The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.160

c18.160

The Maurya empire was not, as some writers fancy that it was, in any way the result of Alexander's splendid but transitory raid. The nineteen months which he spent in India were consumed in devastating warfare, and his death rendered fruitless all his grand constructive plans. Chandragupta did not need Alexander's example to teach him what empire meant. He and his countrymen had had before their eyes for two centuries the stately fabric of the Persian Achaemenian monarchy, and it was that empire which impressed their imagination, and served as the model for their institutions, in so far as they were not indigenous. The little touches of foreign manners in the court and institutions of Chandragupta, which chance to have been noted by our fragmentary authorities, are Persian, not Greek; and the Persian title of satrap continued to be used by Indian provincial governors for ages, down to the close of the fourth century of the Christian era.²