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Chandragupta Maurya

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Chandragupta Maurya (चन्द्रगुप्त मौर्य) (ruled 322–298 BC) was the founder of the Mauryan Empire. He is widely considered to be the first emperor of India. [citation needed]

The Mauryan empire, whose capital was Pataliputra (modern day Patna) in Eastern India, is acknowledged to be the greatest empire in ancient India, and lasted until 185 BC, fifty years after the death of Chandragupta's famous grandson, Emperor Ashoka the Great.

File:MauryanMap.jpg
The Mauryan empire at its zenith around 230 BCE.

Prior to Chandragupta's consolidation of power, small regional kingdoms dominated Northern and Eastern India.

Chandragupta is acknowledged as the greatest of ancient Indian rulers, and his kingdom, which spanned from Afghanistan in the West, Bengal in the East, the Deccan plateau in the South and Kashmir in the North, was the greatest power of its day. He appears in Greek Sources as Sandrokottos.

Origin or ancestry

Main article: Ancestry of Chandragupta Maurya

The ancestry of Chandragupta is still shrouded in mystery and not known for certain [1]. There are divergent views regarding the origin, and each view has its own set of adherents.

While some Indian historians hold the view that Chandragupta was from Nanda dynasty of Magadha, other later literary traditions imply that Chandragupta was raised by peacock-tamers (Sanskrit: Mayura-Poshakha), which earned him the Maurya epithet. Both the Buddhist as well as Jaina traditions testify to the supposed connection between the Moriya (Maurya) and Mora or Mayura (Peacock).[2] Yet there are other literary traditions accoprding to which Chandragupta belonged to Moriyas, a Kshatriya (warrior) clan of a little ancient republic of Pippalivana located between Rummindei in the Nepalese Tarai and Kasia in the Gorakhpur district of Uttar Pradesh.

B. S. Dahiya I.R.S, a Jat scholar, claims that the Mauryas were the Muras or rather Mors and were jatt of Scythian or Indo-Scythian origin [3].

Finally there is a school of scholars[4] who connect Chandragupta to the north-west frontiers [5], and based on Plutarch's evidence, scholars like Dr J.W. McCrindle, Dr H. R. Gupta (Punjabi University Patiala) and some others state that Chandragupta Maurya belonged to the Ashvaka (q.v.) or Assakenoi clan of Swat/Kunar valley i.e modern Mer-coh or Koh-I-Mor---the Meros of the classical writings. [6]. According to numerous noted scholars, the Ashvakas were a section of the Kambojas who were exclusively engaged in horse-culture and were noted for renting out their cavalry services.

Foundation of the Empire

Silver punch mark coin of the Mauryan empire, with symbols of wheel and elephant. 3rd century BCE.

Chandragupta Maurya , with the help of Chanakya, started to lay the foundation of the Mauryan empire. Chanakya, also known as Kautilya or Vishnugupta was a brahmin and a professor of political science at Takshashila University in Gandhara - the first university in the world and a renowned one in its time. Among his numerous illustruious students was one named Chandragupta, the future emperor of India.

It is stated that once Chanakya went to Pataliputra for learning and disputation. Apparently King Dhana Nanda, corrupted by power, insulted Chanakya and dismissed him from his court over an insignificant dispute. Thus insulted and disgraced, Chanakya took a silent vow to destroy Dhana Nanda at an appropriate time. On his way back at Takshashila, Chanakya chance-met Chandragupta in whom he spotted great military and executive abilities [7]. Chanakya was impressed by the prince's personality and intelligence, and immediately took the young boy under his wing to fullfil his silent vow. Chanakya enrolled him in at the Takshashila University to groom and school the promising youth in politics, government and law.

The shrewd Chanakya had trained Chandragupta under his expert guidance and together they planned the destruction of Dhana Nanda. The Mudrarakshas of Visakhadutta as well as the Jaina work Parisishtaparvan talk of Chandragupta's alliance with the Himalayan king Parvatka. This Himalayan alliance gave Chandragupta a composite and powerful army made up of the Yavanas, Kambojas, Shakas, Kiratas, Parasikas and Bahlikas. With the help of these frontier warlike clans from the northwest (Chandragupta managed to defeat the corrupt Nanda ruler of Magadha and later, upon Alexander's death, the Macedonian straps of Punjab and Afghanistan, thus laying the foundations of a Maurya Empire in northern India.

Expansion

Megasthenes describes the size of the armies of Sandrocottus at 400,000:

"Megasthenes was in the camp of Sandrocottus, which consisted of 400,000 men" Strabo 15-1-53 [8].

When he took over Magadha, Chandragupta Maurya inherited a great army from his predecessor which he continued to build upon until it reached a total of thirty thousand cavalry, 9,000 war elephants, and 600,000 infantry:

"But the Prasii [the inhabitants of Magadha, of whom Snadracottos was king [9]] surpass in power and glory every other people, not only in this quarter, but one may say in all India, their capital Palibothra, a very large and wealthy city, after which some call the people itself the Palibothri,--nay even the whole tract along the Ganges. Their king has in his pay a standing army of 600,000 foot-soldiers, 30,000 cavalry, and 9,000 elephants: whence may be formed some conjecture as to the vastness of his resources." Megasthenes, quoted in Pliny [10]

With this force, he overran all of Northern India, establishing an empire from the Bay of Bengal to the Arabian Sea. He then turned his attention to Northwestern India and the power vacuum left by the departure of Alexander. Starting with the lands east of the Indus River, he then moved south, taking over much of what is now Central India.

Silver coin of Seleucus I Nicator, who fought Chandragupta Maurya, and later made an alliance with him.

The year 305 BC saw Chandragupta back in the northwest, where Seleucus I Nicator, the Macedonian satrap of Babylonia, posed a new threat to the empire. However, Seleucus was defeated and ceded all of his south asian holdings, including southern Afghanistan in 303 BC. Seleucus exchanged territory west of the Indus for five hundred war elephants and offered his daughter to Chandragupta. In this matrimonial alliance the enmity turned into friendship, and Seleucus' dispatch an ambassador, Megasthenes, to the Mauryan court at Pataliputra (Modern Patna in Bihar state). As a result of this treaty, Chandragupta's empire was recognized as a great power by the Hellenic world, and the kings of Egypt and Syria sent their own ambassadors to his court.

Jainism & death

Towards the end of his life, Chandragupta gave up his throne and became an ascetic under the Jain saint Bhadrabahu Swami, ending his days in self-starvation at Shravanabelagola, in present day Karnataka. A small temple marks the cave (called Bhadrabahu Cave) where he died [1].

Family

Chandragupta Maurya renounced his throne to his son, Bindusara, who became the new Mauryan Emperor.

Trivia

  • SUcker.In the 9th century AD, Sanskrit author Vishakhadatta penned a seven-act play on Chandragupta's life called, Mudra Rakshasa (Sanskrit: Signet Ring of the Rakshasa,the chief minister of the last Nanda king).
  • In 2001, the Indian Postal Department issued a Rs. 4 stamp commemorating the rule of Chandragupta.
  • A myth says, that after not being able to seize control in his first attempt, Cahndragupta roamed the wilderness of India. Here, he watched through a window, a mother and a child. The child kept burning his hand while trying to eat a roti. The mother scolded the child to eat from the edges, not the centre, because the centre will always be hotter. Chandragupta realized that the Nanda Empire could be considered as that roti. This caused him to change his tactics for seizing power.
Preceded by Mauryan ruler
322-298 BC 		Succeeded by

References

  1. ^ Political History of Ancient India, 1996, p 236, Dr H. C. raychaudhury, Dr B. N. Mukherjee; Ancient India, 2003, p 284, Dr V. D. Mahajan
  2. ^ Parisishtaparvan, p 56, VIII239f
  3. ^ Jats the Ancient rulers, Dahinam Publishers, Sonipat, Haryana, by B. S. Dahiya I.R.S
  4. ^ Noted Buddhist scholar B.M. Barua and others like Dr J.W. McCrindle, Dr D.B. Spooner, Dr H. C. Seth, Dr Hari Ram Gupta, Dr Ratanjit Pal and others.
  5. ^ 'To me Candragupta was a man of the Uttarapatha or Gandhara if not exactly of Taksashila' (Indian Culture, vol. X, p. 34, B. M. Barua).
  6. ^ Was Chandragupta Maurya a Punjabi? Article in Punjab History Conference, Second Session, Oct 28-30, 1966, Punjabi University Patiala, p 32-35; Invasion of India by Alexander the great, p. 405; See also: The Kambojas Through the Ages, 2005, pp 150-51, Kirpal Singh.
  7. ^ Depending upon the interprettation of Justin's accounts, the second version of the above story is that Chandragupta had also accompanied Chanakya to Pataliputra and himself was insulted by Dhanna Nanda (Nandrum of Justin). If this version of Justin's accounts is accepted, then the view that Chanakya had purchased Chandragupta from Bihar, on his way to Taxila, becomes irrelevant.
  8. ^ Strabo 15-1-53
  9. ^ "According to Megasthenes the mean breadth (of the Ganges) is 100 stadia, and its least depth 20 fathoms. At the meeting of this river and another is situated Palibothra, a city eighty stadia in length and fifteen in breadth. It is of the shape of a parallelogram, and is girded with a wooden wall, pierced with loopholes for the discharge of arrows. It has a ditch in front for defence and for receiving the sewage of the city. The people in whose country this city is situated is the most distinguished in all India, and is called the Prasii. The king, in addition to his family name, must adopt the surname of Palibothros, as Sandrakottos, for instance, did, to whom Megasthenes was sent on an embassy." Strab. XV. i. 35-36,--p. 702. Text
  10. ^ FRAGM. LVI. Plin. Hist. Nat. VI. 21. 8-23. 11.

Additional reading

  • Nilakantha Shastri, K. A. The Age of Nandas and Mauryas, Banaras, 1952.
  • Kosambi,D.D. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1985
  • Bhargava, P.L. Chandragupta Maurya, New Delhi:D.K. Printworld, 160 pp., 2002.
  • Habib, Irfan. and Jha, Vivekanand. Mauryan India: A People's History of India,New Delhi:Tulika Books, 2004; 189pp
  • Vishakadatta, R.S. Pandit.Mudraraksasa (The Signet Ring of Rakshasa), New Delhi:Global Vision Publishing House, 2004, ISBN 8182200091, edited by Ramesh Chandra
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