History of India/Volume 2/Chapter 2

by Vincent A. Smith

CHAPTER II

THE DYNASTIES BEFORE ALEXANDER

600 B.C. TO 326 B.C.

THE political history of India begins for an orthodox Hindu more than three thousand years before the Christian era with the famous war waged on the banks of the Jumna, between the sons of Kuru and the sons of Pandu, as related in the vast epic known as the Mahabharata. But the modern critic fails to find sober history in bardic tales, and is constrained to travel much farther before he comes to an anchorage of solid fact.

That line which separates the dated from the undated, in the case of India, may be drawn through the middle of the seventh century B.C., a period of progress, marked by the development of maritime commerce and the diffusion of a knowledge of the art of writing. Up to about that time the inhabitants of India, even the most intellectual aces, seem to have been generally ignorant of the art of writing, and to have been obliged to trust to highly trained memory for the transmission of knowledge. In those days vast territories were still covered by forest, the home of countless wild beasts and scanty tribes of savage men; but regions of great extent in Northern India had been occupied for untold centuries by more or less civilized communities of the higher races who, from time to time, during the unrecorded past, had pierced the mountain barriers of the north-western frontier. Practically nothing is known concerning the early history of the possibly equally advanced Dravidian races who entered India, perhaps from the valley of the lower Indus, spread over the plateau of the Deccan, and penetrated to the extremity of the Peninsula. Our slender stock of knowledge is limited to the fortunes of the vigorous races, speaking an Aryan tongue, who poured down from the mountains of the Hindu Kush and Pamirs, filling the plains of the Pan jab and the upper basin of the Ganges with a sturdy and quick-witted population, unquestionably superior to the aboriginal races. The settled country between the Himalaya Mountains and the Narmada River was divided into a multitude of independent states, some monarchies, and some tribal republics, owning no allegiance to any paramount power, secluded from the outer world, and free to fight among themselves. The most ancient literary traditions, compiled probably in the fourth or fifth century b.c., but looking back to an older time, enumerate sixteen of such states or powers, extending from Gandhara, on the extreme northwest of the Panjab, the modern districts of Peshawar and Rawalpindi, to Avanti or Malwa, with its capital Ujjain, which still retains its ancient name unchanged.

The works of ancient Indian writers from which our historical data are extracted do not profess to be histories, and are mostly religious treatises of various kinds. In such compositions the religious element necessarily takes the foremost place, and the secular

Buddhist tope and Jain temple at Sarnath near Benares.
From a photograph.

affairs of the world occupy a very subordinate position. The particulars of political history incidentally recorded refer in consequence chiefly to the countries most prominent in the development of Indian religion.

The systems which we call Jainism and Buddhism had their roots in the forgotten philosophies of the prehistoric past, but, as we know them, were founded respectively by Vardhamana Mahavira and Gautama

The Jain Temple, Mount Abu, Dilwara

At Dilwara on Mount Abu in Western India there are two of the oldest and finest specimens of temples consecrated to the Jain religion that are to be found anywhere in Hindustan. They date from the eleventh and twelfth centuries of our era, and fabulous sums of money were spent in erecting and adorning them. They are remarkable not only for their beauty and wonderful carving, but also for the picturesque scenery amid which they stand on a mountain-top five thousand feet above the level of the sea.

Buddha. Both these philosophers, who were for many years contemporary, were born, lived, and died in or near the kingdom of Magadha, the modern Bihar. Mahavira, the son of a nobleman of Vaisali, the famous city north of the Ganges, was nearly related to the royal family of Magadha, and died at Pawa, in the modern district of Patna, within the territory of that kingdom.

Gautama Buddha, although born farther north, in the Sakya territory at the foot of the Nepal hills, underwent his most memorable spiritual experiences at Bodh Gaya in Magadha, and spent many years of his ministry within the limits of that state. The Buddhist and Jain books, therefore, tell us much about the Vrijjian confederacy, of which Vaisali was the capital, and about Magadha, with its subordinate kingdom of Anga.

The neighbouring realm of Kosala, the modern kingdom of Oudh, was closely connected with Magadha by many ties, and its capital Sravasti (Savatthi), situated on the upper course of the Rapti at the foot of the hills, was the reputed scene of many of Buddha's most striking discourses.

In the sixth century B.C. Kosala appears to have occupied the rank afterward attained by Magadha, and to have enjoyed precedence as the premier state of Upper India. It is therefore as often mentioned as the rival power. At the beginning of the historical period, the smaller kingdom of Kasi, or Benares, had lost its independence and had been annexed by Kosala, with which its fortunes were indissolubly bound up. This little kingdom owes its fame in the ancient books not only to its connection with its powerful neighbour, but also to its being one of the most sacred spots in Buddhist church history, the scene of Buddha's earliest public preaching, where he first "turned the wheel of the Law."

Temple of the sacred Bo-Tree at Bodh Gaya where Buddha received the revelation.
From a photograph.

The reputation for special sanctity enjoyed by both Benares and Gaya in Magadha among orthodox Brahmanical Hindus adds little to the detailed information available, which is mainly derived from the writings of Jains and Buddhists, who were esteemed as heretics by the worshippers of the old gods. But the Brahmanical Puranas, compiled centuries later in honour of the orthodox deities, happily include lists of the Kings of Magadha, which had become, before the time of their compilation, the recognized centre, both religious and political, of India; and so it happens that the Jain, Buddhist, and Brahmanical books combined tell us much about the history of Magadha, Anga, Kosala, Kasi, and Vaisali, while they leave us in the dark concerning the fortunes of most other parts of India.

In the Puranic lists the earliest dynasty which can claim historical reality is that known as the Saisunaga, from the name of its founder, Sisunaga.

He was, apparently, the king, or raja, of a petty state corresponding roughly with the present Patna and Gaya Districts, his capital being Rajagriha (Rajgir), among the hills near Gaya. Nothing is known about his history, and the second, third, and fourth kings are likewise mere names.

The first monarch about whom anything substantial is known is Bimbisara, or Srenika, the fifth of his line. He is credited with the building of New Rajagriha, the lower town at the base of the hill crowned by the ancient fort, and with the annexation of Anga, the small kingdom to the east, corresponding with the modern District of Bhagalpur, and probably including Monghyr (Mungir). The annexation of Anga was the first step taken by the kingdom of Magadha in its advance to greatness and the position of supremacy which it attained in the following century, and Bimbisara may be regarded as the real founder of the Magadha imperial power. He strengthened his position by matrimonial alliances with the more powerful of the neighbouring states, taking one consort from the royal family of Kosala, and another from the influential Lichchhavi clan at Vaisali. The latter lady was the mother of Ajatasatru, also called Kunika, or Kuniya, the son who was selected as heir apparent and crown prince. If tradition may be believed, the reign of Bimbisara lasted for twenty-eight years, and it is said that, toward its close, he resigned the royal power into the hands of this favourite son, and retired into

Great Chaitya or tope of Sanchi.

private life. But the young prince was impatient, and could not bear to await the slow process of nature. Well-attested tradition brands him as a parricide and accuses him of having done his father to death by the agonies of starvation.

Orthodox Buddhist tradition affirms that this hideous crime was instigated by Devadatta, Buddha's cousin, who figures in the legends as a malignant plotter and wicked schismatic, but ecclesiastical rancour may be suspected of the responsibility for this accusation. Devadatta certainly refused to accept the teaching of Gautama, and, preferring that of "the former Buddhas," became the founder and head of a rival sect, which still survived in the seventh century A.D.

Schism has always been esteemed by the orthodox a deadly sin, and in all ages the unsuccessful heretic has been branded as a villain by the winning sect. Such, probably, is the origin of the numerous tales concerning the villainies of the Devadatta, including the supposed incitement of his princely patron to commit the crime of parricide.

There seems to be no doubt that both Vardhamana Mahavira, the founder of the system known as Jainism, and Gautama, the last Buddha, the founder of Buddhism as known to later ages, were preaching in Magadha during the reign of Bimbisara.

The Jain saint, who was a near relative of Bimbisara 's queen, the mother of Ajatasatru, probably passed away very soon after the close of Bimbisara 's reign, and early in that of Ajatasatru, while the death of Gautama Buddha occurred not much later. There is reason to believe that the latter event took place in or about the year 487 B.C.

Gautama Buddha was certainly an old man when Ajatasatru, or Kunika, as the Jains call him, came to the throne about 495 or 490 B.C., and he had at least one interview with that king. One of the earliest Buddhist documents narrates in detail the story of a visit paid to Buddha by Ajatasatru, who is alleged to have expressed remorse for his crime, and to have professed his faith in Buddha, who accepted his confession of sin. The concluding passage of the tale may be quoted as an illustration of an ancient Buddhist view of the relations between Church and State.

King Ajatasatru comes to confession to Buddha.

From the Bharahat Stupa, probably about 200 B.C. (After Cunningham.)

"And when he had thus spoken, Ajatasatru the king said to the Blessed One: 'Most excellent, Lord, most excellent! Just as if a man were to set up that which has been thrown down, or were to reveal that which is hidden away, or were to point out the right road to him who has gone astray, or were to bring a lamp into the darkness so that those who have eyes could see external forms just even so, Lord, has the truth been made known to me, in many a figure, by the Blessed One. And now I betake myself, Lord, to the Blessed One as my refuge, to the Truth, and to the Order. May the Blessed One accept me as a disciple, as one who, from this day forth, as long as life endures, has taken his refuge in them. Sin has overcome me, Lord, weak and foolish and wrong that I am, in that for the sake of sovereignty, I put to death my father, that righteous man, that righteous king! May the Blessed One accept it of me, Lord, that I do so acknowledge it as a sin, to the end that in future I may restrain myself.'

"'Verily, king, it was sin that overcame you in acting thus. But inasmuch as you look upon it as sin, and confess it according to what is right, we accept your confession as to that. For that, king, is custom in the discipline of the noble ones, that whosoever looks upon his fault as a fault, and rightfully confesses it, shall attain to self-restraint in future.'

"When he had thus spoken, Ajatasatru the king said to the Blessed One, ' Now, Lord, we would fain go. We are busy, and there is much to do.'

"'Do, king, whatever seemeth to thee fit.'

"Then Ajatasatru the king, pleased and delighted with the words of the Blessed One, arose from his seat, and bowed to the Blessed One, and, keeping him on the right hand as he passed him, departed thence.

"Now the Blessed One, not long after Ajatasatru the king had gone, addressed the brethren, and said: ' This king, brethren, was deeply affected, he was touched in heart. If, brethren, the king had not put to death his father, that righteous man, and righteous king, then would the clear and spotless eye for the truth have arisen in him, even as he sat here.' "Thus spake the Blessed One. The brethren were pleased and delighted at his words."

PORTION OF RAIL AT BHARAHAT, AS FIRST UNCOVERED.

It is difficult to sympathize with the pleasure and delight of the brethren. The stern and fearless reprobation of a deed of exceptional atrocity which we should expect from a great moral teacher is wholly wanting in Buddha's words, and is poorly compensated for by the politeness of a courtier. Whatever be the reader's judgment concerning the sincerity of the royal penitent or the moral courage of his father confessor, it is clear from the unanimity of tradition that the crime on which the story is based really occurred, and that Ajatasatru slew his father to gain a throne. But when the Ceylonese chronicler asks us to believe that he was followed in due course by four other parricide kings, of whom the last was dethroned by his minister, with the approval of a justly indignant people, too great a demand is made upon the reader's credulity.

The crime by which he gained the throne naturally involved Ajatasatru in war with the aged King of Kosala, whose sister, the queen of the murdered Bimbisara, is alleged to have died from grief. Fortune in the contest inclined now to one side and now to another, and on one occasion, it is said, Ajatasatru was carried away as a prisoner in chains to his opponent's capital. Ultimately peace was concluded, and a princess of Kosala was given in marriage to the King of Magadha. The facts of the struggle are obscure, being wrapped up in legendary matter from which it is impossible to disentangle them, but the probability is that Ajatasatru won for Magadha a decided preponderance over its neighbour of Kosala. It is certain that the latter kingdom is not again mentioned as an independent power, and that in the fourth century B. C. it formed an integral part of the Magadha empire. The ambition of Ajatasatru, not satisfied with the humiliation of Kosala, next induced him to undertake the conquest of the country to the north of the Ganges, now known as Tirhut, in which the Lichchhavi clan, famous in Buddhist legend, then occupied a prominent position. The invasion was successful; the Lichchhavi capital, Vaisali, was occupied, and Ajatasatru became master of his maternal grandfather's territory. It is probable that the invader carried his victorious arms to their natural limit, the foot of the mountains, and that from this time the whole region between the Ganges and the Himalaya became subject, more or less directly, to the suzerainty of Magadha.

The victor erected a fortress at the village of Patali on the bank of the Ganges to curb his Lichchhavi opponents. The foundations of a city nestling under the shelter of the fortress were laid by his grandson Udaya. The city so founded was known variously as Kusumapura, Pushpapura, or Pataliputra, and rapidly developed in size and magnificence, until, under the Maurya dynasty, it became the capital, not only of Magadha, but of India.

Buddha, as has been mentioned above, died early in the reign of Ajatasatru. Shortly before his death, Kapilavastu, his ancestral home, was captured by Virudhaka, King of Kosala, who is alleged to have perpetrated a ferocious massacre of the Sakya clan to which Buddha belonged. The story is so thickly encrusted with miraculous legend that the details of the event cannot be ascertained, but the coating of miracle was probably deposited upon a basis of fact, and we may believe that the Sakyas suffered much at the hands of Virudhaka.

If the chronology adopted in this chapter be even approximately correct, Bimbisara and Ajatasatru must be regarded as the contemporaries of Darius, the son of Hystaspes, autocrat of the Persian empire from 521 to 485 B.C. Darius, who was a very capable ruler, employed his officers in the exploration of a great part of Asia by means of various expeditions.

One of these expeditions was despatched at some date later than 516 B.C. to prove the feasibility of a passage by sea from the mouth of the Indus to Persia. The commander, Skylax of Karyanda in Karia, managed somehow to equip a squadron on the waters of the Panjab rivers in the Gandhara country, to make his way down to the ocean, and ultimately to reach the Red Sea. The particulars of his adventurous voyage have been lost, but we know that the information collected was of such value that, by utilizing it, Darius was enabled to annex the Indus valley, and to send his fleets into the Indian Ocean. The archers from India formed a valuable element in the army of Xerxes, and shared the defeat of Mardonius at Plataea.

The conquered provinces were formed into a separate satrapy, the twentieth, which was considered the richest and most populous province of the empire. It paid the enormous tribute of 360 Euboic talents of gold-dust, or 185 hundredweights, worth fully a million sterling, and constituting about one-third of the total bullion revenue of the Asiatic provinces. Although the exact limits of the Indian satrapy cannot be determined, we know that it was distinct from Aria (Herat), Arachosia (Kandahar), and Gandaria (Northwestern Panjab). It must have comprised, therefore, the course of the Indus from Kalabagh to the sea, including the whole of Sind, and perhaps included a considerable portion of the Panjab east of the Indus. But when Alexander invaded the country, nearly two centuries later, the Indus was the boundary between the Persian empire and India, and both the Panjab and Sind were governed by numerous native princes. In ancient times the courses of the rivers were quite different from what they now are, and vast tracts in Sind and the Panjab, now desolate, were then rich and prosperous. This fact largely explains the surprising value of the tribute paid by the twentieth satrapy.

When Ajatasatru's blood-stained life ended (cir. 459 B.C.), he was succeeded, according to the Puranas, by a son named Darsaka or Harshaka, who was in turn succeeded by his son Udaya. The Buddhist books omit the intermediate name, and represent Udaya as the son and immediate successor of Ajatasatru. It is difficult to decide which version is correct, but on the whole the authority of the Puranas seems to be preferable in this case. If Darsaka, or Harshaka, was a reality, nothing is known about him.

The reign of Udaya may be assumed to have begun about 434 B.C. The tradition that he built Pataliputra is all that is known about him. His successors,

Low Caste Hindu Woman — Bhil Type.
From a Photograph.

Nandivardhana and Mahanandin, according to the Puranic lists, are still more shadowy, mere nominis umbræ. Mahanandin, the last of the dynasty, is said to have had by a Sudra, or low-caste, woman a son named Mahapadma Nanda, who usurped the throne, and so established the Nanda family or dynasty. This event may be dated in or about 361 B.C.

At this point all our authorities become unintelligible and incredible. The Puranas treat the Nanda dynasty as consisting of two generations only, Mahapadma and his eight sons, of whom one was named Sumalya. These two generations are supposed to have reigned for a century, which cannot possibly be true. The Jains, doing still greater violence to reason, extend the duration of the dynasty to 155 years, while the Buddhist Mahavamsa, Dipavamsa, and Asokavadana deepen the confusion by hopelessly muddled and contradictory stories not worth repeating. Some powerful motive must have existed for the distortion of the history of the so-called "Nine Nandas" in all forms of the tradition, but it is not easy to make even a plausible guess at the nature of that motive.

The Greek and Roman historians, who derived their information either from Megasthenes or the companions of Alexander, and thus rank as contemporary witnesses reported at second hand, throw a little light on the real history. When Alexander was stopped in his advance at the Hyphasis in 326 B.C., he was informed by a native chieftain named Bhagala or Bhagela, whose statements were confirmed by Poros, that the King of the Gangaridai and Prasii nations on the banks of the Ganges was named, as nearly as the Greeks could catch the unfamiliar sounds, Xandrames or Agrammes. This monarch was said to command a force of twenty thousand horse, two hundred thousand foot, two thousand chariots, and three or four thousand elephants. Inasmuch as the capital of the Prasii nation was undoubtedly Pataliputra, the reports made to Alexander can have referred only to the King of Magadha, who must have been one of the Nandas mentioned in native tradition. The reigning king was alleged to be extremely unpopular, owing to his wickedness and base origin. He was, it is said, the son of a barber, who, having become the paramour of the queen of the last legitimate sovereign, contrived the king's death, and, under pretence of acting as guardian to his sons, got them into his power and exterminated the royal family. After their extermination he begot the son who was reigning at the time of Alexander's campaign and who, "more worthy of his father's condition than his own, was odious and contemptible to his subjects."

This story confirms the statements of the Puranas that the Nanda dynasty was of ambiguous origin and comprised only two generations. The Vishnu Purana brands the first Nanda, Mahapadma, as an avaricious person, whose reign marked the end of the Kshatriya, or high-born, princes, and the beginning of the rule of those of low degree, ranking as Sudras. The Mahavamsa, when it dubs the last Nanda by the name of Dhana, or "Riches," seems to hint at the imputation of avariciousness made against the first Nanda by the Puranic writer, and the Chinese pilgrim Hiuen Tsang also refers to the Nanda raja as the reputed possessor of great wealth.

By putting all the hints together we may conclude with tolerable certainty that the Nanda family was

Pilgrims and beggars at the well of knowledge, Benares.
From a photograph.

really of base origin, that it acquired power by the assassination of the legitimate king, and that it retained possession of the throne for two generations only. The great military power of the usurpers, as attested by Greek testimony, was the result of the conquests effected by Bimbisara and Ajatasatru, and presumably continued by their successors; but the limits of the Nanda dominions cannot be defined, nor can the dates of the dynasty be determined with accuracy. It is quite certain that the two generations did not last for a hundred and fifty-five, or even for a hundred, years; but it is impossible to determine the actual duration, and the period of forty years has been assumed as reasonable and probably not far from the truth.

However mysterious the Nine Nandas may be—if, indeed, there really were nine—there is no doubt that the last of them was deposed and slain by Chandragupta Maurya, who seems to have been an illegitimate scion of the family. There is no difficulty in believing the tradition that the revolution involved the extermination of all related to the fallen monarch, for revolutions in the East are not effected without much shedding of blood. Nor is there any reason to discredit the statements that the usurper was attacked by a confederacy of the northern powers, including Kashmir, and that the attack failed owing to the Machiavellian intrigues of Chandragupta's Brahman adviser, who is variously named Chanakya, Kautilya, and Vishnugupta.

His accession to the throne of Magadha may be dated with practical certainty in 321 B.C. The dominions of the Magadha crown were then extensive, certainly including the territories of the nations called Prasii and Gangaridai by the Greeks, and probably comprising at least the kingdoms of Kosala and Benares, as well as Anga and Magadha proper. Four years before the revolution at Pataliputra, Alexander had swept like a hurricane through the Pan jab and Sind, and it is said that Chandragupta, then a youth, met the mighty Macedonian. Whether that anecdote be true or not, it is certain that the troubles consequent upon the death of Alexander in the summer of 323 B.C. gave young Chandragupta his opportunity. He assumed the command of the native revolt against the foreigner, and destroyed most of the Macedonian garrisons. He had thus become the master of North-western India before he attempted the revolution in Magadha, and when that enterprise was accomplished, he was undoubtedly the paramount power in India. But before the story of the deeds of Chandragupta Maurya and the descendants who succeeded him on the throne of Magadha can be told, we must pause to unfold the wondrous tale of the Indian adventure of "Philip's warlike son."