Short Biography of Chandragupta Maurya

It is not known when Chandragupta was born. He was a mere stripling according to Plutarch, when he met Alexander 329-25 BCE in the Punjab. His birth could not have taken place before the middle of the fourth century BCE.

According to Mahavamsa, the mother of Chandragupta after the death of her husband sought shelter in Pushpapura (Kusumpura-Pataliputra) where she gave birth to Chandragupta. He was brought up first by a cowherd and then by a hunter in a village. The child showed promise right from his childhood. He towered over his friends when he played the role of the king with them. This attracted the notice of Chanakya, i.e., Kautilya, who happened to pass through that village. The latter took him away to his native city of Taxila. The new mentor gave him a thorough grounding in certain aims and objectives and, inter alia the most important was that he must rid the country of the hated rule and tyranny of the Nanda king, who had insulted Chanakya.

The Nanda ascendancy was not only regarded as “unlawful” and “irreligious” because of their origin, but it was equally despised for the wickedness of the disposition of its rulers and the forcible exactions levied by them on their subjects. The “unlawfully” amassed wealth of the Nandas had become almost proverbial. Its notoriety had reached as far South as the Tamil Country. The Punjab and the North-Western India lay prostrate to Alexander’s invasion. These areas were being constantly squeezed and hurried by his prefects. Chandragupta had thus a doublefold task to accomplish. He must rid the country of foreign domination and liquidate the oppressive rule of the Nandas. These tasks with which Chanakya had entrusted Chandragupta were indeed very difficult yet the latter achieved both these aims with resounding success. He soon successfully mobilized the military resources of the country, rehabilitated its moral, awakened its spirit of resistance, and brought about a unique national rejuvenation.’ Thus well equipped, he began war of national emancipation which proved eminently successful and resulted in bringing about a national unity in the country which was envied by many successive rulers of India and which India had never witnessed before. He sought to accomplish a part of his mission by including Alexander, when he was in Punjab in 326 BCE to attack the Nandas. But Alexander was greatly offended by the tone and boldness of Chandragupta and gave order to kill him. According to another account, he was caught spying in Alexander’s camps where he had gone to study the Greek military strategy. He, however, escaped. Encouraged by various visions, he was determined to claim the sovereignty of India. He knew it fully, well that he had to depend upon himself for realizing this destiny of his.

Chandragupta and Chanakya both set out according to the Pali work Mahavamsatika, to collect a huge army from different sources. Justin describes these soldiers as mercenaries, hunters as well as robbers. According to Arthasastra, a treatise on policy whose authorship is attributed to Kautilya, the army is to be recruited from the Choras, i.e., thieves, Mlechchhas, choraganas (organised gangs of robbers), Atavi-Kas or foresters, and Sasiro-pajivi…Srenis or warrior clans. Such elements were found in great abundance in the Punjab after the defeat and disintegration of the large number of republican people like the Mailoi, Oxydrakai Astakenoi, etc. who as you have been told before, had fought Alexandar heroically but had failed for want of cohesion and leadership. Chandragupta obviously weaved together these loose elements into a huge and formidable army. His personal heroism and magnetic personality provided the required leadership. He also made an alliance with the Himalayan King Parvataka (of doubtful identity according to Mudrarakshasa, a work of the sixth century written by Vishakhadatta, and Jain work Parisistaparvan). This alliance with the Himalayan king gave to Chandragupta as stated in the Mudrarakshasa a composite army formed with the Sakas, Yavanas, Kirathas, Kambojas, Oarsikas and Bahilikas. Shorn of dramatic allegory, it means that Chandragupta tapped all the available sources and armed with a huge composite army attempted to overthrow the existing Nanda Empire.

The details of the conquest of Magadha by Chandragupta are not preserved. But the related episodes can be gleaned from the different traditions. The Mahavamsatika tells us about the initial mistakes of his campaign in attacking on the centre without conquering the frontier regions. The Jain tradition similarly compares the advance of Chandragupta to a child who puts his thumb into the middle of a hot pie instead of starting from the edge which was cool. But the Buddhist traditions mention his preliminary failure to consolidate the frontier rashtras and janapadas enroute to Patliputra.

The different stories point to the fact that Chandragupta had to make repeated attempts on Patliputra before he could wrest it from the Nandas. The Milindapanho gives an exaggerated account of the slaughter from the destruction of the Nanda army led by Bhaddasala (Bhadrasala).

The Brahmanical tradition, however, gives credit for the overthrow of the Nandas to Kautilya. The Puranas, Arthasastra and the Mudrarakshasa all of them cast the figure of Chandragupta into shade in this heroic fight and give full credit to Chanakya (alias Kautilya) for bringing about the dynastic revolution in Magadha by his diplomacy and appointing Chandragupta as king.

The different versions of this story seem to have preserved only a part of the truth and not the entire truth. The seemingly conflicting views can be easily reconciled by stating that the military skill and bravery of Chandragupta in the battlefield was ably seconded by the astute diplomacy of Chanakya. This witty Brahman who is variously known as Kautilya and Vishnugupta is supposed to be the author of the Arthasastra (Treatise on Polity). It has also been argued that Kautilya is not the writer of the Arthasastra. He had a serious grouse against the Nandas. Chandragupta and Chanakya made a common cause. The two together brought about the downfall of the Nandas. The extensive Nanda Empire comprising the entire Gangetic Valley and Eastern India along with the considerable portion of the Deccan, passed into the hands of Chandragupta who thus, heralded the foundation of the Mauryan Empire.

According to Plutarch, this event took place ‘not long after’ Chandragupta’s meeting with Alexander in the Punjab in 326-25 BCE. The Buddhist tradition dates the accession of Chandragupta one hundred and sixty two years after the Mahaparinirvana of the Buddha which according to the Cantonese tradition took place in 486 BCE thus assigning Chandragupta a period of twenty-four years rule i.e., from 324 BCE to 300 BCE as the first Mauryan empire.

After accomplishing his first task, he turned his attention towards the second, viz, freeing his country from foreign domination. This became easier owing to the growing difficulty of the Greek position in the Punjab, by many uprisings of the Indians, against the Greek Satraps and the outbreak of jealousy between the Greek and Macedonian elements of the occupying forces. Above all, there came the death of Alexander himself in 323 BCE. This led to the disruption of his empire and letting loose of the centrifugal tendencies. At the first partition of Alexander’s empire at Babylon in 823 BCE, no change was affected in the term of Indian position. Both Porus and Ambhi were left free in their respective domains which were greatly increased. Greek authority was limited. Eudomus, in charge of the Greek garrisons in India and Pithon, son of Agenor, as the Greek Satrap of Sind were the two important officials left in India. But during the second partition of Alexander’s empire that took place at Triparadisus in 321 BCE, Pithon, was transferred to the North West without appointing any substitute. The quiet withdrawal of the Greeks from India in 321 BCE was most probably due to the fact that Chandragupta had already started war of the liberation in Sind by then. He carried further north where Eudemus after testing the blood of Chandragupta’s sword discreetly retired from India in 317 BCE. Pithon who was in the north also left in 316 BCE to participate in the Greek war of succession. The achievements of Chandragupta are thus summed up by Justin: “India after the death of Alexander had shaken off the yoke of servitude and put his governors to death. The author of this liberation was Sandrocottus.” This Sandrocottus was obviously Chandragupta. The task of liberating the Punjab and Sind was not an easy one. It invited hard fighting which lasted for almost a decade from about 323 BCE to 316 BCE.

While Chandragupta was engaged in emancipating his country and consolidating his conquest, the Greek King, Seleucus of Syria, who had succeeded Alexander in the eastern part of his empire, was moving towards India to recover the lost provinces. The river Indus formed the boundary between his dominion and that of Chandragupta, before the two kings came to wage conflict. The former, according to another classical writer, is said to have “crossed the Indus and waged war with Sandrocottus, king of the Indians who dwelt on the banks of the streams”. Neither the date of the war, nor its duration is known for certain reasons. Justin however, dates Seleucus’s treaty or understanding with Chandragupta and settlement of affairs in the East prior to the former’s return home to prosecute the war with Antigonus who died in 301 BCE. The conflict between the two is generally assumed to have taken place in 305 BCE. The Greek writers who were painstakingly meticulous about Alexander’s campaigns were abnormally reticent about the details of Seleucus’s invasion of India. Reasons are quite obvious. This was indeed a very humiliating treaty for the Westerners. According to another classical writer, Strabo, Seleucus ceded to Chandragupta territories then known as Aria (i.e. Herat), Arachosia (i.e. Kandhar), Propanisade (i.e., Kabul) and part of Gendrosia (i.e. Baluchistan) in return for 500 elephants, and a matrimonial alliance, the exact nature of which is not clear. The diplomatic relations were also established between the two as Strabo refers to the sending of Megasthenes— Seleucus’s ambassador to the court of Chandragupta in Patliputra where he wrote his famous book called “Indica”. These terms of the treaty leave no doubt that Seleucus fared badly at the hands of Chandragupta who thereby secured a scientific frontier by acquiring Afghanistan and Baluchistan for his newly founded empire.

About the subsequent career of Chandragupta, we have to rely on the stray inscriptional and written notices. In a vague statement, Plutarch asserts that “with an army of 6,00,000 men Chandragupta overran and subdued all India”. Justin also refers to mastery over the entire country. The conquest and inclusion of one important province that is of Saurashtra in the empire of Chandragupta is clearly attested to by the testimony of Junagadha inscriptions of Rudradaman of 150 CE (72 Saka Era) where it is mentioned that Saurashtra-Kathiawar was governed by Chandragupta’s Rashtria, Vaishya Pushyagupta, who constructed the famous Sudarshan Lake there.The Mauryan Empire as founded by Chandragupta stretched from the Bay of Bengal in the East to Afghanistan and Baluchistan in the West, the Himalayas in the North to the Chitaldurg district in the South.

Chandragupta was not only a great conqueror, he was also a great administrator. Megasthenes, the ambassador of Seleucus in the court of Chandragupta, has left detailed accounts of his system of government. The treatise on state craft called the Arthasastra attributed to Chandragupta’s able minister Chanakya (also known as Kautilya), confirms and supplements the accounts of Megasthenes. According to the Puranas, the son and successor of Chandragupta was Bindusara who is believed to have ruled from 300 BCE to 273 BCE. After his death there was a struggle for succession among his sons for four years. Ultimately, Ashoka succeeded him to the throne. Ashoka’s imperishable records inscribed on rocks and pillars testify that the Mauryan Empire under Ashoka embraced the whole of India except Assam in the extreme east and the Tamil Kingdom of the Far South.