Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c5.14

c5.14

**Sources of Chandragupta's Army: the republican peoples who resisted Alexander.** We learn from the *Mahāvaṁsa Ṭīkā* that on the completion of Chandragupta's education at Taxila, both Chāṇakya and Chandragupta set out for collecting recruits (*balaṁ saṁganhitvā*) from different places (*tato tato balaṁ sannipātetvā*). Chāṇakya placed the army thus recruited under the command of Chandragupta (*Mahābalakāyaṁ saṅgahetvā taṁ tassa paṭipādesi*). Rhys Davids [*Buddhist India*, p. 267] points out that "it was from the Panjab that Chandragupta recruited the nucleus of the force with which he besieged and conquered Dhana-Nanda." Justin also states [XV. 4] that Chandragupta got together an army of local recruits whom he describes as "*robbers*." As pointed out by McCrindle [*Invasion of India by Alexander*, p. 406], the term '*robbers*' indicated the republican peoples for which the Punjab was known in those days, the *Arāṭṭas* or *Arāshṭrakas*, "kingless" peoples, peoples not living under a *rāshṭra* or State, of which the usual normal type was a kingship. Baudhāyana, in his *Dharmasūtra* (*c.* 400 B.C.), describes the Punjab as the country of *Āraṭṭas* [I. 1, 2, 13-15]. The *Mahābhārata* [VIII. 44, 2070] calls the *Āraṭṭas* as *Pāñchanadas*, 'natives of the land of the five rivers', [*Ib.* 45, 2110] and also *Vāhīkas*, 'people of the land of rivers,' comprising the Prasthalas, Madras, Gāndhāras, Khaśas, Vasātis, Sindhus, and Sauvīras.