Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c5.13

c5.13

**First task of Chandragupta: Overthrow of Greek rule.** We now return to the history which followed Chāṇakya's fateful discovery of Chandragupta as the chosen instrument of his designs. We have seen with what patience Chāṇakya first undertook the preliminary task of giving Chandragupta the best possible upbringing and education spread over a period of eight years so as to equip him for the great schemes he had in view. The first of these was to surmount a difficulty that lay at his door. His youthful imagination was already fired by the spectacle of a foreign invasion of his fatherland in progress before his very eyes, the amount of resistance offered to it at different centres by small republican peoples of the Punjab, and the final passing away of his country under foreign Greek rule. Thus his immediate imperative task was the liberation of his country from the yoke of this subjection. He was inspired in this task by the teaching of his preceptor, Kauṭilya, who condemned foreign rule as an unmitigated evil. He condemns foreign rule (*Vairājya*) as the worst form of exploitation, where the conqueror, who subdues a country by violence (*parasyāchchhidya*), never counts it as his own dear country (*naitat mama iti manyamānaḥ*), oppresses it by overtaxation and exactions (*karshayati*), and drains it of its wealth (*apavāhayati*) [VIII 2.]. Details are wanting as to how he was able to organise measures, the ways and means for the accomplishment of that stupendous task in the atmosphere of depression created by the victory of Alexander and the breakdown of the national opposition. He had to fall back upon the remnants of that opposition, to fan into flame its dying embers, and to reorganise the military resources of the country in men and material for purposes of another national endeavour to strike a blow for its freedom.