The Early History of India, from 600 B.C. to the Muhammadan Conquest, including the Invasion of Alexander the Great c28.73

c28.73

Tradition affirms that he penetrated far into the interior of India, and attacked the king residing at the ancient imperial city of Pātaliputra. It is said that he carried off from that city a Buddhist saint named Aśvaghosha. Comparison of the different versions of this story gives reasons for accepting as true at least the bare fact that Kanishka and Aśvaghosha were contemporaries.¹ If the chronology adopted in this edition be correct, the Indo-Scythian or Kushān dynasty, during the reign of Kanishka, wielded authority over Western India, through the agency of the Śaka satraps of Ujjain, one of whom, Chastana, was probably related to the Kushān dynasty. There are grounds also for the belief that from the time of Kanishka to the reign of Vāsudeva, Kushān rule extended over Bihār.²