Beginnings of Magadhan ascendancy and The Coming of Yavanas

The Great Janapadas

The idea of a universal king was present before the minds of the Rig-Vedic poets, and in the later Vedic texts we find mention of several rulers who went round the “earth” conquering on every side. These conquests, however, did not normally involve a permanent annexation of the territories of the vanquished people, though minor tribes may now and then have been reduced to vassalage and governed by rulers (sthapati) appointed by the conquering rajan (king). But from the sixth century BC. we can trace a new development in Indian politics. We have the growth of a number of powerful kingdoms in eastern India-the very region which in the Brahmana texts is associated with rulers consecrated to a superior kind of kingship, styled samrajya-which gradually absorbed the neighboring states till at last one great monarchy swallowed up the rest and laid the foundations of an empire which ultimately stretched from the Hindukush to the northern districts of Mysore. But before we take up the history of this remarkable political transformation, it is necessary for us to note the changes in the map of India since the period of the Brahmanas and the clear Upanishads.

The widest area known to the Aryans of the Brahmana period is that described in the Aitareya Brahmana. The boundaries of the Aryan world stretched from the countries of the Uttara Kurus and the Uttara Madras beyond the Himalayas to the land of the Satvats (and Bhojas), south of the Jumna, and the Chambal, and from the territory of the Nichyas and Apachyas in the west to the realm of the Prachyas in the east. The exact position of the Nichyas and Apachyas cannot be determined. But the Prachyas were doubtless the Prasii of Greek writers, i.e., the people of Magadha and the neighboring provinces. Beyond Magadha lived the Pundras of North Bengal and the Vangas of central and eastern Bengal who were outside the pale of Aryandom. The Vangas, however, are not mentioned in the Brahmana proper but possibly in the Aranyaka attached to it. In the south, besides the Aryan realms of the Bhojas, we find the Andhras of the Godavari valley and some aboriginal tribes inhabiting the Vindhyan forests.

The later literature of the Brahmanical Hindus and the sacred canon of the Buddhists introduce some new names, e.g. Kalinga on the east coast stretching from the Vaitarani in Orissa to the neighbourhood of the Godavari, Asmaka and Mulaka on the Upper Godavari, Avanti in Malwa, Surashtra in Kathiawar and Sindhu-Sauvira in the lower valley of the Indus. In an early Buddhist text we have a list of sixteen great nations that occupied the territory from the Kabul valley to the banks of the Godvari shortly before the rise of Buddhism. The names of these states are Anga (East-Bihar), Magadha (South Bihar), Kasi (Benares), Kosala (Oudh), Vriji (North Bihar), Malla (Gorakhpur district), Chedi (between the Jumna and the Narmada,), Vatsa (Allahabad region), Kuru (Thanesar, Delhi and Meerut districts), Panchala (Bareilly, Budaun and Farrukhabad districts), Matsya (Jaipur), Surasena (Mathura), Asmaka (on the Godavari), Avanti (in Malwa), Gandhara (Peshawar and Rawalpindi districts), and Kamboja (Southwest Kashmir and parts of Kafiristan). The palmy days of the Kurus and the Panchalas were now over, and the centre of political gravity had shifted to the east.

The Vrijian State

Among the eastern nations mentioned in the above list, the name of the Videhas is conspicuous by its absence, and in its place we find mention of Vriji (Vajji). The Vrijian State was formed by the union of several clans including the Lichchhavis and the Jnatrikas. Its capital was at Vaisali, modern Besarh or Basarh and Bakhira in the district of Muzaffarpur. The Vriji people have been represented by a modern writer as of Mongolian origin because they followed certain customs that are classed as Tibetan, such as exposure of the dead, and also because they are regarded by the Brahmana law-givers as Vratyas or degraded Kshatriyas. But similar customs are found also among the Iranians; and the Vratyas, judging from Vedic evidence, were clearly an Aryan people, though outside the pale of orthodox Brahmanism. It is significant that in Buddhist literature the fine appearance of the Lichchhavis is compared to that of the Tavatimsa gods.

The Vrijis had no monarch, but a popular assembly and elders who carried on the business of the State. This type of polity was known as a Gana or republic. The Mallas had a similar constitution and there were besides these a number of smaller republics, e.g., the Sakyas of Kapilavastu, the Bhargas of Sumsumara Hill, the Mauryas of Pipphalivana, etc.
Four Great Kingdoms

The republics had soon to contend with formidable enemies in the persons of the ambitious potentates of the neighbouring monarchies. Four of the kingdoms had grown more powerful than the rest and were following a policy of expansion and aggrandisement at the expense of their neighbours. These were Avanti, Vatsa, Kosala and Magadha.

uKosala was ruled by King Mahakosala and his son Prasenajit, It roughly corresponded to modern Oudh. In the heroic age it had its capital at Ayodhya, on the bank of the river Sarayu, and was ruled by a dynasty that claimed descent from the illustrious Ikshvaku, famed in Vedic and epic tradition. Kosala kings like Para, son of Atnara, won renown as conquerors and secriticers. Epic tradition represents Kosalan princes as having penetrated through the wilds of Dandakaranya, in the Deccan, to the bank of the Pampa or the Tungabhadra and even to the distant island of Ceylon. A branch of the ruling family established itself in Sravasti, which has been identified with the great ruined city on the south bank of the Rapti represented by Saheth-Maheth. Members of this line extended the boundaries of Kosala in several directions and absorbed the territory of the Sakyas in the Nepalese Tarai and that of the Kasis in the present district of Benares. But the ambitious designs of Kosala were soon frustrated by another power that arose in the fastnesses of South Bihar.

Magadha, embracing the districts of Patna and Gaya in the southern part of Bihar, could boast of powerful chieftains even in the days of the Vedic Rishis and the epic poets. As the probable home of the non-Aryan Kikatas, who were noted for their wealth of kine, it was a coveted prize of the Aryan invader, who, however, could not Brahmanise it thoroughly even in the period of the Kalpa Sutras. It came to possess a mixed population.

Brahmanas and Kshatriyas coming to the land were spoken of in a derisive tone as Brahma-bandhu and Kshatra-bandhu, that is, so-called Brahmanas and Kshatriyas. It had special relations with Aryans outside the pale to whom the name Vratya was given in the Vedic canon.

In the sixth and fifth centuries B.C. the throne of Magadha was occupied by a line of kings styled Saisunagas in the Puranas, an appellation derived from Sisunaga, the first king of the line in the Puranic list. Buddhist writers, however, place Sisunaga much lower in the list of kings, and split up the line into two distinct groups. To the earlier of the two groups they give the name Haryanka. The second and later group, consisting of Sisunaga, his son and grandsons, alone deserve, according to their evidence, the name Saisunaga.

Bimbisara

The most remarkable king of the Haryanka line was Srenika or Bimbisara, who was anointed king by his father while yet a boy of fifteen. The event took place, according to Ceylonese tradition, sixty years before the Parinirvana, or the death of the Buddha. The Parinirvana happened in 544 BC. according to a Ceylonese reckoning and in 486 B.C. according to a Cantonese tradition Of A.D. 489. The date 544 B.C. can, however, hardly be reconciled with a statement in the Ceylonese Chronicles that Asoka Maurya, who is known to have flourished in the third century B.C., was consecrated two hundred and eighteen years after the Buddha had passed into Nirvana. This fact and certain Chinese and Chola synchronisms led Geiger and a few other scholars to think that the era of 544 B.C. is a comparatively modern fabrication and that the true date of the death of the Buddha is 483 B.C.-a result closely approaching that to which the Cantonese tradition leads us.

The Chinese account of embassies which King Meghavarna sent to Samudra Gupta and King Kia-che (Kassapa) sent to China in A.D. 527 also speaks in favour of the date 486 B.C. or 483 B.C. for the Parinirvana. Geiger’s date, however, is not explicitly recognised by tradition. The Cantonese date, therefore, may be accepted as a working hypothesis for the Asokan and pre-Asokan periods. The date of Bimbisara’s accession, according to this reckoning, would fall about 545 B.C.

From the first, Bimbisara pursued a policy of expansion. He possessed certain advantages denied to many of his contemporaries. He was the ruler of a compact kingdom protected on all sides by mountains and rivers. His capital, Girivraja, was enclosed by five hills. It was also girded with stone walls which are among the oldest extant stone structures in India. The soil of the country was rich, yielding luxuriant crops. It was made richer by the gold-bearing stream, the Hiranyavaha or the Sona, which unites with the Ganges near Patna. The people profited by the trade that passed along the Ganges, or followed the land-route through the city of Gaya. In his war-elephants the eastern monarch had a fighting machine which could be used with terrible effect against his western neighbours.

The most notable achievement of Bimbisara was the annexation of the neighbouring kingdom of Anga or East Bihar, which had its capital at Champa near Bhagalpur. He also entered into matrimonial alliances with the ruling families of Kosala and Vaisali. His Kosalan wife brought a Kasi village yielding a large revenue. The Vaisali marriage ultimately paved the way for the expansion of Magadha northward to the borders of Nepal. Bimbisara organised an efficient system of administration. He is also credited by a Chinese pilgrim with having built a new city at the foot of the hills lying to the north of Girivraja, which he named Raj agriha, or the king’s house, the modern Rajgir in the Patna district. Under him Magadha became a flourishing kingdom which attracted the most enlightened men of the age. Both Vardhamana Mahavira, the last apostle of the Jainas, and Gautama Buddha, the great Master of the Buddhists, preached their doctrines during the reign of Bimbisira. Tradition affirms that in his old age the king was murdered by his son Ajatasatru.
Ajatasatru

Ajatasatru, also known as Kunika, soon found that his throne was not a bed of roses. Prasenajit of Kosala, brother of the queen-dowager, who had died of grief, resolved to avenge himself on the parricide. The republican tribes on the northern and northwestern borders of Magadha were restive and entered into a league with the enemies of Ajatasatu in Kasi- Kosala. The Magadhan king had thus to face the hostility not only of the ruler of Sravasti but also of the Vrijis of Vaisali and the Mallas of Kusinagara (Kasia in Gorakhpur) and Pava (probably Padraona on the Gandak river). To repel the Vrijis, Magadhan statesmen fortified the village of Pataligrama which stood near the confluence of the Ganges and the Sona. Thus was founded the famous fortress which, within a generation, developed into the stately city of Pataliputra, the metropolis of India for well-nigh four centuries.

Thanks to his own tenacity and the Machiavellian policy of his ministers, Ajatasatru succeeded in defeating all his adversaries. The Vriji territory was annexed to the kingdom of Magadha. Kosala was humbled but not crushed, and, at a slightly later period, we hear of a Kosalan king, a son of Prasenajit, powerful enough to perpetrate a massacre of the Sakyas. Prasenajit himself had to renounce his claim to the Kasi village which had hitherto formed a bone of contention, and give his Magadhan antagonist his daughter in marriage. In religious tradition Ajatasatru is remembered as a patron of Devadatta, the schismatic cousin of the Buddha, and also as a friend of both the Jainas and the Buddhists. Both Mahavira and the Buddha are said to have died early in his reign. After the death of the latter, a Buddhist Council was held at Rajagriha which took disciplinary measures against certain prominent members of the Church and compiled the holy scriptures.

Successors of Ajatasatru

According to the Puranas, the immediate successor of Ajatasatru was Darsaka, after whom came his son Udayi. The name of Darsaka occurs also in a play named Svapna-Vasavadatta, attributed to Bhasa, which represents him as a brother-in-law and contemporary of Udayana, king of Kausambi. But Buddhist and Jain writers agree in asserting that Udayi was the son of Ajatasatru and also his successor. A Naga-dasaka is placed by the former at the end of the list of kings of Bimbisara’s line, and this ruler is identified by some with the Darsaka of the Puranas. In view of the antiquity of the Buddhist tradition, it is difficult to accept the Puranic statement about Udayi’s relationship with Darsaka and Ajatasatru as correct.

Udayi had probably to fight with the king of Avanti, but the most notable event of his reign was the foundation of the city of Kusumapura or Pataliputra nestling under the shelter of the fortress erected by the ministers of Ajatasatu.

The history of Magadha after Udayi is obscure. The Puranic Chronicles place immediately after him two kings named Nandivardhana and Mahanandin, the last of whom is said to have had a son, by a Sudra woman, named Mahapadma or Mahapadmapati Nanda, with whom began a line of Sudra or semi-Sudra kings. Buddhist writers, on the other hand, insert thirteen additional names between Udayi and Nandivardhana. They omit and mention in his place a prince named Panchamaka. According to the Buddhist account, Udayi was followed by Anuruddha, Munda, and Nagadasaka, all parricides, of whom the last was banished by the indignant citizens, who met together and anointed as their king a worthy minister known by the name of Sisunaga (Susunaga). Sisunaga was succeeded by his son Kalasoka, after whom came his sons, ten in number, of whom the ninth was Nandivardhana and the tenth Panchamaka. One Buddhist work, the Asokavadana, mentions Kakavarnin, instead of Kalasoka, amount the successors of Munda.

The most important divergence between the Buddhist and Puranic accounts is in regard to the place assigned to Sisunaga and Kakavarnin (Kakavarna) in the dynastic lists. While Buddhist writers place them long, after Bimbisira, Ajatasatru and even Udayi, and represent them as belonging to a different family, the Puranas make them head the whole list and actually refer to them as ancestors of Bimbisara and Ajatasatru. There is, however, one detail in the Puranic account which throws doubt on the credibility of the tradition it transmits, and tends to confirm the Buddhist evidence. After mentioning the successors of Pradyota, king of Avanti, whom we know to be a contemporary of Bimbisara and Ajatasatru, the Puranas say : “Sisunaga will destroy all their prestige and will be king.” This clear assertion undoubtedly supports the view that Sisunaga came long after Bimbisara and Ajatasatru, and carried on their forward policy by the absorption of the powerful kingdom of Avanti (Malwa).

Sisunaga’s successor, Kalasoka or Kakavarnin, seems to have been a ruler of some consequence. He transferred his royal residence permanently from Girivraja to Patalipurta , though Vaisali was occasionally graced by the presence of the sovereign. It was in this last city that the second great Council of the Buddhists is said to have been held in the tenth year of the king’s reign when, a century had gone by since the Parinirvana of the Buddha. The Assembly settled some disputed points of discipline and condemned the action of certain Vrijian monks who tried to introduce a relaxation of the rules. The end of Kakavarna was tragic. Tradition affirms that he had a dagger thrust into his throat in the vicinity of a city which may have been Pataliputra, Vaisali or some other important city in the empire. His sons were probably young and inexperienced and soon made room for a man of sterner stuff.

The Nandas

The new king belonged to a family called Nanda by all our authorities. His personal name or epithet was Mahapadma, or Mahapadmapati, “sovereign of an infinite host”, or “of immense wealth”, according to the Puranas, and Ugrasena,”possessed of a terrible army”, according to Buddhist writers. After him his eight sons ruled in succession, and then the crown went to Chandra-gupta Maurya, the founder of a new and more illustrious dynasty.

The total duration of the Nanda line was 155 years according to the Jain texts, a century according to the Puranas and only 22 years according to the Buddhist chronicles of Ceylon. The Jain figure is too high for a couple of generations. The Puranas agree in assigning a period of 12 years to the sons of Mahapadma. But they differ in regard to the duration of the reign of Mahapadma himself, which some put at 88 years and others at 28 years. The smaller figure 28 when added to 12 does not make up the total 100. The higher figure 88 for one reign is incredible and its rejection involves a reduction of the total period of 100 years assigned by Puranic tradition to the Nandas. In view of this, the Ceylonese account cannot be lightly dismissed.

Regarding the parentage of the first Nanda, we have two distinct traditions. The Puranas represent him as son of Mahanandin, the last king of the Saisunaga dynasty, by a Sudra woman. Jaina writers, on the other hand, represent him as the son of a courtesan by a barber. The Jaina tradition about the barber origin of the first Nanda is strikingly supported by the testimony of Quintus Curtius. Referring to the father of the predecessor of Chandragupta Maurya who must be identified with the first Nanda, Curtius says that he was a barber who gained the affections of the queen, murdered his sovereign, and then, under the pretence of acting as guardian of the royal children, usurped the supreme authority. He next put the young princes to death. The murdered sovereign seems to have been Kakavarnin, whose sons were evidently the young princes who were done to death by the ambitious barber.

The new king, though of humble origin, was a vigorous ruler. Puranic tradition affirms that he exterminated all Kshatriyas and became sole monarch, bringing all under his undisputed sway. The ascription of a wide dominion to the Nanda king is supported by Greek evidence which refers to the most powerful peoples who dwelt beyond the Beas in the time of Alexander as being under one sovereign who had his capital at Pataliputra. A Kalinga ,inscription of early date refers to Nanda’s connection with an aqueduct in that country. This may be taken to imply that King Nanda held ways also Kalinga, that is Southern Orissa and the contiguous part of the Northern Circars.

The first Nanda was succeeded by his eight sons, of whom the last was named Dhana- Nanda, the Agrammes or Xandrames of classical writers. This monarch owned a vast treasure and commanded a huge army of 20,000 cavalry, 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and no less than 3,000 elephants. Some writers raise the number of horsemen, chariots and elephants to 80,000, 8,000, and 6,000 respectively. To amass the treasure and maintain the huge force, the king had to resort to heavy taxation. His conduct towards the people bespoke his low origin. It is therefore no wonder that he was “detested and held cheap by his subjects”. The disaffected element found a leader in Chandragupta who overthrew the Nanda dynasty, and laid the foundation of the illustrious family of the Mauryas. If tradition is to be believed, a Taxilian Brahmana named Kautilya or Chanakya played a leading part in the dynastic revolution. The conqueror of the Nandas had also another problem-the presence of foreign invaders in the northwestern provinces of his country.
Persian and Macedonian Invasions

Gandhara ,the territory round Peshawar and Rawalpindi, was, in the time of Bimbisara, under a king named Pukkusati, who sent an embassy and a letter to the king of Magadha.  

What the object of the mission was we do not know, but about the middle of the sixth century B.C. we find the hordes Cyrus (c. 558-530 B.C.), the founder of the Achaemenian empire of Persia, knocking at the gates of India and destroying the famous city of Kapisa near the junction of the Ghorband and Panjshir rivers north east of Kabul. The district west of the river Indus became tributary to the Persians, and the name of Gandhara began to appear prominently among the subject nations in the early inscriptions of Darius (522-486 B.C.), the most illustrious among the successors of Cyrus. Darius followed up the earlier successes of his house by sending a naval expedition to the Indus under the command of Skylax. This expedition paved the way for the annexation of the Indus valley as far as the deserts of Rajputana. It constituted the twentieth and the most populous satrapy of the Persian empire. it paid a tribute proportionately larger than all the rest-360 Euboic talents of gold dust, equivalent to more than a million sterling. Xerxes, the son of Darius I, and his successors seem to have maintained some control over the Indian provinces, which furnished contingents to their army. Reference is made in certain inscriptions of Xerxes to the suppression of rebellion in lands “where, before, the Daivas were worshipped; then, by Ahuramazda’s will, of such temples of the Daivas I (the king) sapped the foundations.” The Daiva-worshipping lands may have included the Indian satrapies. But the hold of the later Achaemenians on their eastern possesions gradually became weak, and towards the middle of the fourth century B.C. the Indian borderland was parcelled out among various small States, the rulers of which were practically independent.

The hill country north of the Kabul river, drained by the Kunar and the Swat, was occupied mainly by the Asvakas, a people whose name is derived from the Sanskrit Asva, Iranian Aspa (horse). Somewhere in this mountain region stood also the city of Nysa, alleged to have been founded by Greek colonists. The old territory of Gandhara was divided into two parts by the Indus. To the west of the river lay the kingdom of Pushkalavati in the modern district of Peshawar and to its east was the realm of Takshasila (Taxila) in the present district of Rawalpindi. Taxila was a prosperous kingdom governed by good laws. Its capital was a noble city which occupied the site of the present Bhir Mound near Saraikala, twenty miles north-west of Rawalpindi. It lay on the high road from Central Asia to the interior of India, and the fame of its market-place spread to the distant corners of the civilised world. Great as an emporium of commerce, the city was greater still as a centre of learning. Crowds of eager scholars flocked to it for instruction in the three Vedas and the eighteen branches of knowledge. Tradition affirms that the Great Epic, the Mahabharata was first recited in this city.

The mountain territory just above the Taxila country was occupied by the kingdoms of Urasa, (Hazara district) and Abhisara (Punch and Naoshera). To the south-east of Taxila lay the twin kingdoms of the Purus or Pauravas, a people already famous in the Vedic hymns. The territory of the prince mentioned by Greek historians as the elder Poros, was situated between the Jhelum and the Chenab, while the principality of his nephew, the younger Poros, stretched from the Chenab to the Ravi. On the confines of the country of the Pauravas lay the territories of the Glaukanikoi and Kathaioi and the principality of Saubhuti. The southern part of the Jhang district with the contiguous portion of the lower valley of the Ravi was occupied by the Sibis and the Malavas, with whom were associated the Kshudrakas, while lower down the Chenab lived the Ambashthas. These tribes were autonomous and some of them are expressly mentioned as having a democratic government. Upper Sind was divided among a number of potentates of whom the most important was Mousikanos, whose capital probably lay at or near Alor. In the Indus delta stood the city of Pattala which, like Sparta, was governed by two kings and a Senate of Elders.

AlexanderIn 336 B.C . the throne of Macedon, a powerful military State in the land of the Yavanas in south-east Europe, was occupied by Alexander, a prince of remarkable energy and ability. In 333 and 331 B.C. Alexander inflicted two severe defeats on the great king of Persia, the last of the line of Darius and Xerxes, and occupied his realm. In 330 B.C. the Persian king died, leaving his conqueror the undisputed master of the Achaemenian empire. Three years later, in 327 B.C. Alexander crossed the Hindukush and resolved to recover the Indian satrapies that had once acknowledged the sway of his Persian predecessors. To secure his communications, he garrisoned a number of strongholds near modern Kabul and passed the winter of 327-326 B.C. in warfare with the fierce hill tribes of the Kunar and Swat valleys.

He stormed the fortresses of Massaga and Aornos and received the submission of the city of Nysa. His generals took the city of Pushkalavati. Massaga probably lay to the north of the Malakand Pass. Aornos has recently been identified with the height of Una between the Swat and the Indus, while Nysa has been located on the lower spurs of the three-peaked Koh-i-Mor between the Kunar and Swat valleys. Pushkalavati is represented by the modern Charsadda near the junction of the Swat and Kabul rivers, about seventeen miles north-east of Peshawar.

The conqueror next forced his way through dense jungles to Ohind and crossed the Indus by a bridge of boats (326 B.C.). In his operations, he received valuable help from Ambhi, king of Taxila, who now received the invader in his own capital with obsequious pomp. After a brief respite, Alexander resumed his march and pushed on to the Hydaspes (Vitasta, modern Jhelum). According to one theory, he followed the line of the modern Grand Trunk Road to the town of Jhelum. According to another view, heAlexander and pauraven king descended through the pass of Nandan to the right bank of the Hydaspes close to the village of Haranpur. On his arrival, he found a huge army drawn up on the other bank of the river to oppose his further progress. The formidable host was led by the elder Paurava king, a man of gigantic and powerful build, who was mortified at the pusillanimous conduct of his Taxilian neighbour, and resolved to defend his hearth and home against the audacious invader from the west. Alexander found it impossible to cross the stream, which was then in full flood, in the face of a mighty array of warriors and elephants. He diverted the attention of his enemy by demonstrations in different directions and then stole a passage at a sharp bend of the river about seventeen miles above his camp, under cover of a thickly wooded promontory and an island in mid-stream covered with jungle. The place of crossing is located by some above the town of Jhelum and by others at Jalalpur. A small force that had hurried to dispute the passage of the invaders was easily routed, and Alexander advanced quickly to give battle to the Indian king. The Paurava, too, marched forth to meet his adversary and drew up his army in battle array. He had with him 30,000 foot, 4,000 horses, 300 chariots, and 200 elephants. He arranged his elephants in front of the infantry and placed the cavalry on the wings with chariots in front of them. The vast force looked like a city with elephants as bastions and men-at-arms as the circumvallating wall. The field of battle cannot be definitely located. Scholars who place Alexander’s camp at Jhelum think that the hostile forces met in the Karri plain.

The Indian king made the mistake of allowing the Macedonians to take the offensive with their superior cavalry. The latter began by an attack on the Indian left wing. The Indian charioteer and horseman could not withstand the onslaught of the mounted archers in the Macedonian ranks, and the Indian infantry were prevented by the slippery slush under foot from making an effective use of their formidable bows. The elephants for a time spread havoc in the enemy’s ranks, but many of the monsters were maddened by wounds and rushed on friends and foes alike. The Paurava force suffered most and was soon scattered by the veterans of Alexander. The Indian king, however, did not flee, but went on fighting on a mighty elephant until he received a severe wound. He was then brought to the presence of the conqueror, who asked him how he would like to be treated. “Act like a king,” answered the valiant Paurava. The Macedonian treated his gallant adversary generously and gave him back his kingdom. It was no part of Alexander’s policy to alienate the sympathy of powerful local princes if it could be helped, and he understood the value of brave and chivalrous allies in a newly-acquired territory, far away from the seat of empire, who could be trusted to uphold the authority of the supreme ruler and serve as a check on one another.

The invader next overran the petty principalities and tribal territories in the vicinity of the realm of the great Paurava. He crossed the Akesines (Chenab) and the Hydraotes (Ravi), stormed Sangala,the stronghold of the Kathaioi, probably situated in the Gurudaspur district, and moved on to the Hyphasis (Beas). He wished to press forward to the Ganges valley, but his war-worn troops would not allow him to go farther. The king erected twelve towering altars to mark the utmost limit of his march, and then with a heavy heart retraced his steps to the Jhelum. He sent part of the troops down the river in a flotilla of boats under the command of Nearchos. The rest fought their way through the territory of free and warlike tribes inhabiting the lower valley of the Ravi and the Chenab. Thousands of people, including women and children, perished in the course of the struggle, and the inhabitants of one city, preferring death to dishonour, threw themselves into the flame in the manner of the Rajputs who practised Jauhar in later times.

The conqueror himself received a dangerous wound while storming one of the citadels of the powerful tribe of the Malavas. The subdued nations made presents of chariots, bucklers, gems, draperies, lions, tigers, etc. Alexander next reduced the principalities of Sind and sailed to the open sea (325 B.C.). A portion of the Macedonian host had already been sent home through Afghanistan. Another division, led by the king himself, trudged through the deserts of Baluchistan and, after terrible sufferings, reached Babylon. The rest of the troops returned by sea to the north of the Tigris under the command of Nearchos. Alexander did not long survive his return to Babylon, where he died in 323 B.C.in36

Administrative arrangements made by Alexander

The Macedonian king had no desire to renounce his new conquests. He wished to incorporate them permanently into his extensive empire. He formed the districts to the west of the Hydaspes into regular satrapies under Persian or Macedonian governors who were assisted, in some cases, by Indian chiefs like Sasigupta of Aornos and Ambhi of Taxila. Beyond the river he created a system of protected States under vassal kings, among whom the great Paurava and the king of Abhisara were the most eminent.

Macedonian garrisons were stationed in Pushkalavati, Taxila, and other important strategic centres. New cities were built, mostly on the great rivers, to establish the authority of the conqueror firmly in the acquired territories and stimulate trade navigation in the Land of the Five Rivers.

Effect of the Persian and Macedonian Invasions

The Macedonian prefectures and garrisons were soon swept away by Chandragupta Maurya, and within Alexander and chandragupta wara few years all vestige of foreign domination disappeared from the Punjab and Sind. But the invasions of Darius and Alexander had not been in vain. The Persian conquest had unveiled India probably for the first time to the Western world and established contact between this country and the peoples of the Levant. Indian spearmen and archers fought under the Persian banner on European soil in the fifth century B.C. and quickened the interest of the peoples of Hellas in this land of strange folks and surpassing wealth. Persian and Greek officials found employment in the Indus provinces and made their presence felt in various ways. The introduction of new scripts-Aramaic, Kharoshthi and the alphabet styled Yavanani by Panini, is probably to be traced to this source. Whether some important features of the architecture of the Maurya period and certain phrases used in the Asokan edicts are also to be attributed to their enterprise, is a highly debatable question. The hold of the great king on the Indian frontier slackened considerably in the fourth century B.C. The arduous campaigns of Alexander restored the fallen fabric of imperialism and laid the foundation of a closer contact between India and the Hellenic world.

The Macedonian empire in the Indus valley no doubt perished within a short time. But the Macedonian had welded the political atoms into one unit and thus paved the way for the more permanent union under the Mauryas. The voyages, and expeditions planned by Alexander widened the geographical horizon of his contemporaries, and opened up new lines of communication and new routes for trade and maritime enterprise. The colonies that the conqueror planted in the Indian borderland do not appear to have been altogether wiped out by the Mauryas.

Yavana officials continued to serve the great king of Magadha as they had served the great king of Ecbatana as evidence. For the Madhya-desa or the upper Ganges valley, and particularly its western part, the land of the Kurus and the Panchalas which was the cradle and centre of Brahmanism, we have to look to the Brahmanical Sutras and the early epic. The epic, no doubt, looks back to the heroic age which is coeval with the later Vedic period, but the extant poems have a wider geographical outlook than the later Vedic texts.