Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c4.28

c4.28

**Base Origin of Nandas.** It will be seen from these passages that none of them contains any reference to Chandragupta's lineage except the passage from Justin. Justin's statement only points out that Chandragupta was of *lowly* and *not low* or base birth, that he was a mere commoner who had no royal blood in him but who was 'aspiring for royalty.' The other passages cited indicate why Chandragupta was aspiring after royalty. They are full of aspersions on the character of the then reigning Indian king who was a man of disreputable origin, the illegitimate offspring of a barber, "detested and held cheap by his subjects.” We are further told by Plutarch that it was Chandragupta himself who had reported to Alexander the “meanness” of Nanda king’s origin. Does not this statement itself definitely demonstrate that Chandragupta himself was of no mean origin? Ancestral “meanness” will then be also his by descent. Thus Chandragupta by his own statement frees himself from any taint of relationship to a disreputable royalty as well as any mean origin for himself. The passages cited above only show how the political conditions of the times were paving Chandragupta’s way to royalty after which he was thus naturally “aspiring.”