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A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c10: Chapter V. The Age of the Mauryan Empire

A History of South India from Prehistoric Times to the Fall of Vijayanagar c10

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English

Chapter V. The Age of the Mauryan Empire

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Nanda rule in the South—Jain accounts of the end of Chandragupta Maurya—inscriptions—*Arthaśāstra* on trade between North and South India—Megasthenes on Pāndya—Tamil kingdoms in the edicts of Aśoka—Satiyaputa—Aśoka's empire in the Deccan—confederacy of Tamil states—Mauryan interest in the politics of the South—Brāhmī inscriptions in caverns and their import.

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IN the fourth century B.C., the empire of Magadha was greatly expanded under the powerful, though unpopular, dynasty of the Nandas who, according to purānic accounts, conquered all rival monarchs and became sole emperors of the whole of India. How far their sway extended into the South, it is by no means easy to determine. That it included Kalinga seems to be confirmed by the famous Hāthigumpha inscription of Khāravela who ruled over Kalinga in the second century B.C. This inscription mentions a Nanda raja in connexion with the construction of an aqueduct, and states elsewhere that King Nanda carried away as trophies of war a statue of Jina and other heirlooms of the rulers of Kalinga. Kannada inscriptions from Mysore of the tenth and eleventh centuries A.D. preserve faint memories of the rule of the Nandas in the Kuntala country; but there is little confirmation of this tradition. Nander on the upper reaches of the Godāvari has sometimes been taken to be the survival of an ancient name like Nau-Nandadhera and as indicating the extent of Nanda power into the Deccan. Indeed, punch-marked Purāna coins, which are found all over the Deccan, South India, and Ceylon as well as in North India, are clear witnesses of ancient contacts between the North and South whose details are now lost; but while they enable us to infer the existence of trade connexions, they are of no avail in fixing the southern limit of the Nanda empire. The inclusion of Kuntala in that empire conforms to the limits of the Mauryan empire under Aśoka as determined by the existence of his inscriptions in the South, and there is no clear evidence of the Mauryan emperors having undertaken wars of conquest in the South. It may, after all, be that the Kannada inscriptions mentioned above preserve a correct tradition—that the Mauryas came by their Southern possessions as a matter of course by overthrowing the imperial dynasty of the Nandas. The enormous wealth accumulated by the Nandas was well known to the ancient Tamils, and became proverbial. Māmūlanār, one of the poets of the Śangam Age, puts these words into the mouth of a love-lorn lady: ‘What is it that has attracted my lover more than my charms and kept him away from me so long? Can it be the treasure accumulated in prosperous Pātaliputra and hidden in the waters of the Ganges by the great Nandas victorious in war?’

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Jain tradition affirms that when Bhadrabāhu, the last of the saints called śrutakevalins, foretold a famine of twelve years' duration, the Mauryan emperor Chandragupta abdicated the throne and migrated to the South with the saint and his pupils. The emperor is said to have lived for many years as a Jain ascetic in Śravana Belgola in Mysore, and ultimately committed suicide by sallekhana, or starvation, surviving his teacher by twelve years. Inscriptions from Śravana Belgola and its neighbourhood mention Bhadrabāhu and Chandragupta munīndra; one inscription, which may be as old as A.D. 600, mentions the pair (yugma) and says that theirs was the safe faith (dharma); and another of even earlier date, probably not later than the fifth century, contains all the elements of the story given above. Bhadrabāhu, according to this account, foretold at Ujjain a period of twelve years of dire famine, and the whole of the Jain sangha thereupon migrated from the North to the South under his leadership. When they arrived at a mountain named Katavapra (that is, Chandragiri) in a populous and prosperous country (Mysore), an Āchārya (Prabhāchandra by name), knowing he had but a short time to live, sent away the entire sangha and, with only one disciple attending on him, performed penance and gained emancipation from his body. Two inscriptions of about A.D. 900 from the neighbourhood of Seringapatam describe the summit of the lower hill Chandragiri at Śravana Belgola as marked by the footprints of both Bhadrabāhu and Chandragupta munīpati. Later inscriptions at Śravana Belgola bearing dates in the twelfth and fifteenth centuries repeat this tradition with variations. Similar attestation also comes from literary sources, of which the earliest seems to be the *Brihatkathākośa* of Harishena (A.D. 931). The absence of any clear evidence about the actual end of Chandragupta Maurya lends some plausibility to this legend; but it is improbable in itself, and the identity of the Chandragupta muni of the inscriptions is by no means beyond doubt.

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The *Arthaśāstra* of Kautilya gives some information of value about the trade between the North and the South in the age of the early Mauryan empire. ‘Among land routes,’ says Kautilya, ‘my teacher considers that leading to the Himalaya superior to the one leading to Dakshiṇāpatha, because of the elephants, horses, spices, ivory, hides, silver and gold articles, all very valuable (to be had there).’ He then expounds his own quite different view as follows: ‘No,’ says Kautilya. ‘Although it is deficient in woollen cloth, hides and horses, the Dakshiṇāpatha abounds in conch-shells, diamonds, precious stones of other kinds, pearls, and articles of gold. Moreover, the southern trade route across Dakshiṇāpatha traverses a territory rich in mines and valuable merchandise, is frequented by many (traders) and easy to travel by. That is the superior route.’ This passage almost brings before our eyes the large-scale opening-up of trade with the South which the foundation of the Nanda and Mauryan empires brought about. The view represented by Kautilya’s teacher (*āchārya*) was becoming rapidly out of date as a result of new conditions, and the pupil affirms that there were in his day more wealth and larger possibilities of trade in the South than ever before. The mention of gold, diamonds and other precious stones and pearls, and of the easy conditions of travel along the much frequented routes, deserves to be particularly noted. Again, in his account of the articles that entered the royal treasury, Kautilya includes varieties of pearls from the Tambraparni river in the Pāndyan country, from Pāndyakavāta (which is explained in the commentary as the Malayakōti mountain in the same area), and from the Chūrnā river in Kerala. He also mentions fine cotton fabrics from Madura, as well as *vaiḍūrya* (beryl) of various colours, and varieties of sandalwood which must also have come from South India.

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The legendary account given by Megasthenes of the rule of the Pāndyan kingdom by Pandaia, a daughter of Herakles, has been noticed already; it must be understood as recounting the origin of the kingdom rather than as describing contemporary conditions. Megasthenes says that each day one village brought its due tribute to the royal treasury, this tribute being, perhaps, a payment in kind calculated to ensure a regular supply of provisions for the daily consumption of the royal household. There is a similar statement in the Śilappadikāram (c. A.D. 600) that on a particular day a certain cowherd family in a suburb of Madura took its turn to supply ghee to the royal palace.

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The kingdoms of South India, together with Ceylon, are mentioned in the second and thirteenth rock-edicts of Aśoka. The list in the second edict is the more complete and includes the names of Chola, Pāndya, Satiyaputa, Keralaputa and Tambapanni (Ceylon). All these lands are distinctly stated to have lain outside the empire of Aśoka; but the great emperor was on such friendly terms with them that he undertook to arrange for the proper medical care of men and animals in all of them, and for the importation and planting of useful medicinal herbs and roots wherever they were needed. He also sent missionaries to preach the dhamma, the essentials of Buddhism, among the people of these countries, thus evincing a keen interest in their spiritual and moral well-being no less than in their physical fitness. The mere mention of such facts is enough to indicate a certain level of general culture and progress in the arts of civilization among the people of the South. The Tamils and the Sinhalese must have had a settled polity and lived in well-ordered states for some time before Aśoka could think of starting his friendly intercourse with them.

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The identification of the Satiyaputa kingdom is not easy and has long been a subject of controversy. The name was, till recently, recognized as a tribal name which may be Sanskritized into Satyaputras, ‘members of the fraternity of truth’, and the only tribe answering to this description known to early Tamil literature held to be the Kōśar, celebrated for their unswerving fidelity to the plighted word as well as for their heroism in war. Their home is said to have been in the Kongu country—roughly the modern districts of Salem and Coimbatore—and they overran the Tulu country on the west coast in the early centuries of the Christian era. They occupy a considerable place in the literature of the Śangam period, and it seemed highly probable that they should find a place in the earliest enumeration of the political divisions of the Tamil country next to the three main kingdoms of the South. Scholars therefore tentatively accepted the identity of the Satiyaputa with the Kōsar and their country with Kongu.

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SOUTH INDIA: 300 B.C. - A.D. 500

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The Satputes among modern Marathas were taken to be descendants of emigrants to Mahārāshtra from the South. A more satisfactory equation is that of Satiyaputa with Adiyamān (also Adigamān or Adigaimān), first suggested by K. G. Sesha Aiyar and supported on good linguistic grounds by T. Burrow.¹

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¹ See *Bulletin of the School of Oriental and African Studies* (London), XII (1948), pp. 136-37 and 146-47.

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The conquest of Kalinga by Aśoka (c. 260 B.C.) is one of the best-known events of his reign and formed the turning-point in his spiritual career. No wonder his edicts are found in Dhauli in the delta of the Mahanadi, and at Jaugada in the Ganjam district, then certainly part of Kalinga. Dhauli was perhaps the same as Tosali, the capital of Kalinga in those days. A fragment of one of the edicts of Aśoka discovered at Sopara near Bombay proves the inclusion within the Mauryan empire of the north-west as well as the north-east of the Deccan. Farther south Aśokan inscriptions have been found in the Raichur and Chitaldrug districts in Mysore, and in the Kurnool district of Andhra. How much farther south the empire of the Mauryas extended can only be conjectured; it seems not unlikely that a part of the Tondaimandalam was included in it; at any rate, a Pallava inscription of the ninth century A.D. (the Velūrpālaiyam plates) mentions an Aśokavarman among the earliest rulers of Kāñchipuram. The countries of the Deccan are very well represented in the account given by the Ceylonese chronicle Mahāvamsa of the missions sent after the third Buddhist council at Pātaliputra for the propagation of the dhamma in different countries. We learn that a certain Mahādeva was sent to Mahishamandala (Mysore) and one Rakkhita to Vanavāsi (afterwards the centre of the Kadamba kingdom), a Yona Dhammarakkhita, possibly a Greek monk, was deputed to Aparantaka (the northern half of the Bombay coast) and Mahārakkhita to the Maratha country. Mahinda, the son of Aśoka, who was responsible for the conversion of Ceylon, also finds a place in the list along with four others who share with him the honour of carrying the gospel to Laṅkā. Though this account is seven or eight centuries later than the time to which it relates, there is good reason to believe that it preserves a fairly correct tradition quite in conformity with the evidence of the Aśokan inscriptions. All the Deccan states mentioned were of course within the empire of Aśoka.

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The Rathikas and Bhojas of the western and northern Deccan as well as the Andhras and Paradas of the eastern Deccan and the Pitenikas who have not yet been localized seem to have enjoyed a considerable measure of autonomy in their government. They could not have been independent as they are definitely described in Aśoka’s inscriptions as peoples in the king's territory. The Deccan was an important part of the Mauryan empire and contained the seats of two viceroyalties—Tosali (Dhauli), and Suvarnagiri, now called Kanakagiri, between Hampi and Maski in Hyderabad. The land was placed under *mahāmātras*, some assisting viceroys, others in charge of districts and others dispensing justice in the cities. *Antamahāmātras* were charged with defence and missionary work among backward peoples.

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The characters of the Aśokan inscriptions in Mysore, and Kurnool vary in several respects from those of the Northern edicts and have been recognized as a special Southern variety of the Brāhmī script. This shows that writing must have been in use in the South for some time before to allow of such variations being developed, and that the southerners understood the language and were the equals of their North Indian contemporaries in their culture and outlook.

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Inscriptions on stone relic caskets found in the stupa at Bhaṭṭiprolu near the mouth of the Krishna river are probably only a few decades later than Aśoka's edicts; they are engraved in the same Southern variety of the Brāhmī script, and their language obviously reflects many peculiarities of local speech. These inscriptions mention a king Kubiraka and his father whose name is lost.

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The famous Hāthigumpha inscription of Khāravela (first half of the second century B.C.) mentions a league of Tamil states that was 113 years old at the date of the inscription and had been for some time a source of danger to the Kalinga kingdom. This shows that the different states of the Tamil country were, even at that early age, capable of entering into enduring diplomatic relations and pursuing a steady policy towards neighbouring states, near and far.

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The poet Māmūlanār, whose reference to the hoarded wealth of the Nandas has been cited above, says that the Kōśar started operations against their foes and gained successes against many of them; but as the chief of Mōhūr did not submit, the Mōriyar, who had a large army of which the Vaḍugar formed the vanguard, sent an expedition to the South to assist them. Māmūlanār wrote about four centuries later than the fall of the Mauryan empire, and if his expression ‘*vamba mōriyar*’ is taken to refer to the newly-risen Mōriyas, the dispatch of assistance to the Kōśar to help them in their conquests must have occurred when the Mauryan empire was still strong and powerful. This active intervention of the Mauryas in the politics of the Tamil country has so far escaped notice, but the lines of Māmūlanār are clear in their import. The political unification of India under the Mauryas was then very real, and the court of Pāṭaliputra was interested in occurrences in the extreme South of the peninsula. ‘Vaḍugar’ literally means ‘northerners’, and was the name applied in Śangam literature to the ancestors of the Telugu-Kannada people living in the Deccan, immediately to the north of the Tamil country whose northern limit was Vengadam, the Tirupati hill. The Deccan was a part of the Mauryan empire, and that Deccani troops formed the vanguard of the Mauryan army is quite intelligible.

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Māmūlanār himself and other poets make further references to the Mauryas strongly tinged with the mythology of the concept of Chakravarti—the wheel-emperor; but these need not detain us or detract from the value of the specific historical references in Māmūlanār cited above. Let us note further that the poems contain no basis for the view often expressed that the Mauryas invaded South India and reached the Podiya mountain in the extreme South.

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The short Brāhmī inscriptions found in natural rock caverns in the hills of the South have many features in common with the similar, but more numerous, records of Ceylon, and are among the earliest monuments of the Tamil country to which we may assign a date with some confidence. The script employed resembles that of the inscriptions from Bhaṭṭiprolu and may well be assigned to the third century B.C. These inscriptions have not yet been fully elucidated; but clearly they are mostly either brief donative records or the names of the monks who once lived there. One of the places where the caverns are found bears the name Kaḷugumalai, ‘vulture’s hill’, Tamil for Gridhrakūṭa, a name hallowed in the annals of early Buddhism. From this fact it has been deduced that these monuments were all of them of Buddhist origin; but it is premature to formulate final conclusions on this matter. New caves and inscriptions are still being discovered, such as the inscribed natural cave at Malakonda in the Nellore district. And tradition is strong, as we have seen, that Jainism came into South India about the same time as Buddhism, if not earlier. It is not possible to assert that these monuments owe their origin exclusively to Buddhists or Jains; it is probable that some may be attributed to the one and some to the other.

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Though the script of these inscriptions is Brāhmī of the Southern variety, the language employed in many of them is Tamil in its formative stages. The writing was alphabetic, and already included signs for peculiarly Dravidian sounds like *r*, *l*, *ḷ* and *ṉ*. Other notable features are that vocalic consonants were represented by two symbols, first the sign of the consonant and then the complete vowel sign. These developments (and others not detailed here) must have resulted from a process of trial and error extending perhaps over several generations.

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The exact contents of these inscriptions still remain obscure, but a few facts emerge from tentative studies of them. We can say, for instance, that among the donors of monuments were a husbandman (*kuṭumbika*) of Ceylon (Iḷa), besides a woman, merchants (*vaṇikar*), and members of the Karani caste. These brief inscriptions are thus seen to bear testimony to the support commanded from all classes of the laity by the ascetics who pursued their spiritual life in the solitudes of mountains and forests. Yet it seems easy to exaggerate their social and religious significance; there is no evidence that the Tamil people in general had accepted Jainism or Buddhism in this early period; and the evidence from the literature of the succeeding age, that of the Śaṅgam, shows the Vedic religion of sacrifice and some forms of popular Hinduism entrenched in the affections of the people and their rulers.

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K. GOPALACHARI: *Early History of the Andhra Country* (Madras, 1941) G. JOUVEAU-DUBREUIL: *Ancient History of the Deccan* (Pondicherry, 1920) *Proceedings of the Third All-India Oriental Conference* (1924), pp. 275 ff. B. L. RICE: *Mysore and Coorg from Inscriptions* (London, 1909) R. SHAMA SASTRI (ed.): *Arthaśāstra of Kauṭilya* (Mysore, 1909) P. T. SRINIVASA IYENGAR: *History of the Tamils* (Madras, 1929)

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