The Mauryan Polity c6.s1.t1.1

c6.s1.t1.1

First, there is the tradition transmitted by the sacred books of the Jains that Candragupta Maurya was a Jaina by religion, and that in the evening of his life he abdicated his throne in favour of his son Bindusāra who succeeded him in 298 B.C., and that after the abdication Candragupta placed himself under the spiritual guidance of Bhadrabāhu, the last in the category of the Jaina saints well known as the Śrutakevalins. Both appear to have gone so far south as Śravaṇa Belgola in the Mysore State where Candragupta embraced asceticism, and finally gave up his life in that very place by starvation, so highly meritorious in the eyes of the Jainas. Consequently Śravaṇa Belgola is even to-day held in great veneration by the members of the Jaina sect. If this story is not ‘imaginative history’ as V. A. Smith remarked in the first edition of his *Early History of India*, but ‘has a solid foundation on fact’ according to the revised opinion of the same historian, then it is quite reasonable to assume that the southern province of the Nandas remained an integral part of the empire and did not show any signs of revolt during the change of dynasty. The possible alternative supposition that Candragupta might have conquered the southern province will not stand to reason, since Candragupta was the first monarch of a new line of kings who came to the throne after overthrowing the reigning Nanda dynasty. To effect this in his own Capital and to make the Empire rest on an unshakable foundation would have required and absorbed all the energy and effort of a life-time. Thus busy at home, Candragupta could have hardly directed his attention or diverted his activity to the Dekhan also. If again the tradition that Candragupta chose the far south, Śravaṇa Belgola, for his retirement and death is trustworthy,¹ Mysore must have been to him quite a home, which a recently conquered province could never be. It may then appear, that Candragupta must have succeeded to the Nanda empire including the Dekhan province.