Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s1.19

c11.s1.19

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.