Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s1.t3.8

c9.s1.t3.8

The glamour of the Nandas has been dimmed by the greater splendour of the succeeding dynasty. But it is well to remember what the kings of the line bequeathed to their immediate successors and to posterity. They had, to use the words of Smith, "compelled the mutually repellent molecules of the body politic to check their gyrations and submit to the grasp of a superior controlling force". They developed a fighting machine that was used by the later rulers of Magadha with terrible effect in resisting the onslaught of foreign invaders and carrying on the policy of expansion within the borders of India that had been inaugurated by Bimbisāra and Ajātaśatru.