The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c18.9

c18.9

The leader of the revolt against the foreigners was an able adventurer, Chandragupta by name, at that time a young man, probably not more than twenty-five years of age. On the father’s side he was a scion of the royal house of Magadha—the principal state in Northern India—and it has hitherto been supposed that his mother, or, according to another version, his grandmother, was of lowly origin, and that, in accordance with Hindu law, he belonged to her caste, and had to bear the reproach of inferior social rank. The family name Maurya, assumed by the members of the dynasty founded by Chandragupta, is said to be a derivative from Murā, his mother’s or grandmother’s name. There are, however, grounds for holding that Chandragupta, so far from being of low caste, was related to the respectable Early Nandas. Whatever be the truth, young Chandragupta in some way incurred the displeasure of his kinsman, Mahāpadma Nanda, the reigning king of Magadha, and was obliged to go into exile.¹ During his banishment he had the good fortune to see Alexander, and is said to have expressed the opinion that the Macedonian king, if he had advanced, would have made an easy conquest of the great kingdom on the Ganges, by reason of the extreme unpopularity of the reigning monarch.² Mahāpadma Nanda was reputed to be the son of a barber, who had secured the affections of the late queen. The guilty pair had then murdered the king, whose throne was seized by the barber-paramour. His son, the now reigning monarch, was avaricious and profligate, and naturally possessed few friends.