The State in Ancient India: A Study in the Structure and Practical Working of Political Institutions in North India in Ancient Times c13.20

c13.20

Even during the lifetime of Puṣyamitra, the supremacy of the Śungas had been challenged and their very existence imperilled from more than one quarter. Kalinga. Kalinga had, like Magadha, made a bid for suzerainty. Megasthenes reckoned the Kalinga force at 60,000 infantry, 1,000 cavalry and 700 elephants. Aśoka notes that in the Kalinga war 1,00,000 men were slain and 1,50,000 persons carried into slavery. The Kalinga power was only repressed, not destroyed. Sometime after Aśoka it threw off the yoke of the Mauryas as it had once thrown off that of the Nandas. Kalinga reached the zenith of its glory under the Jaina king Khâravela, who twice invaded the north, about 165 B.C. and about 161 B.C.,