Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c5.11

c5.11

**Dhana-Nanda insults Chanakya.** Be that as it may, when Chāṇakya came to Pāṭaliputra, he saw Dhana-Nanda as the reigning king. He was notorious for his avarice, the possessor of “riches to the amount of 80 *koṭis*,” and given to “levying taxes even on skins, gums, trees and stones.” He was called Dhana-Nanda by way of contempt, because he was “addicted to hoarding treasure” [*Mahāvaṁsa Ṭīkā*]. The *Kathāsaritsāgara* speaks of Nanda’s “990 millions of gold pieces.” He is stated to have buried all his treasure in a rock excavated in the bed of the river Ganges [*Ib.*]. The fame of his riches reached the far South. A Tamil poem refers to his wealth “which having accumulated first in Pāṭali hid itself in the floods of the Ganges” [Aiyangar’s *Beginnings of South Indian History*, p. 89]. But Chāṇakya found him a changed man. Instead of any more hoarding of wealth, he was now bent upon spending it in charities which he organised through the machinery of an institution called *Dānasālā* administered by a *Saṁgha* whose President was to be a Brāhman. The rule was that the President could make gifts amounting up to a crore of coins, while the juniormost member of the *Saṁgha* could give up to one lac. Chāṇakya came to be chosen as the president of this *Saṁgha*. But, as fate would have it, the king could not brook him for the ugliness of his features and manners and dismissed him from that office. Chāṇakya, incensed at this insult, cursed the king, threatened the ruin of his race, and escaped from his clutches in disguise as a naked Ājivika ascetic. In his wanderings he chanced to come across the child Chandragupta under circumstances already related.