Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c17.10

c17.10

When he found Chandragupta "capable of forming and controlling an army," he brought out his hidden wealth, by spending which he "enlisted forces from all quarters and formed a powerful army which he entrusted to him." "From that time, throwing off all disguise, and invading the inhabited parts of the country, he commenced his campaign by attacking towns and villages. In the course of their warfare, the population rose *en masse*, and surrounding them, and hewing their army with their weapons, vanquished them." Thus defeated, both retired into wilderness where they decided: "Relinquishing military operations, let us acquire a knowledge of the sentiments of the people." In disguise, they travelled about the country and mixed with the people. It was while thus travelling that they heard the dialogue between a mother and her son who ate a cake wrongly by throwing away its edges and eating only its centre, thus imitating Chandragupta who, "without subduing the frontiers, before he attacked the towns, invaded the heart of the country, and laid towns waste. On that account, both the inhabitants of the towns and others, rising, closed in upon him, from the frontiers to the centre, and destroyed his army."