Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s3: Empire of Magadha
Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c11.s3
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Empire of Magadha
c11.s3.1
Magadha had already grown into a large imperial state under the Nandas, and the reports that reached Alexander’s generals in the Punjab of the strength and efficiency of the army of the Prasii fixed them in their resolve not to hazard an encounter with a foe far more powerful than Porus, and thus compelled Alexander to abandon his dream of world conquest. The prestige of the empire of the Nandas, the failure of the tribal republics of the North-West in their hard-fought wars against the Greek invader, and subsequently the example of the empire of the Seleucids doubtless favoured the tendency already at work towards the formation of an all-India empire. The ideal of the *chakravartin* is for the first time brought down to earth from the cloud-land of religious myth and legend, and the *chakravarti-kshetram*, the sphere of the emperor’s rule, is clearly defined in the *Arthaśāstra* as the whole of India extending from the Himalayas to the Indian Ocean and a thousand *yojanas* across.¹ The Mauryan epoch marks thus the definite triumph of the monarchical state against rival forms of political organization, particularly that of the tribal republic which became henceforth much rarer than before and practically died out in the course of the next few centuries. There is reason to believe that Chandragupta and Kauṭilya were hostile to the non-monarchical states and that their policy was not averse to taking advantage of the weakened and impoverished condition in which these states found themselves after the ravages of the Greek war. The short section on policy towards *Saṅghas* (republics) in the *Arthaśāstra* (Bk. XI) gives a list of the names of important *saṅghas* still in existence, and describes numerous ways of sowing dissension among them and breaking them up that are open to a monarch who seeks to dominate them ; though, indeed, to preserve the character of a scientific treatise the section is concluded on a note of friendly advice to the *saṅghas* on how they could counteract the subtle assaults from ambitious monarchs on their unity and strength.
c11.s3.2
¹ *K.A.* IX. 1. I do not accept Dr. Raychaudhuri's limitation of the passage to Northern India, and I read *tiryak* and not *atiryak*. See *PHAI* 4., p. 220 n ; also Jayaswal, *Hindu Polity*, Sect. 365 ; and *Rangaswami Comm. Vol.* p. 81.
Linked texts (1)
- Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit