Ancestry of Chandragupta Maurya

The ancestry of Chandragupta is not known definitely. Some Hindu literary evidences relate him with the Nandas of Magadha. A Chandragupta Katha has come into existence by piling story after story round the hallowed name of Chandragupta. The fragments of the Katha and the different versions of it are preserved in lands, talks, prayers and even in the philosophical dissertations in Sanskrit, Pali, Prakrit and Tamil. Outside India, they are preserved not only in the writings of the Greek and Latin writers but also in Burmese legends and Ceylonese chronicles. The historical authenticity is lent to this Katha by inscriptional evidence and writings of Greek and Latin historians and Indian and Ceylonese scholars.

The ancestry of Chandragupta Maurya, as stated above, is controversial and is subject to widely divergent views ranging from base origin to high Kshatriya lineage.

The Puranas

The Puranas which are our earliest available Brahmanical sources are more concerned with the origin of Nandas than with that of Chandragupta. They simply mention that the irreligious Nanda were uprooted by the Brahmin Kautilya who appointed Chandragupta as sovereign of the realm. The formal anointment (Rajyabhisheka) of Chandragupta by Kautilya, an uncompromising champion of Dharma, indicates that Chandragupta was a Kshatriya eligible for kingship. Nowhere in the Puranas there is any mention of Mura, the supposed mother or grandmother of Chandragupta: nowhere in these works is attributed to Chandragupta a shudra or base origin: nor do they link him with the preceding Nanda Dynasty.

Sridharswamy

It was Sridharswamy, the commentator, of Vishnu Purana who for the first time, mooted the theory about the base origin of Chandragupta by way of explaining his title Maurya. He sought to derive this appellation from Mura, one of the wives of a Nanda king and made her the mother of Chandragupta. But the commentator is guilty both of bad grammar and fictitious history. The derivative from Mura is Mauriya and not Maurya and again the commentator makes Chandragupta the scion of Nandas. However, he does not fasten the blame of the base-origin to the name of Mura. He describes her as the lawfully wedded wife of the Nanda king, thereby implying that Chandragupta was of Shudra origin as the Nandas themselves belonged to that caste.

The Mudrarakshasa and other sources

The Mudrarakshasa calls him not only Maurya putra but also Handanvaya. Kshemendra and Somadeva refer to him as Purvanandasuta, son of the genuine Nanda. Dhundiraja, the commentator on the Vishnu Purana informs us on the other hand, that Chandragupta was the eldest son of Mauriya, who was the son of the Nanda king, Sarvarthasiddhi by Mura, daughter of a vrishala (hunter).

The Buddhist Tradition

The Buddhist tradition, however, gives us an altogether different story. The Divyavadan refers to Bindusara, the son of Chandragupta, as an anointed Kshatriya, thereby alluding to a Kshatriya origin of Chandragupta. The Mahavamsa, a Ceylonese chronicle, makes Chandragupta a scion of the Kshatriya clan named Moriyas (after peacock or Mora) of Pipphalivana lying somewhere between Rummindei in the Tarai and Kasia in the Gorakhpur district of eastern Uttar Pradesh of today. The existence of this clan can be traced back to the time of the Buddha and is mentioned in the Mahaparinibbansutta, one of the most authentic and ancient canonical texts of the Buddhists. According to this text, the Moriyas sent a messenger to the Mallas, claiming portion of the relics of the Buddhas, by saying: “The Blessed one belonged to the Kshatriya caste and we too are of the Kshatriya caste.”

The Jain Tradition

The Jain tradition supports the Buddhists in indicating a connection between peacocks and the family name of Chandragupta. Whereas according to the former, Chandragupta was the son of a daughter of a village headman of peacock-tamers (mayura poshaka), according to the latter, he was the son of the Moriya clan. It appears that Jain writers were not aware of the origin of Chandragupta’s family and have given only an etomological meaning of the Pali word ‘Moriya’.

The Parishishtaparvan

The Parishishtaparvan, on the other hand, describes Chandragupta as the son of the daughter of the chief of a village of peacock-tamers (mayura-poshakas).

Foreign Accounts

Justin, the Latin classical writer, knew Chandragupta as a ‘novus homo’, a man “Born in humble life”. This does not necessarily mean that he was a man of low caste but merely a commoner with no pretension to the throne yet aspiring for royalty. According to a Greek biographer and moral philosopher Plutarch it was Chandragupta who was seeking to make capital out of the base origin of his rival instead of himself suffering from the same disability.

Taking into consideration all the available evidences we may summarise that Chandragupta, the founder of the Mauryan Dynasty, belonged to the Kshatriya clan named Moriya, originally ruling over Pipphalivana. The fortunes of the family declined after the death of Chandragupta’s father who was the chief of the clan, and died in a border clash. It was left to Chandragupta to redeem the prestige of his family.