomatic, social and commercial, that was ushered in by the treaty between Chandragupta and Seleucus. But the most significant fact noted by Hegesander is the demand for a Greek sophist. It affords proof not only of Bindusāra's taste for culture, but his special interest in philosophy. We may also take note of the story related by Diodorus of a Greek author Iambulous, who was hospitably received by the king of Palibothra who had a great love for Graecians. The name of the king is not given. But the tale admirably fits the correspondent of Antiochus. Nor was the interest of the king of Pāṭaliputra confined to Greeks alone. The *Divyāvadāna* has an interesting reference to an *Ajīva-parivrājaka* as a prominent figure in the court of the second Maurya². Ājīvikas, it may be remembered, were special objects of the bounty of the later kings of the line like Aśoka and Daśaratha. The intensity of Aśoka's devotion to matters spiritual is better understood when we remember the kind of men his father loved to gather round himself. It is said in the Seventh Pillar edict that kings in times past also desired that "men might be made to progress by the promotion of Dhamma". Bindusāra might well claim a place among these past rulers. From him and some of the brilliant men who graced his court, Aśoka may well have imbibed ideas that fructified in later times, when he came into close touch with the Buddhist *Saṅgha*. The reign of Bindusāra may with plausibility be regarded as a prelude to that of his great son.

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² pp. 370ff ; *P.H.A.I.*, 4th ed., p. 267n.

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Certain unhappy incidents clouded, according to tradition, the last days of Bindusāra. He had doubtless many children, both sons and daughters, as we may infer from the Fifth Rock edict of Aśoka. If reliance can be placed on late chroniclers, the relations among some of them were none too friendly. Aśoka, whom we have seen taking a prominent part in the affairs of the state during the life-time of his father, is represented as having seized the throne as the outcome of a fratricidal struggle. The story lacks confirmation from contemporary sources and its verification must await future discoveries. The incidents to which it refers, if they really took place, must have helped to deepen in the long run the religious conviction of Aśoka who sought to make amends for the misery he had inflicted on his fellow creatures in his unregenerate days.

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CHAPTER V

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MAURYAN POLITY

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India attained political unity for the first time under the Mauryas ; it was the realization of age-long dreams associated with the names of many legendary heroes—Prithu, Bharata, Rāma and many other monarchs whose names occur in traditional lists of the performers of imperial sacrifices like the Rājasūya and Aśvamedha. In talking of the Mauryan empire, however, or indeed of any empire of ancient and mediaeval times, we should beware of importing notions of modern economic imperialism into the past. The Mauryan empire was indeed the first attempt in India to secure administrative centralization on an extended scale ; but it was nothing by the side of the ruthless concentration of policy achieved by modern empires, and the methodical and complete suppression of all local autonomy and initiative within their frontiers. Again, there was no belief then that the lord of the big battalions had a duty to impose the culture of his people on their weaker neighbours. Nothing can be farther from all this than the quiet tone in which Aśoka records the despatch of his missions to preach the dharma in alien lands and provide for the medical treatment of men and animals.

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