Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s2.1

c9.s2.1

No account of India in the age of the Nandas is complete without a brief notice of the vast stretches of territory within the confines of this country that lay beyond the limits of their empire. Unfortunately, the exact boundary of the Nanda dominions cannot be determined with any amount of precision with the aid of available evidence. This is particularly true of the south. In the north the inclusion of the Ganges valley within the Nanda empire is, as already noted, suggested by Greek and Purāṇic evidence. We shall perhaps not be far wrong if we regard the upper reaches of the stream, that once flowed through the Ghaggar-Hakra bed, as forming roughly the boundary line between the Magadhan empire of those days and the autonomous tribes and kingships of the Uttarāpatha. In the south Greek evidence is not of much help. Purāṇic testimony, as we have seen, hints at the incorporation into their empire by the Nandas of the principalities of all the leading Kshatriya families of the day, including in all probability those of the south. Among the latter prominent mention is made of the Haihayas, Kaliṅgas and Aśmakas.