Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s2.t1: A. Physical Aspects

Age of the Nandas and Mauryas c9.s2.t1

Language: English

A. Physical Aspects

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Bounded on the north by the Outer Himalayas; on the west, by the eastern Hindukush, the Safed Koh, the Suleiman and the Kirthar ranges; on the south, by the surging waters of the Arabian Sea and the "immense salt-water waste of the Rann of Cutch"; and on the east by the sand-dunes of the Thar or the Great Indian Desert and the uplands and ridges of the Eastern Punjab, the extensive valley of the Indus and its feeders constituted a little world not much affected by the eddies and currents of Magadhan history before the rise of the Great Mauryas.

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The country falls into three natural divisions :—(1) the mountainous regions extending from the upper reaches of the Sutlej to the basin of the Chitral and certain outlying rocky areas; (2) the flat rolling plains of the Punjab intersected by a network of rivers and brooks; and (3) the almost rainless tract of the lower Indus and its delta, an important part of which now forms the province of Sind.

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The land described above presents great varieties of scenery. The eyes meet in the north the snow-clad speaks and glaciers of the Himalayas and the luxuriant vegetation that clothes the submontane region. A striking contrast to this is afforded by the plains of the Indus, which look like an “interminable waste”, overgrown with tamarisk scrubs and ultimately merging in the great desert of Rajputana, the Registan of Sind and the sandy, surf-beaten shore of the Arabian Sea. The dreary and monotonous sight is only redeemed by the green verdure of the riverine fringes and “endless expanse of waving crops of different shades of colour” that covers the country at the approach of the harvest season.

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The history of the region cannot be properly understood without a reference to its river-system. The central stream of the Indus, taking its rise in the heights of the Tibetan Plateau, meanders its course through the whole length of the land. It has not only given its name to our country but, according to some Greek writers, formed sometimes its north-western boundary. Near Attock in the north-western part of the Punjab it receives the combined waters of the Kabul and its confluents, including the Swat, the Panjkora, the Kunar and the Panjshir. The rivers which contribute most to the stream of the Indus, however, lie to the east and sweep through the plains of the Punjab proper, the “Land of the Five Rivers.” The nearest among the “Five Streams” is the Jhelum or Vitastā, the Hydaspes of the Greeks. It adds to the wealth and beauty of the sunny vale of Kashmir and unites with the next stream, the Chenab, the ancient Chandrabhāgā or Asiknī, the Akesines of the Greek writers, near Jhang. The whirling of waters produced by the confluence threatened to spell disaster to a flotilla of Alexander in the fourth century B. C. The next of the sister torrents, the Rāvi, ancient Paruṣṇī or Irāvatī, the Hydraotis of the Greeks, rises in the Chamba State and falls into the united waters of the Jhelum and the Chenab. To the east of the Rāvi flows the Beas, ancient Vipāś or Vipāśā, the Hyphasis of the Greeks, which is now an affluent of the Sutlej, Sutudri, or Śatadru, the Hesidrus or Zaradros of the Greeks. The five streams mingle their waters into the Panjnad and join the Indus above Mithankot. The mighty river then sweeps on into the Arabian sea through a number of shifting channels. Traces of old river beds are found in several directions and remains of ancient cities stud the neighbourhood.

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During winter the rivers of the Punjab look comparatively small but at the approach of the hot season, when the snow of the mountains begins to melt, and particularly when the monsoons burst, the streams are lashed to fury and rush through their wide beds "in uncontrolled vagary". Large tracts of the country assume an almost oceanic character. Greek writers, as we shall see, bear ample testimony to the vagaries of these rivers and their effect on the landscape.

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Although drained by a large number of rivers the soil of the Punjab is comparatively poor. The scarcity of regular rainfall and the absence of sufficient facilities for irrigation in early times added to the difficulties of extensive cultivation. The forest-clad sub-montane region, including the country round Taxila, has, however, been noted for its fertility since times long gone by. Besides agricultural products, salt added to the wealth of the Indus basin, being found embedded in rocks particularly the Salt Range, and the delta of Sind. No trace of gold mines has been found in this region, but the metal was met with in the sands of the Indus, and the Kabul rivers and the upper reaches of several other streams.

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The gold-washing industry is no longer remunerative. But Herodotus informs us that in the fifth century B. C. "India", i. e., the Indus valley, paid a tribute of 360 talents of gold-dust. The existence of gold and silver "mines" in the countries of Sophytes and Mousikanos and certain other regions was reported to the companions of Alexander and the Chinese pilgrims of the seventh century A. D. The forests of Gandhāra supplied teak for a Persian palace, and the country in general ivory for its adornment. Alexander, too got timber for his flotilla from the hilly region flanking the north of the Punjab.

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Geographical factors exercised a controlling influence upon the history of the Land of the Five Rivers as on the rest of the country. The mountains on the west and the north that frown on the riparian plains afforded shelter to fighting clans, who turned every rocky eminence into a citadel of defence and braved the wrath of the mightiest conqueror of antiquity. The numerous streams and rivulets that intersect the plains made each doab or strip of territory between two sheets of water nourish centres of autonomous political life. The mighty Indus with its confluent streams at times promoted an opposite tendency. They served as highways for ambitious rulers who sought to compel the political molecules of the Punjab and Sind to submit to one controlling force. The story of the mineral and agricultural wealth of the country must have been carried by travellers and merchants beyond its border so as to reach the ears of the King of Kings who held his court at Susa and Ekbatana from the sixth to the fourth century B. C. The riches of India and the lack of political cohesion among the children of the soil invited invasion from outside. The existence of a centralised monarchy in Iran indicated the source from which it was to come.

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B. THE ADVANCE OF PERSIA TO THE INDUS.

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Some sort of military activity in India and its borderland and even conquest of a well defined territory in this direction are attributed to Cyrus (558-529 B. C.), the founder of the Persian empire, by Xenophon and other writers. But the evidence points to the inclusion within the dominions of the first Achaemenid of only the Kabul valley as far as the Indus. We learn from Pliny that Cyrus destroyed the famous city of Kāpiśī and Arrian tells us that "the district west of the Indus as far as the Kophen (Kabul).. submitted to the Persians and paid tribute to Cyrus". Kāpiśī, the Ka-pi-shih of Hiuen Tsang and Ki-pin (cf. Greek Kophen) of other Chinese texts stood at or near the junction of the Ghorband and the Panjshir. The eastern part of the realm of Ki-pin comprised, according to later writers, K'ien-t'o-lo or Gandhāra. Classical writers thus make it clear that the region between the Panjshir and the Indus, embracing ancient Kāpiśī or Ki-pin and Gandhāra proper (Peshawar district), was under the sway of Cyrus, a fact that accords with the appearance of Gadara or Gandhāra among the subject peoples in the earliest epigraphs of Darius (522-486 B. C.).

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Another eastern people who owed allegiance to the Persians were the "Thatagus" or the Sattagydians. They together with the Gandarians, the Dadicae and the Aparytae constituted the seventh satrapy. Herzfeld is inclined to regard the Sattagydians as an Indian people located in the Punjab. Rawlinson, however, thinks that they lived near the Arachosians (of Kandahar) and occupied a part of south-eastern Afghanistan. According to Sarre they are to be located in the Ghazni and Ghilzai regions. Dames placed them in the Hazara country. The exact position of the Sattagydians still remains uncertain and the matter cannot be finally decided until the discovery of fresh evidence.

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A more famous name that occurs in several inscriptions of Darius in the list of subject peoples is Hidu (Hindu), which corresponds to the "Indians" of Herodotus. The circumstances leading to their subjugation, as described by the famous Greek historian, are too well known to need recounting. We are told that "the Indians, who are more numerous than other nations with which we are acquainted, paid a tribute exceeding that of every other people, viz., 360 talents of gold-dust. This was the twentieth satrapy." Herzfeld takes Hidu to refer to Sind. The description of Herodotus that "the tribes of India are more numerous than any other nation and do not all speak the same language", taken together with the information that they paid an amount of tribute exceeding that of every other people, suggests that the twentieth province of the Achaemenid Empire could not have been confined within the narrow limits of modern Sind. If the sandy tract, which is said to have lain 'eastward of India' refers to the desert of Rajputana, then we have probably to include a considerable portion of the southern Punjab, if not the whole of the *central* as well as the lower Indus valley within the borders of the twentieth satrapy. It may no doubt be argued in this connection that certain words of Megasthenes and Arrian suggest a more restricted dominion. The former says that "the Indians had never engaged in foreign warfare, nor had ever been invaded and conquered by a foreign power, except by Hercules and Dionysus and lately by the Macedonians". Arrian also makes the statement that "according to the Indians, no one before Alexander, with the exception of Dionysus and Hercules, had invaded their country." As both these writers often take the Indus to be the western boundary of India proper, their statements may be taken to imply that the Persian dominion in the east did not extend beyond the mighty Sindhu. But it has perhaps been rightly pointed out that "Alexander's historians may have been inclined to minimise the accomplishments" of the Persians "in order to bring into greater prominence the achievements of the famous Greek invader." In any case we should give more weight to the contemporary testimony of Herodotus than to the observations of Megasthenes and Arrian who wrote in much later ages.

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The empire which Darius ruled with wisdom and vigour did not long survive his death. Xerxes, who succeeded his father in 486 B. C. and reigned till 465 B. C., had to face a sea of troubles. Rebellions broke out on all sides. We learn from a Persepolis inscription, usually assigned to the period between 486-480 B. C., that he destroyed the temple of the daivas. This, in all likelihood, has reference to India. It is, however, difficult to determine whether the Achaemenian ruler proclaimed a jihad in honour of Ahuramazda or was faced with a rebellion of the far-eastern province of his empire, the land of the Deva-worshippers. That the monarch succeeded in retaining some hold over the Indian provinces is amply attested by the fact that the people of Gandhāra as well as the Indians figured in the vast host that he led against Hellas in 480 B. C.

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The discomfiture that the fleet and army of Persia suffered in the fight against the Greeks at Salamis and Plataea, Mycale and Eurymedon, clearly indicated that her days of conquest and ascendancy were over. The weak and incapable successors of Xerxes found more delight in the boudoirs of the harem than on fields of battle. The direction of state affairs gradually passed into the hands of ambitious women or all-powerful officials. Murder of princes, rebellions of satraps and popular outbreaks lined the path of national decline. But genius for intrigue and possession of gold enabled the agents of a corrupt and effete system to continue for sometime to wield an influence which the valour and enterprise of their antagonists failed effectively to eradicate.

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The Achaemenians succeeded in retaining some control or influence over the tribes of the Indian borderland till 330

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B. C. when their hegemony was finally extinguished by Alexander. Strabo informs us, on the authority of Eratosthenes, that "the Indus was the boundary between India and Ariana, which latter was situated next to India to the west and was in possession of the Persians at that time" (i. e. when Alexander invaded India).

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Indian contingents fought side by side with the Persians against the Hellenic host at Guagamela. Arrian refers to three distinct groups of Indians who responded to the trumpet call of Darius III Codomanus (335-330 B. C.). The Indians who were neighbours of the Bactrians (of the Balkh region), possibly the inhabitants of Kāpiśi-Gandhāra, were arrayed with the Bactrians themselves and the Sogdianians (of the Samarkand territory) under the command of Bessus, the satrap of Bactria. A second group of Indians styled the "Indian hillmen" or "mountaineer Indians", possibly the Sattagydians or people of the principality of Sambos in Sind, were placed with the Arachosians (of the Kandahar area) under Bersaentes, Satrap of Arachosia. Besides these, we have pointed reference to a third group, viz. Indians on *this* side of the Indus, apparently those of the twentieth satrapy, who came to the help of the Persian king with a comparatively small force of fifteen elephants.

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In the huge Persian army that Darius pitched against Alexander the Indians occupied the centre where the great king himself took up his position. They obviously enjoyed, in a special measure, the confidence of the sovereign and had the honour of protecting his person with his kinsmen, "the Persians whose spears were fitted with golden apples, the 'transplanted' Carians and the Mardian bowmen." Nor did they belie the trust reposed in them. When the attack began and the great king himself took to flight some of the Indians, together with the Persian cavalry, fell upon the enemy with great impetuosity and threatened one contingent (the army of Parmenio) with total annihilation. The timely help of Alexander saved the situation.

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It is interesting to note that two important sections of Indians who joined the army of Darius III fought under the banner of the satraps of Bactria and Arachosia. This possibly implies that their territories were committed to the charge of those two satrapies. The amalgamation of two, or even three, provinces is a feature of the administrative history of the later Achaemenids. Like the Daṇḍapanatasāmantas, mentioned in Kauṭiliyan Arthaśāstra, Indian lieges furnished contingents to the paramount power in the hour of its need. The great provincial satraps had the assistance of district officials or local potentates of the rank of nomarch and hyparch. A number of these functionaries are mentioned as ruling in the Kabul and Indus valleys on the eve of the Macedonian invasion of 326 B. C. Alexander did not meet with any Persian satrap after he crossed the Indus. But hyparchs and nomarchs were to be found as far as the Salt range. Some of the chiefs assumed the full insignia of sovereignty and even styled themselves Basileus or king. The hold of the Persian king and satraps had by this time grown very weak. Each petty principality or chiefship cherished "with a passionate tenacity its individual life and.. political ambition, making wars and alliances as the interest of the moment might dictate."

Linked texts (1)

Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra — Kauṭilya, Sanskrit