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.
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.
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
