IX. The Contribution to the Maurya and Sunga Empires
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Transformation of the tribal oligarchical system into the territorial monarchical structure
[p.89]: As the Achaemenian challenge led to the transformation, of the tribal oligarchical system into the territorial monarchical structure so the Macedonian invasion resulted in its transfiguration into the national imperial mechanism.
On the departure of Alexander the frontiers of isolation and separatism were broken and the boundaries of localism and tribalism lay derelict. All those peoples, who shunned the hegemony of Poros, were at his feet and all those powers, that contested his supremacy, were by his side. Besides the breakdown of the tribal-cum-regional state system, the anti-Macedonian sentiment, fostered by fiery Brahmana nationalists, brought the people on the platform of unity, Plutarch observes that “the philosophers (Brahmanas) gave him (Alexander) no less trouble than the mercenaries, because they reviled the princes, who declared for him, and encouraged the free states to revolt from his authority” (M’Crindle, Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, p. 306).
Foremost among these philosopher-Brahmanas was the great teacher and thinker of Takshashila, Vishnugupta Kautilya, who denounced; foreign domination and envisaged a national empire stretching from the Himalayas to the southern seas (Arthashastra, X, 1, p. 340). He galvanized the people and rulers of the Panjab, particularly the energetic Poros and the dynamic Candragupta, who had come to the Panjab with him, into a new national and imperial endeavour with the acquisition and expansion of the Magadhan empire as its objective. Under the able leadership of these two great princes, directed by the master mind of Kautilya, the foreign contingents of Sakas (Scythians), Yavanas (Greeks), Kiratas (mountaineers), Kambojas (Afghans), Parasikas (Persians) and Balhikas (Bactrians) and the native warriors of Kuluta, (Kullu Valley), Malava (Malloi), Kashmira, Sindhu, Kshatragana (Xathroi) etc. were
[p.90]: welded into a powerful disciplined army which conquered Magadha and set up the first unified empire of India at Pataliputra. For studying this development it is necessary to cast a glance at the happenings in the Panjab on the retreat of Alexander.
Happenings on the retreat of Alexander
[p.90]: While Poros was laying the foundations of a strong unified state in western Panjab, Vishnugupta Kautilya was envisaging the organisation of a national empire in the schools and seminars of Takshashila. In order to have a look at the working of the imperial institutions of Magadha he paid a visit to Pataliputra and offended the Nanda emperor by his uncouth demeanour and ugly bearing and also got an insight into the intrigues and dissensions rampant there. Leaving the capital in disgust, he brought with him the young and energetic Maurya prince Candragupta to the Panjab and made him lead the political movement in collaboration with Poros. Plutarch states that Candragupta paid a visit to Alexander and Persian and Arabic traditions record that he made a pact with him with the obvious object of enlisting his aid for the conquest of Magadha about the meanness and unpopularity of whose king he was firmly convinced. It also appears that he made friends with Poros also and in the battle of the Jhelum persuaded him to come to terms with Alexander and make him an instrument of his expansionist plans.
After the retreat of Alexander he changed his strategy and, along with Poros, became the spearhead of opposition to Greek rule and canalized all his resources towards its eradication from the Panjab. At that time an anti-Greek sentiment had seized the people and on all sides they were rising against Greek officers. The people of Gandhara had rebelled against Alexander’s nominee Samexus or Damaraxus and the Ashvakas had risen up and murdered his satrap Nicanor.
When Alexander was still in Karmania, the people assassinated Philip whom he had appointed satrap of the lower Kabul Valley and South Panjab. Likewise Poros occupied Sind and compelled his satrap Peithon to retire to the west of the Indus in the Paropanisadae. At that time Poros was undoubtedly the greatest personality in the Panjab and in his court lived the Greek envoy Megasthenes, as Arrian states, and functioned the Greek general Eudamus, as Diodoros observes (M’Crindle, Megasthenes and Arrian, p. 200 ; Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, p. 384). But, though Poros was greater than Candragupta, as Arrian remarks, the latter acted as a magnet and target for the people through his dynamism and fascination.
The rise of Chandragupt Maurya
As Justin writes, “India, after Alexander's death, as if the yoke of servitude had
[p.91]: been shaken off from its neck, had put his prefects to death. Sandrocottos (Candragupta) had been the leader who achieved their freedom. When he lay down overcome with fatigue and had fallen into a deep sleep, a lion of enormous size, approaching the slumberer, licked with his tongue the sweat, which oozed profusely from his body, and, when he awoke, quietly took his departure. It was this prodigy which first inspired him with the hope of winning the throne and so, having collected a band of robbers, he instigated the Indians to overthrow the existing government. When he was thereafter preparing to attack Alexander's prefects, a wild elephant of monstrous size approached him and, kneeling submissively like a tame elephant, received him on to its back and fought vigorously in front of the army. Sandrocottos (Candragupta), having thus won the throne, was reigning over India." (M’Crindle, Invasion of India by Alexander the Great, pp. 327-28). According to K. P. Jayaswal these legends are represented in the motifs of a lion before a crescented three-arched hill and an elephant below it found at Takshashila (Journal of the Numismatic Society of India, Vol. XIX, (1957), p. 179). These legends became afloat as a result of the meteoric and miraculous rise of Candragupta in the Panjab.
We have seen above that Poros and Candragupta assumed the leadership of the freedom movement in the Panjab and canalized it towards the conquest of the empire of Magadha on the under-standing that they would divide it equally between them.
Death of Poros
[p.91]: But, after the occupation of Pataliputra and the eradication of Nanda rule, Kautilya encompassed the murder of Poros through the Greek general Eudamus who is probably Dingarāta of the Mudraraksasa who, as this drama suggests, did it through a poison-girl.
On the death of Poros, Candragupta was the undisputed master of the empire of northern India. Poros' son Malayaketu broke away from Candragupta and joined the minister of the former Nanda king, but Kautilya won over that minister leaving him in the lurch. Eventually Malayaketu was captured and presented before Candragupta, but, through the intercession of Kautilya, his ancestral kingdom in the Panjab was restored to him and he returned there with his associates. He also patched up his affairs with Eudamus and, at his instance, went to Iran to assist Eumenes against Antigonus in the battle of Gabiene in 316 B. C. But in that battle he died and his kingdom was annexed to the Maurya empire (Buddha Prakash, Studies in Indian History and Civilization, pp. V I38-141).
[p.92]: It is clear from the above account that the Maurya empire was the creation of the Panjabis. It was they who laid its foundations in the Panjab under the leadership of Poros, Candragupta and Kautilya and then spread it up to Magadha. After that they took a prominent part in its conservation and proved its ardent defenders. This was demonstrated on the occasion of the invasion of Seleucos in 305 B. C.
Seleucos invads India but defeated
[p.92]: On Alexander’s death in Babylonia in June 323 B.C. his generals fought for the spoils of his conquests. Among them Antigonos and Seleucos contended for his domains in Asia. Fortune at first favoured Antigonos, but in 312 B.C. Seleucos occupied Babylon and in 306 B.C. assumed the regal title and next year planned to repeat the feat of Alexander by crossing over the Indus into the Panjab. But this time a different Panjab greeted him. Appian states that, on crossing the Indus, he met Androkottos (Candragupta) “the king of the Indians who dwelt about that river”. (Syriake, c. 55). This shows that throughout that period, Candragupta spent the greater part of his time in the Panjab, probably at its capital Takshashila, keeping a watchful eye on the political developments in western Asia and particularly the-designs and moves of Seleucos. Therefore, as soon as Seleucos-crossed the Indus, he received him with a vast army. The-exact strength of this army is not known, but its size can be guessed from the numbers of the various arms of his whole army, that is to say, 6,00,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 9,000 elephants implying a force of 36,000 men and 8,000 chariots requiring 32,000 horses and 48,000 men. His infantrymen carried the broadswords as their principal weapons and as additional arms either javelins or bows and arrows, whereas a horseman carried two lances, resembling the kind called saunia by the Greeks, and a buckler. This vast army was administered by a war office, consisting of six boards of five members each, looking after the navy, transport and commissariat, infantry, cavalry, chariotry and elephantry respectively. As a keen military genius, Candragupta admired Alexander, as can be imagined from the anecdote that he paid honour to his altars on the Beas. Hence it is not unlikely that he adopted and assimilated many Greek features in his military organisation.
Seleucos was quickly shocked and worsted by the great
[p.93]: army of Candragupta and compelled to conclude a humiliating peace almost exactly at the same spot where Alexander was accorded a hearty reception by Ambhi. He had to cede a large part of Ariana, consisting of Paropanisadai, Aria, Arachosia and Gedrosia with their capitals at Kabul, Herat, Kandahar and Makaran, to Candragupta. Thus the Maurya emperor reached the ‘scientific frontier' of the Hindukush which the Mughal emperors never held in its entirety and the British rulers sighed for in vain (V.A. Smith, Early History of India, p. 118). This was naturally the most splendid achievement of the Mauryas and a tribute to their sense of geopolitical realism.
After receiving such large territories from Seleucos, Candragupta did not mind giving him a force of 500 elephants which tilted the scales of victory in his favour at the battle of Ipsos in Phrygia with Antigonos in 301 B.C. It was in keeping with the old policy of sending military contingents, particularly elephant corps, to western Asia for the assistance of their friends pursued by Pukkusati and Poros. Its object was obviously to keep in touch with Asian developments and exercise some influence on them from the standpoint of Indian interests. Candragupta could have naturally thought that, after bringing Seleucos to his knees, it was desirable to prop him against his rival Antigonos whose rise to power might become a menace for him.
The defeat of Seleucos had such a powerful impact on popular mind as to become a legend overnight. Hence the rumour began to circulate that Seleucos entered into a matrimonial relation with Candragupta leading some to think that he married his daughter to him. But Seleucos had only two wives Apama and Stratonice and only one daughter Phila who was married to Antigonos Gonatas. Thus there could be no question of his having any matrimonial connection, much less marrying his daughter, to Candragupta. It was mainly a fancy of popular imagination stirred by the momentous triumph of the Maurya monarch over his Greek rival.
Unrest in Punjab
[p.93]:After the decisive victory of Candragupta over Seleucos, invading hordes and armies did not disturb the peace of the Panjab for about a century and regional rivalry or animosity did not trouble its people for even a longer period, but the supercilious behaviour and crushing exactions of the officers of
[p.94]: the centralized Maurya bureaucracy occasionally irked and stinged them to revolts. The Divyāvadāna (ed. Cowell, p. 372) informs us that, during the reign of Bindusara, the son and successor of Candragupta, the people of the Panjab were in rebellion and its headquarters, Takshashila, was the seat of sedition and unrest. Hence the king sent his son Asoka to suppress the insurgence. On his arrival, at the head of a huge army, the citizens of Takshashila moved out of the city with pitchers full of water, as a sign of submission and informed the prince that they had risen not against the king’s authority but against the wicked officials who insulted them, and, according to him a warm welcome, brought him to the city with great pomp and festivity. Ashoka must have taken the guilty officers to task to pacify the discontent of the people whose spirit of self-respect was very much alive.
Ashoka’s grandfather had carried his empire to the natural frontier of the Hindukush, and he thought of reducing the Khasa tribes in the south and west of Kashmira. It appears that he brought to subjection the ancestors of the modern Khakha tribe of the Vitasta Valley below Kashmira and the neighbouring hills. In this campaign also the soldiers of the Panjab must have distinguished themselves.
Towards the end of the reign of Bindusara the people of the Panjab were again seized by discontent and revolt on account of the tyranny of Maurya officials. On that occasion prince Sushima was sent to quell the insurrection. But this time it was so deep that he failed to allay it. Hence Ashoka was again thought of. But, in the meantime, the emperor died and Ashoka was embroiled in the affairs at Pataliputra.
Kunala sent to Takshashila
[p.94]: On coming to the throne, Ashoka had to face the problem of the upheaval in the Panjab. He himself set out to pacify the people. But his ministers asked him to send prince Kunala instead. On the arrival of the prince at Takshashila the citizens again came out to receive him and complained only of the rough conduct of the officers. Kunala followed another policy to solve the problem of chronic revolt. He, besides advising the centre to issue a strict warning to the officers, which Ashoka did in his separate Rock Edict I, canalized the energy of the people towards the conquest and colonisation of Khotan. Hsuan Chwang states that under Kunala there was an exodus of people from Takshashila result-
[p.95]: ing in the colonisation of Khotan (S. Beal, Buddhist Records of the Western World, Vol. I, pp. 139-141) and Tibetan traditions show that a branch of the Maurya dynasty ruled there which assumed independence after Kunala (Aurel Stein, Ancient Khotan, Vol. I, p. 366).
Extent of Ashoka's reign
[p.95]: Ashoka ruled securely over the Panjab and the North-West up to the Hindukush mountains including the Kabul Valley, Baluchistan and Sind, thoroughly controlled the Valleys of Swat and Bajaur and those of Kashmira and Nepal and probably Khotan and the neighbouring region also. In this region people, using the Aramaic, Greek, Kharoshthi scripts, lived and freely mixed with each other. Ashoka respected their own traditions and addressed to them his edicts in their own scripts and languages. As Benveniste has shown his twelfth and thirteenth edicts had special relevance for north-western regions.
A Greek version of the last part of the twelfth and the initial part of the thirteenth Rock Edicts has been found in a twenty-two line inscription engraved on a stone piece found in the ruins of old Kandahar in 1963. From the same place another bilingual inscription of him in Greek and Aramaic was discovered in 1958. Chronologically it is his earliest record showing that he got the inspiration to issue edicts in the form of stone inscriptions from those regions (E. Benveniste, Edits d’ Asoka en traduction grecque', Journal Asiatique (1964) pp. 137-57 ; D. Schlumberger and others, 'Une bilingue Graco-Aramenne d' Ashoka, Journal Asiatique (1958) pp. 1-48).
Among his northern frontagers Ashoka mentions the Yonas, Kambojas, Gandharas, Nabhakas (people of Nabha) and Nabhapanktis (people of Patiala) and shows special solicitude for them.
Disintegration after death of Ashoka
[p.95]:On the death of Ashoka in 236 B.C. the process of disintegration started in the Maurya Empire. The Statist and centralized regime, established by them, proved an unbearable burden on the people. According to Kalhana his successor in Kashmira, Jalauka, conquered the territory up to Kanauj, while, according to Taranatha, one Virasena, who may be presumed to be a predecessor of Subhagasena (Sophagsenus), the contemporary of Antiochus III in the North-West, came to power after him. At that time the Greeks, called Yavanas, were hovering on the north-western frontiers in enormous numbers and making inroads up to Kashmira. Hence these rulers of those regions had to be very watchful about their movements. About Subhagasena we are
[p.96]: told by Polybius that he held his own up to the Hindukush and had friendly relations with Antiochus III. In particular he assisted him against the Bactrian Greeks rising under Enthydemus I. These Greeks had entrenched themselves in Bactria and were proving a menace for north-western India. Hence, when Antiochus III marched against Enthydemus and besieged him in his capital Zariaspa for two years, Subhagasena rendered him sufficient assistance. As a result Enthydemus surrendered and acknowledged Seleucid suzerainty and Antiochus, while retiring, crossed the Hindukush, renewed his friendship with his Indian ally, got more elephants from him, till he had 150 altogether, and also borrowed some money from him and went through Arachosia, Drangiana and Karmania to the shore of the Persian Gulf. This diplomatic move of Subhagasena to set and assist the Seleucids against the Bactrians, matched, of course, by his military strength and ability to thwart external threats, guaranteed the safety of the Panjab for well over a quarter of a century.
Brhadratha Maurya assassinated by Pushyamitra
[p.96]: In 184 B.C, the last Maurya emperor Brhadratha was assassinated by his general Pushyamitra who himself ascended the throne and initiated the Sunga dynasty. Soon after assuming office he addressed himself to the task of restoring the unity of the empire and checking the inroads of the Bactrians. So he advanced towards the Panjab conquering up to Jullundur and Sialkot and the Indus and undoing the division of the Maurya empire resulting from the campaigns of Jalauka up to Kanauj.
One of his grandsons, Vasumitra, stood guard on the Indus along with hundred other princes. To celebrate his triumph, the emperor decided to perform the horse sacrifice and, for that purpose, let loose a horse to wander unchecked for one year. But the Greeks in a swoop across the Indus apprehended that horse and thereby challenged the power of Pushyamitra. Vasumitra and his hundred associates faced them in a grim encounter and inflicted on them a crushing defeat and thus vindicated the paramountcy of the Sunga emperor (Kalidasa’s, Malavikagnimitra, Act V, Niranaya Sagara Press Edition, p. 91 ; for comments see R. C. Majumdar, ‘Some Observations on Pushyamitra and his Empire’, Indian Historical Quarterly, (1925) pp. 91 ff).
After this victory Pushyamitra performed his horse sacrifice. Towards the end of his reign the Yavana menace also seems to have assumed alarming dimensions. Hence Pushyamitra himself advanced against them and, crossing the Indus, penetrated into the region called Koshthaka, modern Birkot and Udeygram in the
[p.97]: Manglawar area, but was killed by the fall of a rock (P. C. Bagchi, ‘Krimisha and Demetrius’, Indian Historical Quarterly, Vol, XXII (1946) pp. 81 ff.). After him his empire broke up into several fragments ruled over by warring scions of his family. In particular Agnimitra ruled over the east and Balamitra or Bhanumitra in the west and there was no love lost between them. The heroic Vasumitra or Sumitra seems also to have been assassinated in a dramatic show as Bana wrote. In this state of turmoil and instability the Bactrians, led by Demetrius, poured into the Panjab and dashed up to Mathura and Pataliputra. Though they had to retire from the middle country, they got a foothold in western Panjab, since there was no organized power to resist or repel them there. Heroism without organization proves in vain.