The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c10.80

c10.80

There is no difficulty in believing the tradition that the revolution involved the extermination of all related to the fallen monarch, for revolutions in the East are not effected without much shedding of blood. Nor is there any reason to discredit the statements that the usurper was attacked by a confederacy of the northern powers, including Kashmīr, and that the attack failed owing to the Machiavellian intrigues of Chandragupta's Brahman adviser, who is variously named Chānakya, Kautilya, or Vishnugupta. But it would not be safe to rely on the details given in our only authority, a play written centuries after the events referred to; nor would there be any use in recounting the wondrous tales, mostly belonging to the world's common stock of folk-lore, which have been recorded in various books, and relate the miracles attendant upon the birth and youth of Chandragupta, the first strictly historical universal monarch of India.¹