BY
W. H. MORELAND, C.S.I., C.I.E.
AND
ATUL CHANDRA CHATTERJEE
G.C.I.E., K. C.S.I.
We have seen in Chapter IV that, about the year 500 B.C., Magadha, or South Bihar, was already an important kingdom. During the half-century which followed, its limits extended, and it acquired supremacy over North Bihār, Benares, and Oudh; and to this period belongs the establishment on the bank of the Ganges of its capital of Pataliputra, the Palibothra of the Greek writers, and the modern Patna. The course of events for the next century or so is uncertain, but the importance of the kingdom was maintained, and under the dynasty known in the traditions as Nanda its dominion extended over the western Gangetic plain, and possibly further to the south-west, while its fame appears to have been one of the chief attractions which tempted Alexander to march eastward from the Punjab. A few years after his departure from India, the Nanda dynasty was displaced by Chandragupta Maurya, under whom the power of Magadha became sufficiently great to justify the use of the word 'empire.'
CHANDRAGUPTA'S
EXPLOITS
The
story of Chandragupta's exploits is obscure, for there are no precise records,
and the traditions vary; even the origin of his second name is uncertain, for
one account makes it a tribal appellative, while another derives it from his
mother, Murā, said to have been a concubine of the Nanda ruler. Whatever his
origin, it appears that he was employed in the service of the Nandas, rose to
the rank of commander-in-chief, conspired unsuccessfully against his master,
and fled to the north-west, accompanied by his fellow-conspirator Kautilya,
whom tradition represents as his guiding genius, and also as the author of the
Arthasästra, the manual of public administration which has been mentioned in an
earlier chapter. According to a Greek historian, Chandragupta visited
Alexander's camp in the Punjab; and subsequently, having obtained support in
this region, perhaps from 'Porus,' he attacked the Nanda king, who was defeated
and killed, leaving the victor to ascend the throne of Magadha. The details of
all this are obscure, but we know that, very soon after the year 305,
Chandragupta, with a great army, confronted Seleucus on the Indus, and that
terms were arranged under which his empire was extended to a large part of
Afghanistan. His death occurred not long after, the most probable date being
297. The extent of his empire is uncertain. There is no doubt that his rule ran
from Bengal right up to the Hindu Kush; and there are some grounds for thinking
that it covered also Malwa, and even Gujarat, which certainly belonged to his
successors, but how and when they were acquired is unknown.
Friendly
relations were maintained by Chandragupta with Seleucus, whose envoy,
Megasthenes, spent some time at Patna, and wrote a description of India, which
furnished one of the main sources of the information collected by later Greek
writers regarding the country. Had this description survived, we should know
much, if not everything, about Chandragupta's empire, but we possess only such
portions as the later writers thought worthy of preservation, and even these
are usually paraphrases rather than quotations. Attempts have been made to
provide an account of the empire by dovetailing these fragments into the Indian
literature, but the process is very dangerous while the dates of the texts
remain uncertain, and it is safer to take Mega- sthenes by himself,
unsatisfying as the result may be. It must be remembered that we do not know
what he actually wrote, or the precise sense in which he used various terms of
art; the context of what we possess is quite uncertain; we can only guess at
the sources of his information; and we must recognise that there may have been
serious difficulties in interpreting the Prakrit speech of Magadha into his
provincial Greek.1
Of
the personal characteristics of Chandragupta we are told very little 2 , but he is
presented as living closely guarded in his palace, and as leaving it to spend
the day on the seat of justice, or occasionally to offer sacrifices, or go
hunting. Much stress is laid on the precautions taken for the Emperor's safety,
and here Megasthenes doubtless wrote from personal observation, but we must
remember that Chandragupta was a usurper, who would naturally be guarded with
exceptional care. Regarding the administration, we can see in the fragments
that it was elaborate and highly organised, and that a distinction existed
between country and town; but such details as have survived are not easily to
be reconciled with Indian literature.
A
striking feature of the fragments is the distinction drawn between the empire
generally and the 'autonomous cities,' to reproduce the Greek term; the rulers
of these cities' are presented to us as receiving the revenues which elsewhere
belonged to the Emperor, and as exercising various administrative functions
independently of him. In the Seleucid empire this term had a technical
signification, denoting certain privileged cities, which were relieved of most
of the ordinary taxes, and allowed to manage their own affairs; nothing
corresponding precisely to this insti- tution is known in Indian literature,
and it is probable that Megasthenes applied the technical term, necessarily
familiar to him, to what was for him a novelty-the subordinate kingdoms
included in Chandragupta's empire, which re- tained their internal autonomy
subject to the payment of tribute.
MEGASTHENES
The
fragments dealing with land tenure have been the subject of much discussion, and have been
interpreted in various ways. It is possible that here also Megasthenes used
terms of art derived from his experience further west, but now obsolete, and
the most that can be said is that he certainly knew of a practice by which the
cultivators paid one-fourth of the produce to the treasury, and apparently he
mentioned another practice by which the cultivators retained the same share.
The former is the recognised Indian system, and it is noteworthy that the share
paid was one-fourth, not the traditional one-sixth of the texts: the latter may
possibly refer to the private domains of the Emperor and the prominent men, and
would indicate that the serfs or labourers employed on them were paid a quarter
of the crop as wages. As regards the course of agriculture, we are told that,
with the aid of irrigation, two crops were usually raised in the year, and that
famine was unknown. The former statement may safely be accepted as based on
personal observation, but recurring liability to famine is established
incidentally by the literature of the Hindu period, and the most probable
explanation is that Mega- sthenes, not having personal experience of such a
calamity, inferred its impossibility from the productiveness of the soil which
he observed.
As regards social organisation, Megasthenes recognised that the population was divided into endogamous occupa- tional groups, and this is important as showing that by his time the caste system was firmly established in this part of India; but his enumeration of the seven constituent groups -philosophers (or sophists), peasants, herdsmen and hunters, artisans and merchants, soldiers, spies, and officials--cannot possibly be made to square with the system of caste as it is known from other sources, and we are driven to conclude that he simply made a list of the occupations which had come to his notice, ignorant, for instance, that some 'officials' at least were certainly philosophers,' that is to say, Brahmans, and that merchants were distinct from the various classes of artisans. Similarly his statement that there were no slaves in India is directly contrary to what we know from all other sources, and can be explained only by the absence of the organised industrial slavery which was familiar to the writer; he saw freemen doing the work which he regarded as appropriate to slaves, and he did not notice the mild domestic slavery which undoubtedly prevailed.
This
summary review of some of the more important statements attributed to
Megasthenes will show the need for caution in accepting them as they stand. The
fragments which have survived do not suffice to furnish a full descrip- tion of
the empire, but what they show us is a population predominantly agricultural,
ruled by a despot with the help of an organised bureaucracy, a large standing
army, and an elaborate system of espionage. The people were frugal in their
food, but lavish in clothes and ornaments; and they were honest according to
the standards of Megasthenes. The caste system prevailed, though it was not so
rigid or so highly developed as in later times. Brahmans were held in great,
honour, and offered sacrifices for the other castes; the main distinction in
worship was between the followers of Siva and Krishna, identified by the Greeks
with Dionysus and Heracles respectively; and ascetics were conspicuous. We see,
then, the outlines of an ordinary Hindu community, but we learn little which is
not known to us from other sources, and the chief value of the fragments is
that they enable us to say that various institutions had taken definite form at
least as early as 300 B.C.
Foot Notes
1 When Alexander the Great tried to learn the wisdom of the ascetics at Taxila, one of them objected, with good reason, that to try to convey their teaching through a series of three interpreters, ignorant of the subject, would be like trying to make water flow clear through mud.' (Cambridge History of India, i. 359. This book is cited below as Camb, Hist.)
2 The remarks which follow are based largely on the latest edition of the principal fragments, B. C. J. Timmer, Megasthenes en de Indische Maatschappij (Amsterdam, 1930).
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