Chandragupta and Alexander

This next part of our series on Ancient India will focus on the political changes brought about by the collapse of the old dynasties; the Nanda’s and the Achaemenids.

By 345 BC, the Nanda Empire of Dhana Nanda had conquered the better part of Northern India, gaining a land border with the established Imperial power to the west; the Achaemenids. The relations between the two Empires is the subject of conjecture, as little to no material or textual evidence for the period, however, there are some clues. The great university at Taxila continued in use and remained loyal to the Achaemenid court, the presence of gifted Elephants at Achaemenid Paradeisia is evidence that diplomatic discourse existed between the two states. However, there is also evidence for an increased level of militarism in the Indian Satrapies and the east generally, implying that the Nanda threat was taken seriously. It is likely that the relationship between the Achaemenid and Nanda courts was similar to that between Artaxerxes III and Philip II in Macedon. The question becomes largely academic however as the Persians were conquered by Alexander of Macedon fifteen years later.

It is generally suggested that the Indian Satrapies were immediately problematic for the Macedonians, revolting and assassinating Macedonian Satraps. However, this is not evident, at least initially, in the sources, indeed, the only troublesome group mentioned in the histories at this point is the Greeks. The Greek mercenaries assassinated Philip (satrap of India) in 325 and had revolted en-masse in the upper Satrapies by 323. Dhana Nanda did not take advantage of this chaos, however – evidence of the unpopularity of his reign stressed by the Indian sources – and successfully defeated a revolt led by Chandragupta Maurya who fled to Taxila, in Macedonian lands. Chandragupta’s army would return east in 321 however, accompanied by Graeco-Macedonian, Persian, Bactrian, and Scythian soldiers, and after winning over several Mahajanapada, was able to defeat Dhana and capture Pataliputra in an exceptionally bloody war (some apocryphal Indian sources say over a billion casualties), establishing the Mauryan Empire.

The person of Chandragupta is obscure. He is described as either an illegitimate son of Dhana Nanda or as the son of the Maurya clan, what is agreed by all the sources – Indian and Graeco-Roman – is that he spent parts of his early life in exile in Taxila. The western sources suggest that he met with Alexander during his campaigns, potentially supported by the Alexander historians. Both Arrian and Curtius Rufus describe the career of Sisicottus, probably the same person as Chandragupta (Shashigupta in Prakrit – Shashi and Chandra being derivations of the same word, moon), as a prominent Indian noble in the area who acknowledged Artaxerxes V (Bessus) rule and fought with him against Alexander in 328 BC. He joined Alexander after Bessus’ defeat and was rewarded with a hyparchy in Punjab. This episode was likely after his initial failed revolt, which explains why he had an army at the time and enabled him to gain contacts among the Macedonian and Persian nobility.

Join us next time for the conquests of the Mauryan dynasty and the consequent proliferation of the Buddhist faith under Ashoka the Great.