Chandragupta Maurya and His Times c5.55

c5.55

**Other recruits for Chandragupta's Army.** But Chandragupta did not confine his army to the mere local recruits, if we may believe in the legends about it. For instance, the *Mudrārākshasa* mentions an alliance which Chāṇakya had arranged with a Himalayan chief named Parvataka or Parvateśa. The Jain text, *Pariśishṭaparvan*, also refers to this Himalayan alliance, stating that "Chāṇakya went to Himavatkūṭa and entered into alliance with Parvataka, the king of that region." Buddhist accounts also mention a Parvata as a close associate of Chāṇakya. Thus three traditions record this alliance. F. W. Thomas has gone further in suggesting (*Camb. Hist. of India*, Vol. I. p. 471), that this Parvataka was perhaps the same person as king Poros of the Greeks. The suggestion is quite plausible, considering what a large place Poros had filled in the politics of his country in his time, so that no adventure in that region could be undertaken without enlisting his support.