This is not
in accordance with the detailed list which (pp.
in accordance with the detailed list which (pp.
Cambridge History of India - v1
Bālaka), and the last is probably Avantivardhana ; for the
various readings of the ass, as given by Mr Pargiter (Kali Age, p. 19), indi-
cate that this may be the correct form of the name which appears in his
text as Nandivardhana.
This intrusion of kings of Avanti in the records of Magadha is pro-
bably to be explained, as in the similar case of the Andhras (p. 284), as
the result of a suzerainty successfully asserted by Avanti ; and this may
have been the outcome of the attack on Ajātaçatru which Pradyota was
reported to have been contemplating shortly before the Buddha's death. If
so, the supremacy of Avanti, which may have been temporary, was not
established until some years after the beginning of Ajātaçatru's reigon, and
the Pradyotas of the Purāņas were contemporay with the later Çiçunāgas
Ajātaçatru, Darçaka, and Udāyin.
1 See Chapter VII, pp. 160, 163, 165, 166
2 Kali Age, pp. 18-21, 68. 9.
: Mr Harit Krishna Dey in Udayana Vatsarāja(Calcutta, 1919), p. 4.
4 Lacote, Guņādhya et la Brhatkathā, p. 164,
5 Chapter VII, p. 165.
## p. 278 (#312) ############################################
278
[CH.
THE PURĀNAS
.
It is only when we come to the reigns of Bimbisara and Ajātaçatru in
the Çiçunāga dynasty that we find the firm ground of history. At this
period lived Mahāvīra and Buddha, the founders, or perhaps rather the
reformers, of Jainism and Budhism ; and now the Purāņas are supplement-
ed by two other lines of tradition which are presumably independent. In
the Jain accounts Bimbisāra appears as Çreņika and Ajātaçatru as Kūņika:
the former began the expansion of Magadha by the conquest of the
kingdom of Anga (Monghyr and Bhāgalpur), and the latter is said to have
come to the throne after the death of Mahāvira and a few years before the
death of Buddha.
Unfortunately on one important point the three sources of imformation
are not in agreement. The first eight kings in the Purānic genealogy may
be arranged into two groups, the first headed by Çiçunāga and the second
by Bimbisara. This arrangement is reversed in the Buddhist lists, while
Çiçunāga's group is omitted altogether by the Jains. It is difficult to see
how the there traditions, each of which has its champions among modern
scholars, can be reconciled.
The Brāhman and Buddhist books record the length of the reigns of
Bimbisara and Ajātaçatru ; but they are not in agreement with one another,
and moreover the Brāhman accounts are not consistent. In the present
corrupt condition of the text the various mss. of the Purāņas attribute a
reign of either 28 or 38 years to Bimbisāra, and one of 25, 27, or 28 years
to Ajātaçatru (Kali Age, p. 21). Until the text has been restored by criti-
cal editing the authentic tradition of the Brāhmans cannot be ascertain-
ed. In contrast with this discrepancy the Buddhist chronicles of Ceylon,
the Dipavamsa and the Mahāvamsa, offer a consistent and more detailed
account of these reigns and of certain important events in the lifetime of
Siddhārtha, the Çākya prince who became the Buddha. Whether this
tradition is to be accepted as correct in preference to the other may be
questioned ; but it affords the best working hypothesis which has yet been
discovered. The chronology as determined by Prof. Geiger in the intro-
duction to his translation of the Mahāvamsa (pp. xl-xlvi) may by tabula-
ted as follows:
Cicunāga Kings
Siddhartha (the Buddha)
Bimbisara's birth
558 B. C. Born
563 B. C.
accession
543
Leaves his father's house 534
death
Becomes Buddha
Ajātacatru's accession
Meets Bimbisara (for the
99
528
. . .
9
491
491
. . .
second time)
death
459
Attains nirt āņa
1 See Chapter VII, pp. 163 f.
528
483
99
## p. 279 (#313) ############################################
XII]
NANDAS
279
After these two reigns we come once more to a period of conflicting
authorities and chronological uncertainty which lasts until the reign of
Chandragupta. The Buddhist genealogy preserved in the Mabāvamsa is
certainly not above suspicion“; for each of the five kings from Ajātasattu
to Nāgadāsaka is said to have killed his father and predecessor within a
period of fifty-six years, and we are solemnly told that, after the last of
these, Nāgadāsaka had occupied the throne for twenty-four years, the
citizens awoke to the fact that 'this is a dynasty of parricides' and appoint-
ed the minister Susunāga (Çiçunāga) in his stead. The Jain tradition recog-
nises only Udāyin and the nine Nandas as reigning during this interval ;
and the Purānic list (Kali Age, pp. 21-6, 68-9) is as follows :
Darcaka reigned 24, 25, or 35 years
Udāyin
Nandivardhana reigned 40, or 42 years.
Mahānandin
33
43
9
12
Mahāpadma
28, or 88
" Total, 100 ]years.
His eight sons
Darçaka appears not to be mentioned by the Buddhist writers,
unless indeed he is to be identified with Nāgadāsaka whom they
place before Udāvin (Udāyi-bhadda); but he is known to Sanskrit literature
as a king of Magadha and the brother of Pad māvatī, the second queen of
Udayana, king of Vatsa”. Udāyin, or Udāyi-bhadda, is known to all
the three traditions. Te him the Brāhmans and Jains attribute the
foundation of Kusumapura on the south bank of the Ganges. The new
city, which was either identical with the later Pātaliputra or in its imme-
diate neighbourhood, was built near the fortress which Ajātaçatru had esta-
blished at the village of Pāšali as a protection against the Vajjian (Vșiji)
confederacy of Licchavis, Videhas, and other clans of N. Bihār. The
foundation of Pāțaliputra is ascribed by the Buddhists to Kālāsoka.
The ten Çiçunāga kings are expressly called Kshatriyas by the
Purāņas, but the last of these, Mahānandin, became through his marriage
with a Çūdra woman the founder of a Çūdra dynasty which endured for
two generations, Mahāpadma and his eight sons. One of the latter,
usually supposed to be named Dhanananda, was on the throne in 326 B. O. ,
when Alexander the Great was obliged by the unwillingness of his
army to abandon his scheme of attacking the Prasioi, or 'eastern nations'
then united under the suzerainty of Magadha. Within a few years
of Alexander's retirement from India, this euzerainty passed from the
Nandas to the Mauryas, probably c. 321 3. c.
The period of the nine Nandas is thus determined. According
to the Purāņas they represent no new family : they are the direct descen-
1 Chapter VII, pp. 168 f.
2 Svapnavāsavadattā, Act, I (ed. Trivandrum Series, pp. 4, 5).
## p. 280 (#314) ############################################
280
[Ch.
THE PURANAS
.
dants of the Çiçunāgas, the last and the last but one of whom, Mahānandin
and Nandivardhana, bear names which indicate their connexion. There are,
therefore, two groups of these kings, which seem to be distinguished
in literature as the 'old' and the 'new' Nandas ; and, as Mr Jayaswal has
suggested,'new' and not 'nine' may have been the correct designation of the
later group. The Purāņas know no break of political continuity between
the Çiçunāgas and the Nandas ; but they recognise that a great social and
religious gulf has been fixed between the earlier and the later Nandas
by the flagrant violation of caste law which placed Mahāpadma, the
son of a Çūdra woman, on the throne ; and they mark their sense
of this chasm by interpolating after the reign of Mahānandin a summary of
the number of reigns in other contemporary dynasties before proceeding
with their account of the rulers of Magadha.
As to the origin of the Nandas we have no certain information ; but
the name is probably tribal, and it may be connected with the Nandas who
lived near the river Rāmgangā, between the Ganges and the Kosi in the
Himālayan region of the United Provinces. The countries of the Himālayan
fringe at this period were occupied by innumerable clans governed by tribal
constitutions which may best be described as aristocratic oligarchies.
Like the Rājputs, they were conquerors ruling in the midst of subject
peoples ; and, as Dr Vincent Smith has suggested3, many of these
clans may bave been of Tibeto-Chinese origin. It is possible that the
Çiçunāgas and Nandas may have been the descendants of mountain
chieftains who had won the kingdom of Magadha by conquest.
A Nanda king is twice mentioned in the Häthigumphā (inscrip-
tion of king Khāravela of Kalinga (Orissa). The inscription, which is
a record of events in thirteen (or fourteen) years of the king's reign,
has been badly preserved. Considerable portions have been lost, and both
the reading and the interpretation of many passages uncertain.
The record in its present state can only be used as a basis for history with
the utmost caution. It is clear, however, that in his fifth year Khāravela
executed some public work which was associated with the memory of
king Nanda', and that in his twelfth year he gained a victory over the king
1 Jour. Bihar aud Orissa Research Soc. , September 1915, p. 21.
2 Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. , pp, 292, 393. 3 Oxford History of India (1919), p. 49.
4 The different versions of this passage in line 6 of the inscr. depend chiefly,
though not solely, on the translation of ti-vāsa-sata; The following renderings have been
proposed :
(1) •He opened the three-yearly almshouse of Nandarāja' (Pandit Bhagvānlal
Indrāji, Trans. Inter. Or. Cong. , Leiden, 1884, Part 3, p. 135. Sata=sattra or catra, cf.
Ep. Ind. , x, Appendix, no. 967, p. 100, and no. 985, p. 102);
are
3
## p. 281 (#315) ############################################
XIII]
GROWTH OF MAGADHA: OTHER POWERS
:
281
of Magadha and, according to Mr Jayswal's translation, recovered
certain trophies which had been carried away by king Nanda.
These statements of the inscription, coupled with the somewhat
enigniatical testimony of an ancient Sanskrit. Ms. quoted by Mr Jayaswal, 2
seem to show that Kalinga had been conquered by one of the Nanda kings
and lost by another. Kalinga was undoubtedly conquered by Açoka, the
third of the Maurya emperors, c, 262 3. 0. 3 We must infer, therefore, either
that it was not included in the dominions of the first two emperors,
Chandragupta and Bindusāra, or that it had revolted and was reconquered
by Açoka.
Certain stages in the growth of the power of Magadha from its
ancient stronghold in the fortress of Girivraja may thus be traced. The
expansion began with the conquest of Anga (Monghyr and Bhāgalpur in
Bengal) by Bimbisāra, c. 500 B. C. The establishment of a supremacy over
Kāçi (Benares), Kosala (Oudh), and Videha (N. Bihār) was probably the
work of his son and successor, Ajātaçatru, in the first half of the fifth century.
Kalinga (Orissa) was perhaps, temporarily included in the empire as
a result of its conquest by a Nanda king. It remained for Chandragupta
to extend the imperial dominions by the annexation of the north-western
region which for a few years had owned the sway of Alexander the Great
and his satraps, and for Açoka to conquer, or reconquer, Kalinga.
The summary of reigns, which comes in the Purāṇas between the
description of the earlier and later Nandas, has reference to ten dynasties
in Northern and Central India which were contemporary with the kings of
Magadha. It is a bare list of names and numbers without any orderly
arrangement, and, as usual, the numbers given by the different mss. are not
consistent. The summary may be rearranged geographically as follows
(of, Kali Age, pp. 23-4, 69).
(United Provinces : Agra)
Central India and Gujarat)
1. Kurus; 36(19,26, 30, or 50) reigns. 6. Haihayas 28 (24)
reigns
2. Panchālas : 27 (25)
7. Acmakas : 25
3. Çūrasenas : 23
8. Vitihotras : 20
4. Kācis : 24 (36)
(N. Bihar)
(United Provinces : Oudh)
9. Mithilas : 28 (18)
5. Ikshvākus : 24
(Orissa)
10. Kalingas : 32 (22, 24, 26, or 40),,
[Contd. from p. 280
(2) 'He had an aqueduct, that had not been used for 103 years since king Nanda
(or since the Nanda kings), conducted into the city'(Prof. Luders, Ep. Ind. , x, Appendix,
no. 1345, p. 161. Sata=Catu, as also in the next translation);
(3) He brings into the capital. . . the canal excavated by king Nanda three
centuries before' (Mr. J. P. Jayaswal Mr. R. D. Banerji, Jour. Bihar and Orissa Research
Soc. , Dec. 1917, pp. 425 ff. )
1 Op. cit. , pp. 447, 464-5.
2 Ibid. p. 482.
3 Chapter xx.
)
9
## p. 282 (#316) ############################################
282
[CH.
THE PURANAS
9
1. The Kirus ara no doubt the Pūrus of the detailed list : but the number of
reigns differs.
2. The Pañchālas, a confederation of five tribes, were neighbours of the Kurus.
The capital of N. Pañchāla was Ahicchatra, now a ruined site still bearing the same
name near the village of Bāmnagar in the Bareilly District. The capital of S. Pañchāla
was Kāmpilya, now represented by ruins at the village of Kāmpil in the Farrukhābād
District.
3. The peoples living to the south of Kurukshetra claimei descent from
Yadu. Of these the Çūras-nas occupied the Muttra District and possibly some of
the territory still farther south. This capital was Muttra (Mathurā), the birthplace of the
hero Kộishņa.
To the west of Çūrasenas dwelt the Matsyas. The two peoples are constantly
associated, and it is possible that at this time they may have been united under one
king. The Matsyas occupied the state of Alwar and possibly some parts of Jaipur and
Bhartpur. Their capitals were Upaplavya, the site of which is uncertain, and Vairāta
the city of king Virāța, the modern Bairāt in Jaipur.
4. The little kingdom of Kāci (Benares) was bordered by Vatsa on the west,
Kosa'a on the north, and Magadha on the east. Some details of its relations with
these countries may be recovered from early literature. According to the Çatapatha
Brāhmaṇa (xiii, 5,4, 19), its king Dhșitarāshtra was conquered by the Bharata prince
Çatānika (p. 275). Sātrājita Such incidental notices of its later history as have been
preserved by Buddhist writers have been collected in Chapter VII, pp. 160 ff.
At different periods Kāçi came under the sway of the three successive suzerain
powers of Northern India--the Pūrus of Vatsa, the Ikshvākus of Kosala, and the
kings of Magadha; but it seems to have enjoyed its period of independent power in the
interval between the decline of Vatea and the rise of Kosala, when king Brahmadatta,
possibly about a century and a half before the Buddha's time, conquered Kosala. The
fame of Brahmadatta has been kept alive in Buddhist literature ; for in his reign the
Jātakas, or stories of the Buddha in previous births, are conventionally set.
The account given in the Purāṇas of the accession of Çiçunāga to the throne of
Magadha shows that this king was associated also with Kāçi (f. 277).
5 The number of Ikshvāku kings given in the summary is 22.
This is not
in accordance with the detailed list which (pp. 308 f) contains 30.
6, 7, 8. The Haihayas, Açmakas, and Vitihotras, like the çūrasenas, belonged
to the great family of the descendants of Yadu who occupied the countries of the
river Chambal in the north and the river Narbadā in the south; but it is difficult
to identify with precision the kingdoms indicated by these different names. Haihaya
in often used almost as a syronym of Yādava to denote the whole group of peoples ;
and the Vitihotras are a branch of the Haihayas. Both the Vitihotras and the Acmakas
are closely associated in literature with the Avantis of W. Mālwā, whese capital was
Ujjain (Ujjayini) on the Siprā, a tributary of the Chambal (Charmaņvati 1.
It would be strange if the rulers of a city so famous both politicaly and com.
mercially as Ujjain should have found no place in this summary. The most plausible
explanation of thcir apparent absence from the list is that they are here called
Hailayas.
9. The Mithilas take their name from Mithilā, the capital of the Videhas, one
of the numerous clans, possibly of Tibeto-Chinese origin, who inhabited Tirhut (the
districts of Champāran, Muzaffarpur, and Darbhangā in N. Bibār). Videgha Mathava,
to whom the Brāhmanisation of this region is attributed by the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa
(v. sup. p. 109) is probably its earliest recorded monarch. According to the Purāņas
the Āryan kings of the Videhas were a branch of the Pūru family. They are derived
1 For these people, see Pargiter, Mārk. pur. , pp. , 344-5, 371 ; J. R. A. S. ,1914 p. 274.
>
## p. 283 (#317) ############################################
XII]
ÇUNGAS, KANVAS, AND ANDHRAS
283
from Mimi, the son of Ikshvāku and the remote ancestor of Siradhvaja Janaka, the
father of Sīta, the heroine of the Rāmāyana. Like Rāma himself, he is supposed to have
lived before the Kali Age. It is possible that he may be the King Janaka of Videha who
is celeberated in the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads ; and, if so, the story of the Rāmāyana
has its origin in the later Brāhmana period. In the time of the Buddha, the Videhas
together with the Licchavis of Vaicāli (Basāch in toe Hājipur sub-division of
Muzaffarpur) and other powerful clans formed a confederation and were known collec-
tively by their tribal name as the Vșijis (Vajjis). The reduction of their power marks
an epoch in the expansion of the kingdom of Magadhal.
10. In the Purānas the monarchs of the five kingdoms of Anga (Monghyr and
Bhāgalpur), Vanga (Birbhūin, Murshidābād, Bardwān and Nadiā), Pundra (Chotā)
Nāgpur), Suhma (Bānkurā) and Midnapur), and Kalinga (Orissa) are derived from
eponymous heroes who are supposed to be brothers belonging to the family of Anu? .
With the exception of Anga, none of these kingdoms is mentioned in early literature
The earliest monument which throws light on the history of Kalinga is the Häthigum
phā inscription of Khāravela (v. sup. pp. 280f).
After this summary the royal genealogies are resumed, and detailed
lists of the later Nandas, the Mauryas, the Çungas, the Kaņvas, and the
Andhras follows. The continuous record then ceases ; but genealogie
more or less fragmentary and summaries of ruling powers both native
states and foreign invaders, continue to appear until about the end of the
fifth century A. D. when the Purāņas cease to be historical.
The five dynasties just mentioned are, as usual, regarded as succes-
sive ; but this can only be true of the Nandas, Mauryas, and Çungas. The
Çungas, Kanvas, and Andhras were contemporary, although no doubt they
claimed the suzerainty of N. India successively. That the first two of
these were ruling at the same time may be inferred from the incidental
statement that the first Andhra king destroged the last of the Kanvas and
'what was left of the Çungas' power' (Kali Age, pp. 38, 71). But it is
certain that the Çungas were flourishing after the reign of the first Andhra
king. Both powers, Çunga and Andhra alike, arose on the ruins of the
Maurya empire- the former in the Midland Country and the latter in
Southern India. It was probably not until the reign of the third Andhra
king, Çāņakarni, that they came into collision ; and then their political
association appears to have been transient.
The Purāņas, however, state or imply that ten Çunga kings, reigning
for 112 years, were succeeded by four Kaņvas, who reigned for 45 years,
and that then the first of the Andhras, Simuka, having wrested the kingdom
from the last of the Kaņvas, Suçarman, became the founder of a dynasty
of thirty kings who ruled over Magadha during a period of 460 years.
This is manifestly incorrect. It is evident that by piecing together three
1 Vedic Index, 1, pp. 271-3; II, p. 289; Pargiter, J. R. A. S. , 1910, pp. 19, 27, 29;
Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 25-6, 40-1.
2 Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. , pp. 324-9, 334.
3 For the history of these dynasties, so far as it comes within the limits of the
present volume, see Chapters XVIII-XXI, and XXIV.
a
## p. 284 (#318) ############################################
284
[CH.
THE PURANAS
separate lists some editor has constructed an entirely false chronology and
has perverted history. The Andhras had probably no connexion with
Magadha. Their only possible claim to a place in its records must have
been founded on a conquest which transferred to them the suzerainty
previously held by Magadhal.
In order to understand the situation we must consider what the
consequences of a triumph of this kind must have been. Under the
Nandas and the Mauryas Magadha had established a suzerainty which
passed by conquest to the first Çunga king, Pushyamitra, and was solemnly
proclaimed by his performance of the 'horse-sacrifice' (açvamedha)? This
suzerainty, and with it the proud title of chakravartin, ‘universal monarch,'
was contested successfully by the Andhra king who, as is known from the
Nānāghāt inscription of his queen, Nāganikā, celebrated the Açvamedha
on two occasions ; and, as we have seen (p. 269), there is good reason for
believing that the genealogies preserved in the Purāṇas have their origin in
the proclamation of the king's lineage which accompanied the performance
of this sacrifice.
The rank of a chakravartin must, at this period, have conferred on his
family an hereditary distinction which entitled all his successors to be
commemorated in the records of Magadha. Imperial and royal dignities
of this kind, when once established, are not readily abandoned, however
shadowy and unreal they may have become. It must be remembered that
the sovereigns of our own country continued to use the title and the arms
of France until the beginning of the nineteenth century, nearly two
centuries and a balf after the loss of Calais, the last of their French posses-
sions. Regarded as historical documents, the British coin-legends of the
eighteenth century, with their purely hereditary titles, are as misleading as
the Purāņas, which, arranging all in one long series, ascribe to Magadha
both its own kings and the families of the suzerains of Northern India.
1 Chapter XXIV.
2 Chapter XXI.
3. Bhüler, Arch. Sur. West. Ind. , V', pp. 60 ff.
## p. 285 (#319) ############################################
CHAPTER XIV
THE PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN NORTHERN INDIA DOWN TO
THE TIME OF ALEXANDER'S INVASION
The connexions between Persia and India date back to the
gray dawn
of the period of Indo-Irānian unity, when the Aryan ancestors of the
Hindus and Persians still formed an undivided branch of the Indo-
European stock. Though the separation of these two kindred peoples,
through their migrating into the respective countries they have occupied in
historic times, must have taken place more than three thousand years ago,
nevertheless there long remained a certain community of interest, which had
a bearing upon the early history of the north of India, where Persian
influence, and even dominion, was strongest. The aim of the present
chapter, therefore, is to bring out the main points of contact between
the two nations from the earliest times and to indicate the effect of the sway
exercised by Persia in Northern, or rather North-western, India prior to the
invasion of Alexander the Great and the fall of the Achaemenian Empire
of Irān in the latter part of the fourth century B. C.
To begin the sketch with the most remote ages, it may be assumed
that every student is familiar with the evidence that proves the historic re.
lationship between the Hindus and the Persians through ties of common
Āryan blood, close kinship in language and tradition, and through near
affinities in the matter of religious beliefs, ritual observances, manners and
customs.
An illustration or two may be chosen from the domain of religion
alone. The Veda and the Avesta, which are the earliest literary monu-
ments of India and Persia, contain sufficient evidence of the fact of
such connexion, even though each of these works may date from times long
after the period of Indo-Irānian separation. A certain relationship,
for example, is acknowledged to exist between the Vedic divinity Varuņa
and the Avestan deity Ahura Mazda, or Ormazd, the supreme god
of Zoroastrianism. Equally well known are the points of kinship between
the Indian Mitra and the Irānian Mithra, and, in less degree, between the
victorious Indra Vșitrahan of the Rigveda and the all-triumphant Vere-
thraghna of the Avestan Yashts. Nor need more than mention be made of
the parallels between Yama and Yima or of the cognate use made by
>
285
## p. 286 (#320) ############################################
286
[Ch.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
the Indians and the Persians of the sacred drink soma and haoma in their
religious rites. Scores more of likenesses and similarities might be adduced
to prove the long-established connexion between India and Irān, but they
are generally familiar. 1
Additional evidence, however, has comparatively recently been
furnished by certain cuneiform tablets which the German professor Hugo
Winckler discovered, in 1907, at Boghaz-köi in North-eastern Asia Minor.
These documents give, in their own special language, a record of treaties
between the kings of Mitāni and of the Hittites about 1400 B. C. Among the
gods called to witness are deities common in part to India and Persia, what-
ever the relation may be. The names involved in the tablets are Mi-it-ra,
U-rui-w-na, In-da-ra, and Na-sa-at-ti-ia, corresponding respectively to Mitra,
Varuņa, Indra, and Nāsatyā (the latter regularly a dual in the Veda, and re-
presenting the two Açvins) in the Indian pantheon. They answer likewise
in due order to the Persian Mithra and to those elements common between
the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda and the Vedic Varuņa, as explained
above ; but on the other hand Avestan Indra and Nāonhaithya (a singular
in Av. , Vd. x, 9 ; XIX, 43) appear as demons in the Zoroastrian scriptures.
It is not the place here to enter into a discussion of the question as
to whether the super-natural beings thus mentioned in the Boghaz-köi clay
tablets are to be interpreted as being 'proto-Irānian,' “Vedic,' 'Āryan,'
or even “Mitānian' alone, because the matter is still open to debate
by scholars. It is sufficient to draw attention to the general bearings of such
a discovery upon the subject of relationship between India and Persia, how-
ever direct or indirect the connexion may be. ?
1 A convenient summary of these now familiar facts will be found in F. Spiegel,
Die arische Periode, Leipzig, 1887. Throughout the present chapter the terms 'Irān’and
'Irānians' are to be taken broadly, so as to comprehend Persia and its people in
the widest significance—whether Medes, Persians, or Bactrians-as forming a special
division of the Indo-Irānian branch of the great Indo-European, or Indo-Gemanic,
stock. The designation ‘Āryan’ should really be restricted (as is done by scholars) to the
common bond represented historically by the Hindus and the Persians.
2 This valuable find of the tablets by Winckler (who died April 19, 1913) was first
reported in his Vorlaufige Nachrichten uber die Ausgrabungen in Boghaz-koi im Sommer
1907, in Mittheilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft, No. 35 (1908). The importance of
the discovery was at once recognised by scholars and has since received wide attention;
compare, for example, Eduard Meyer, Zt. für vergleichende Sprachforschung, Neue Folge
(1908). XLII, 1-27 ; idem, Sitzb. d. kgl. preu88. Akad. d. Wiss. , 1908, pp. 14-19; also
H. G. Jacobi J. R. A S. , 1909, pp. 721-726 ; H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 1095. 1100; A, B.
Keith, ibid. pp. 1100 1106 ; A. H. Sayce, ibid. pp. 1106-1107; J. Kennedy, ibid.
pp. 1107-1119; H. G. Jacobi, ibid. 1910, pp. 456. 464 ; A. B. Keith, ibid. pp. 464-466 ;
H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 846-850; see also M. Winternitz, Globus (1909), xcv, 120 ;
Macdonell and Keith Vedic Index, I. p. viii; and most recently J. H, Moulton, Early
Zoroastranism, pp, 5-7, 45, 139, 235 ; Eduard Mayer, Geschichte des Altertums, 3rd ed. ,
vol. I, pt 2. ** 455, 585, 590.
3
## p. 287 (#321) ############################################
XIV]
COMMON INDO-IRĀNIAN DOMAINS
287
in a
The geographical connexion between India and Persia historically was
a matter of fact that must have been known to both countries in antiquity
through the contiguity of their territorial situation. The realms which
correspond to-day to the buffer states of Afghānistān and Baluchistān
formed always a point of contact and were concerned in antiquity with
Persia's advances into Northern and North-western India as well as,
far less degree, with any move of aggrandisement on the part of Hindustān
in the direction of Irān? . Evidence from the Veda and the Avesta alike
attest the general fact.
Vedic scholars, for example, will agree with Avestan students that the
partly common Indo-Irānian domains comprised in the river-system above
the Indus basin, and verging toward the north-western border adjacent to
Irān, are referred to in the Rigveda in certain allusions to the district
indicated by the rivers Kubhā (Kābul), Krumu (Kurram), and Gomatī
(Gumal). They will equally unite in emphasising the fact that there are
other incidental allusions in the Veda, such as those to Gandhāra and
Gandhari, which may certainly be interpreted as referring to the districts of
Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi S. E. from Kābulº. A part of these districts has
belonged rather to Irān than to India in historic times, but it is equally
impossible to deny or to minimise the role they have played in India's
development ever since the remote age when the tribal ancestors of the
present Hindus occupied them on their way into their later established
home'. For the earliest period, we may well agree with the opinion
expressed by Eduard Meyer in an encyclopaedia article on Persia : The
dividing line between Iranian and Indian is drawn by the Hindu-Kush and
the Soliman mountains of the Indus district. The valley of the Kabul
(Cophen) is already occupied by Indian tribes, especially the Gandharians ;
and the Satagydae (Pers. Thatagu) there resident were presumably also of
Indian stock". These facts, because of their importance in regard to this
1 Arrain, Indica, 9, 12, for example, may be cited in support of this statement ;
for he avers, on Indian authority, that ‘a sense of justice, they say, prevented any
Indian king from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India. The assertion
certainly seems true for the earliest times.
2 For references to passages in the texts and for bibliographical allusions con-
sult Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, I, 162 (Kubhā), 199 (Krumu), 238 (Gomati),
and 218-219 (Gandhāra, Gandbāri). In regard to the territory to be located by the
Vedic river Sarasvati, the present tendency among Sanskrit specialists (most recently,
for example, Macdonell and Keith, op. cit. , II, 434-437) is to confine it to India itself
and not to follow the suggestions that have been made, on etymological grounds, to
connect the region thus watered by the Sarasvatſ directly with the region around the
Irānian river Harahvaitſ of the Avesta, or Hara(h)uvati of the Old Persian Inscriptions,
as a designation of the ancient land of Arachosia.
3 The student of history, with an eye to the significance of territorial location,
will at once recall the part played in after ages by Kābul as a strategic centre, and
as the doorway into India from the north, in the annals of Hindustān.
4 Encyclop Brit. , 11th ed. XXI, 203, art. 'Persia,'
## p. 288 (#322) ############################################
288
[CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
>
>
>
bridge between India and Irān, will be touched upon again below
(pp. 303-4).
various readings of the ass, as given by Mr Pargiter (Kali Age, p. 19), indi-
cate that this may be the correct form of the name which appears in his
text as Nandivardhana.
This intrusion of kings of Avanti in the records of Magadha is pro-
bably to be explained, as in the similar case of the Andhras (p. 284), as
the result of a suzerainty successfully asserted by Avanti ; and this may
have been the outcome of the attack on Ajātaçatru which Pradyota was
reported to have been contemplating shortly before the Buddha's death. If
so, the supremacy of Avanti, which may have been temporary, was not
established until some years after the beginning of Ajātaçatru's reigon, and
the Pradyotas of the Purāņas were contemporay with the later Çiçunāgas
Ajātaçatru, Darçaka, and Udāyin.
1 See Chapter VII, pp. 160, 163, 165, 166
2 Kali Age, pp. 18-21, 68. 9.
: Mr Harit Krishna Dey in Udayana Vatsarāja(Calcutta, 1919), p. 4.
4 Lacote, Guņādhya et la Brhatkathā, p. 164,
5 Chapter VII, p. 165.
## p. 278 (#312) ############################################
278
[CH.
THE PURĀNAS
.
It is only when we come to the reigns of Bimbisara and Ajātaçatru in
the Çiçunāga dynasty that we find the firm ground of history. At this
period lived Mahāvīra and Buddha, the founders, or perhaps rather the
reformers, of Jainism and Budhism ; and now the Purāņas are supplement-
ed by two other lines of tradition which are presumably independent. In
the Jain accounts Bimbisāra appears as Çreņika and Ajātaçatru as Kūņika:
the former began the expansion of Magadha by the conquest of the
kingdom of Anga (Monghyr and Bhāgalpur), and the latter is said to have
come to the throne after the death of Mahāvira and a few years before the
death of Buddha.
Unfortunately on one important point the three sources of imformation
are not in agreement. The first eight kings in the Purānic genealogy may
be arranged into two groups, the first headed by Çiçunāga and the second
by Bimbisara. This arrangement is reversed in the Buddhist lists, while
Çiçunāga's group is omitted altogether by the Jains. It is difficult to see
how the there traditions, each of which has its champions among modern
scholars, can be reconciled.
The Brāhman and Buddhist books record the length of the reigns of
Bimbisara and Ajātaçatru ; but they are not in agreement with one another,
and moreover the Brāhman accounts are not consistent. In the present
corrupt condition of the text the various mss. of the Purāņas attribute a
reign of either 28 or 38 years to Bimbisāra, and one of 25, 27, or 28 years
to Ajātaçatru (Kali Age, p. 21). Until the text has been restored by criti-
cal editing the authentic tradition of the Brāhmans cannot be ascertain-
ed. In contrast with this discrepancy the Buddhist chronicles of Ceylon,
the Dipavamsa and the Mahāvamsa, offer a consistent and more detailed
account of these reigns and of certain important events in the lifetime of
Siddhārtha, the Çākya prince who became the Buddha. Whether this
tradition is to be accepted as correct in preference to the other may be
questioned ; but it affords the best working hypothesis which has yet been
discovered. The chronology as determined by Prof. Geiger in the intro-
duction to his translation of the Mahāvamsa (pp. xl-xlvi) may by tabula-
ted as follows:
Cicunāga Kings
Siddhartha (the Buddha)
Bimbisara's birth
558 B. C. Born
563 B. C.
accession
543
Leaves his father's house 534
death
Becomes Buddha
Ajātacatru's accession
Meets Bimbisara (for the
99
528
. . .
9
491
491
. . .
second time)
death
459
Attains nirt āņa
1 See Chapter VII, pp. 163 f.
528
483
99
## p. 279 (#313) ############################################
XII]
NANDAS
279
After these two reigns we come once more to a period of conflicting
authorities and chronological uncertainty which lasts until the reign of
Chandragupta. The Buddhist genealogy preserved in the Mabāvamsa is
certainly not above suspicion“; for each of the five kings from Ajātasattu
to Nāgadāsaka is said to have killed his father and predecessor within a
period of fifty-six years, and we are solemnly told that, after the last of
these, Nāgadāsaka had occupied the throne for twenty-four years, the
citizens awoke to the fact that 'this is a dynasty of parricides' and appoint-
ed the minister Susunāga (Çiçunāga) in his stead. The Jain tradition recog-
nises only Udāyin and the nine Nandas as reigning during this interval ;
and the Purānic list (Kali Age, pp. 21-6, 68-9) is as follows :
Darcaka reigned 24, 25, or 35 years
Udāyin
Nandivardhana reigned 40, or 42 years.
Mahānandin
33
43
9
12
Mahāpadma
28, or 88
" Total, 100 ]years.
His eight sons
Darçaka appears not to be mentioned by the Buddhist writers,
unless indeed he is to be identified with Nāgadāsaka whom they
place before Udāvin (Udāyi-bhadda); but he is known to Sanskrit literature
as a king of Magadha and the brother of Pad māvatī, the second queen of
Udayana, king of Vatsa”. Udāyin, or Udāyi-bhadda, is known to all
the three traditions. Te him the Brāhmans and Jains attribute the
foundation of Kusumapura on the south bank of the Ganges. The new
city, which was either identical with the later Pātaliputra or in its imme-
diate neighbourhood, was built near the fortress which Ajātaçatru had esta-
blished at the village of Pāšali as a protection against the Vajjian (Vșiji)
confederacy of Licchavis, Videhas, and other clans of N. Bihār. The
foundation of Pāțaliputra is ascribed by the Buddhists to Kālāsoka.
The ten Çiçunāga kings are expressly called Kshatriyas by the
Purāņas, but the last of these, Mahānandin, became through his marriage
with a Çūdra woman the founder of a Çūdra dynasty which endured for
two generations, Mahāpadma and his eight sons. One of the latter,
usually supposed to be named Dhanananda, was on the throne in 326 B. O. ,
when Alexander the Great was obliged by the unwillingness of his
army to abandon his scheme of attacking the Prasioi, or 'eastern nations'
then united under the suzerainty of Magadha. Within a few years
of Alexander's retirement from India, this euzerainty passed from the
Nandas to the Mauryas, probably c. 321 3. c.
The period of the nine Nandas is thus determined. According
to the Purāņas they represent no new family : they are the direct descen-
1 Chapter VII, pp. 168 f.
2 Svapnavāsavadattā, Act, I (ed. Trivandrum Series, pp. 4, 5).
## p. 280 (#314) ############################################
280
[Ch.
THE PURANAS
.
dants of the Çiçunāgas, the last and the last but one of whom, Mahānandin
and Nandivardhana, bear names which indicate their connexion. There are,
therefore, two groups of these kings, which seem to be distinguished
in literature as the 'old' and the 'new' Nandas ; and, as Mr Jayaswal has
suggested,'new' and not 'nine' may have been the correct designation of the
later group. The Purāņas know no break of political continuity between
the Çiçunāgas and the Nandas ; but they recognise that a great social and
religious gulf has been fixed between the earlier and the later Nandas
by the flagrant violation of caste law which placed Mahāpadma, the
son of a Çūdra woman, on the throne ; and they mark their sense
of this chasm by interpolating after the reign of Mahānandin a summary of
the number of reigns in other contemporary dynasties before proceeding
with their account of the rulers of Magadha.
As to the origin of the Nandas we have no certain information ; but
the name is probably tribal, and it may be connected with the Nandas who
lived near the river Rāmgangā, between the Ganges and the Kosi in the
Himālayan region of the United Provinces. The countries of the Himālayan
fringe at this period were occupied by innumerable clans governed by tribal
constitutions which may best be described as aristocratic oligarchies.
Like the Rājputs, they were conquerors ruling in the midst of subject
peoples ; and, as Dr Vincent Smith has suggested3, many of these
clans may bave been of Tibeto-Chinese origin. It is possible that the
Çiçunāgas and Nandas may have been the descendants of mountain
chieftains who had won the kingdom of Magadha by conquest.
A Nanda king is twice mentioned in the Häthigumphā (inscrip-
tion of king Khāravela of Kalinga (Orissa). The inscription, which is
a record of events in thirteen (or fourteen) years of the king's reign,
has been badly preserved. Considerable portions have been lost, and both
the reading and the interpretation of many passages uncertain.
The record in its present state can only be used as a basis for history with
the utmost caution. It is clear, however, that in his fifth year Khāravela
executed some public work which was associated with the memory of
king Nanda', and that in his twelfth year he gained a victory over the king
1 Jour. Bihar aud Orissa Research Soc. , September 1915, p. 21.
2 Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. , pp, 292, 393. 3 Oxford History of India (1919), p. 49.
4 The different versions of this passage in line 6 of the inscr. depend chiefly,
though not solely, on the translation of ti-vāsa-sata; The following renderings have been
proposed :
(1) •He opened the three-yearly almshouse of Nandarāja' (Pandit Bhagvānlal
Indrāji, Trans. Inter. Or. Cong. , Leiden, 1884, Part 3, p. 135. Sata=sattra or catra, cf.
Ep. Ind. , x, Appendix, no. 967, p. 100, and no. 985, p. 102);
are
3
## p. 281 (#315) ############################################
XIII]
GROWTH OF MAGADHA: OTHER POWERS
:
281
of Magadha and, according to Mr Jayswal's translation, recovered
certain trophies which had been carried away by king Nanda.
These statements of the inscription, coupled with the somewhat
enigniatical testimony of an ancient Sanskrit. Ms. quoted by Mr Jayaswal, 2
seem to show that Kalinga had been conquered by one of the Nanda kings
and lost by another. Kalinga was undoubtedly conquered by Açoka, the
third of the Maurya emperors, c, 262 3. 0. 3 We must infer, therefore, either
that it was not included in the dominions of the first two emperors,
Chandragupta and Bindusāra, or that it had revolted and was reconquered
by Açoka.
Certain stages in the growth of the power of Magadha from its
ancient stronghold in the fortress of Girivraja may thus be traced. The
expansion began with the conquest of Anga (Monghyr and Bhāgalpur in
Bengal) by Bimbisāra, c. 500 B. C. The establishment of a supremacy over
Kāçi (Benares), Kosala (Oudh), and Videha (N. Bihār) was probably the
work of his son and successor, Ajātaçatru, in the first half of the fifth century.
Kalinga (Orissa) was perhaps, temporarily included in the empire as
a result of its conquest by a Nanda king. It remained for Chandragupta
to extend the imperial dominions by the annexation of the north-western
region which for a few years had owned the sway of Alexander the Great
and his satraps, and for Açoka to conquer, or reconquer, Kalinga.
The summary of reigns, which comes in the Purāṇas between the
description of the earlier and later Nandas, has reference to ten dynasties
in Northern and Central India which were contemporary with the kings of
Magadha. It is a bare list of names and numbers without any orderly
arrangement, and, as usual, the numbers given by the different mss. are not
consistent. The summary may be rearranged geographically as follows
(of, Kali Age, pp. 23-4, 69).
(United Provinces : Agra)
Central India and Gujarat)
1. Kurus; 36(19,26, 30, or 50) reigns. 6. Haihayas 28 (24)
reigns
2. Panchālas : 27 (25)
7. Acmakas : 25
3. Çūrasenas : 23
8. Vitihotras : 20
4. Kācis : 24 (36)
(N. Bihar)
(United Provinces : Oudh)
9. Mithilas : 28 (18)
5. Ikshvākus : 24
(Orissa)
10. Kalingas : 32 (22, 24, 26, or 40),,
[Contd. from p. 280
(2) 'He had an aqueduct, that had not been used for 103 years since king Nanda
(or since the Nanda kings), conducted into the city'(Prof. Luders, Ep. Ind. , x, Appendix,
no. 1345, p. 161. Sata=Catu, as also in the next translation);
(3) He brings into the capital. . . the canal excavated by king Nanda three
centuries before' (Mr. J. P. Jayaswal Mr. R. D. Banerji, Jour. Bihar and Orissa Research
Soc. , Dec. 1917, pp. 425 ff. )
1 Op. cit. , pp. 447, 464-5.
2 Ibid. p. 482.
3 Chapter xx.
)
9
## p. 282 (#316) ############################################
282
[CH.
THE PURANAS
9
1. The Kirus ara no doubt the Pūrus of the detailed list : but the number of
reigns differs.
2. The Pañchālas, a confederation of five tribes, were neighbours of the Kurus.
The capital of N. Pañchāla was Ahicchatra, now a ruined site still bearing the same
name near the village of Bāmnagar in the Bareilly District. The capital of S. Pañchāla
was Kāmpilya, now represented by ruins at the village of Kāmpil in the Farrukhābād
District.
3. The peoples living to the south of Kurukshetra claimei descent from
Yadu. Of these the Çūras-nas occupied the Muttra District and possibly some of
the territory still farther south. This capital was Muttra (Mathurā), the birthplace of the
hero Kộishņa.
To the west of Çūrasenas dwelt the Matsyas. The two peoples are constantly
associated, and it is possible that at this time they may have been united under one
king. The Matsyas occupied the state of Alwar and possibly some parts of Jaipur and
Bhartpur. Their capitals were Upaplavya, the site of which is uncertain, and Vairāta
the city of king Virāța, the modern Bairāt in Jaipur.
4. The little kingdom of Kāci (Benares) was bordered by Vatsa on the west,
Kosa'a on the north, and Magadha on the east. Some details of its relations with
these countries may be recovered from early literature. According to the Çatapatha
Brāhmaṇa (xiii, 5,4, 19), its king Dhșitarāshtra was conquered by the Bharata prince
Çatānika (p. 275). Sātrājita Such incidental notices of its later history as have been
preserved by Buddhist writers have been collected in Chapter VII, pp. 160 ff.
At different periods Kāçi came under the sway of the three successive suzerain
powers of Northern India--the Pūrus of Vatsa, the Ikshvākus of Kosala, and the
kings of Magadha; but it seems to have enjoyed its period of independent power in the
interval between the decline of Vatea and the rise of Kosala, when king Brahmadatta,
possibly about a century and a half before the Buddha's time, conquered Kosala. The
fame of Brahmadatta has been kept alive in Buddhist literature ; for in his reign the
Jātakas, or stories of the Buddha in previous births, are conventionally set.
The account given in the Purāṇas of the accession of Çiçunāga to the throne of
Magadha shows that this king was associated also with Kāçi (f. 277).
5 The number of Ikshvāku kings given in the summary is 22.
This is not
in accordance with the detailed list which (pp. 308 f) contains 30.
6, 7, 8. The Haihayas, Açmakas, and Vitihotras, like the çūrasenas, belonged
to the great family of the descendants of Yadu who occupied the countries of the
river Chambal in the north and the river Narbadā in the south; but it is difficult
to identify with precision the kingdoms indicated by these different names. Haihaya
in often used almost as a syronym of Yādava to denote the whole group of peoples ;
and the Vitihotras are a branch of the Haihayas. Both the Vitihotras and the Acmakas
are closely associated in literature with the Avantis of W. Mālwā, whese capital was
Ujjain (Ujjayini) on the Siprā, a tributary of the Chambal (Charmaņvati 1.
It would be strange if the rulers of a city so famous both politicaly and com.
mercially as Ujjain should have found no place in this summary. The most plausible
explanation of thcir apparent absence from the list is that they are here called
Hailayas.
9. The Mithilas take their name from Mithilā, the capital of the Videhas, one
of the numerous clans, possibly of Tibeto-Chinese origin, who inhabited Tirhut (the
districts of Champāran, Muzaffarpur, and Darbhangā in N. Bibār). Videgha Mathava,
to whom the Brāhmanisation of this region is attributed by the Çatapatha Brāhmaṇa
(v. sup. p. 109) is probably its earliest recorded monarch. According to the Purāņas
the Āryan kings of the Videhas were a branch of the Pūru family. They are derived
1 For these people, see Pargiter, Mārk. pur. , pp. , 344-5, 371 ; J. R. A. S. ,1914 p. 274.
>
## p. 283 (#317) ############################################
XII]
ÇUNGAS, KANVAS, AND ANDHRAS
283
from Mimi, the son of Ikshvāku and the remote ancestor of Siradhvaja Janaka, the
father of Sīta, the heroine of the Rāmāyana. Like Rāma himself, he is supposed to have
lived before the Kali Age. It is possible that he may be the King Janaka of Videha who
is celeberated in the Brāhmaṇas and Upanishads ; and, if so, the story of the Rāmāyana
has its origin in the later Brāhmana period. In the time of the Buddha, the Videhas
together with the Licchavis of Vaicāli (Basāch in toe Hājipur sub-division of
Muzaffarpur) and other powerful clans formed a confederation and were known collec-
tively by their tribal name as the Vșijis (Vajjis). The reduction of their power marks
an epoch in the expansion of the kingdom of Magadhal.
10. In the Purānas the monarchs of the five kingdoms of Anga (Monghyr and
Bhāgalpur), Vanga (Birbhūin, Murshidābād, Bardwān and Nadiā), Pundra (Chotā)
Nāgpur), Suhma (Bānkurā) and Midnapur), and Kalinga (Orissa) are derived from
eponymous heroes who are supposed to be brothers belonging to the family of Anu? .
With the exception of Anga, none of these kingdoms is mentioned in early literature
The earliest monument which throws light on the history of Kalinga is the Häthigum
phā inscription of Khāravela (v. sup. pp. 280f).
After this summary the royal genealogies are resumed, and detailed
lists of the later Nandas, the Mauryas, the Çungas, the Kaņvas, and the
Andhras follows. The continuous record then ceases ; but genealogie
more or less fragmentary and summaries of ruling powers both native
states and foreign invaders, continue to appear until about the end of the
fifth century A. D. when the Purāņas cease to be historical.
The five dynasties just mentioned are, as usual, regarded as succes-
sive ; but this can only be true of the Nandas, Mauryas, and Çungas. The
Çungas, Kanvas, and Andhras were contemporary, although no doubt they
claimed the suzerainty of N. India successively. That the first two of
these were ruling at the same time may be inferred from the incidental
statement that the first Andhra king destroged the last of the Kanvas and
'what was left of the Çungas' power' (Kali Age, pp. 38, 71). But it is
certain that the Çungas were flourishing after the reign of the first Andhra
king. Both powers, Çunga and Andhra alike, arose on the ruins of the
Maurya empire- the former in the Midland Country and the latter in
Southern India. It was probably not until the reign of the third Andhra
king, Çāņakarni, that they came into collision ; and then their political
association appears to have been transient.
The Purāņas, however, state or imply that ten Çunga kings, reigning
for 112 years, were succeeded by four Kaņvas, who reigned for 45 years,
and that then the first of the Andhras, Simuka, having wrested the kingdom
from the last of the Kaņvas, Suçarman, became the founder of a dynasty
of thirty kings who ruled over Magadha during a period of 460 years.
This is manifestly incorrect. It is evident that by piecing together three
1 Vedic Index, 1, pp. 271-3; II, p. 289; Pargiter, J. R. A. S. , 1910, pp. 19, 27, 29;
Rhys Davids, Buddhist India, pp. 25-6, 40-1.
2 Pargiter, Mārk. Pur. , pp. 324-9, 334.
3 For the history of these dynasties, so far as it comes within the limits of the
present volume, see Chapters XVIII-XXI, and XXIV.
a
## p. 284 (#318) ############################################
284
[CH.
THE PURANAS
separate lists some editor has constructed an entirely false chronology and
has perverted history. The Andhras had probably no connexion with
Magadha. Their only possible claim to a place in its records must have
been founded on a conquest which transferred to them the suzerainty
previously held by Magadhal.
In order to understand the situation we must consider what the
consequences of a triumph of this kind must have been. Under the
Nandas and the Mauryas Magadha had established a suzerainty which
passed by conquest to the first Çunga king, Pushyamitra, and was solemnly
proclaimed by his performance of the 'horse-sacrifice' (açvamedha)? This
suzerainty, and with it the proud title of chakravartin, ‘universal monarch,'
was contested successfully by the Andhra king who, as is known from the
Nānāghāt inscription of his queen, Nāganikā, celebrated the Açvamedha
on two occasions ; and, as we have seen (p. 269), there is good reason for
believing that the genealogies preserved in the Purāṇas have their origin in
the proclamation of the king's lineage which accompanied the performance
of this sacrifice.
The rank of a chakravartin must, at this period, have conferred on his
family an hereditary distinction which entitled all his successors to be
commemorated in the records of Magadha. Imperial and royal dignities
of this kind, when once established, are not readily abandoned, however
shadowy and unreal they may have become. It must be remembered that
the sovereigns of our own country continued to use the title and the arms
of France until the beginning of the nineteenth century, nearly two
centuries and a balf after the loss of Calais, the last of their French posses-
sions. Regarded as historical documents, the British coin-legends of the
eighteenth century, with their purely hereditary titles, are as misleading as
the Purāņas, which, arranging all in one long series, ascribe to Magadha
both its own kings and the families of the suzerains of Northern India.
1 Chapter XXIV.
2 Chapter XXI.
3. Bhüler, Arch. Sur. West. Ind. , V', pp. 60 ff.
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CHAPTER XIV
THE PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN NORTHERN INDIA DOWN TO
THE TIME OF ALEXANDER'S INVASION
The connexions between Persia and India date back to the
gray dawn
of the period of Indo-Irānian unity, when the Aryan ancestors of the
Hindus and Persians still formed an undivided branch of the Indo-
European stock. Though the separation of these two kindred peoples,
through their migrating into the respective countries they have occupied in
historic times, must have taken place more than three thousand years ago,
nevertheless there long remained a certain community of interest, which had
a bearing upon the early history of the north of India, where Persian
influence, and even dominion, was strongest. The aim of the present
chapter, therefore, is to bring out the main points of contact between
the two nations from the earliest times and to indicate the effect of the sway
exercised by Persia in Northern, or rather North-western, India prior to the
invasion of Alexander the Great and the fall of the Achaemenian Empire
of Irān in the latter part of the fourth century B. C.
To begin the sketch with the most remote ages, it may be assumed
that every student is familiar with the evidence that proves the historic re.
lationship between the Hindus and the Persians through ties of common
Āryan blood, close kinship in language and tradition, and through near
affinities in the matter of religious beliefs, ritual observances, manners and
customs.
An illustration or two may be chosen from the domain of religion
alone. The Veda and the Avesta, which are the earliest literary monu-
ments of India and Persia, contain sufficient evidence of the fact of
such connexion, even though each of these works may date from times long
after the period of Indo-Irānian separation. A certain relationship,
for example, is acknowledged to exist between the Vedic divinity Varuņa
and the Avestan deity Ahura Mazda, or Ormazd, the supreme god
of Zoroastrianism. Equally well known are the points of kinship between
the Indian Mitra and the Irānian Mithra, and, in less degree, between the
victorious Indra Vșitrahan of the Rigveda and the all-triumphant Vere-
thraghna of the Avestan Yashts. Nor need more than mention be made of
the parallels between Yama and Yima or of the cognate use made by
>
285
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286
[Ch.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
the Indians and the Persians of the sacred drink soma and haoma in their
religious rites. Scores more of likenesses and similarities might be adduced
to prove the long-established connexion between India and Irān, but they
are generally familiar. 1
Additional evidence, however, has comparatively recently been
furnished by certain cuneiform tablets which the German professor Hugo
Winckler discovered, in 1907, at Boghaz-köi in North-eastern Asia Minor.
These documents give, in their own special language, a record of treaties
between the kings of Mitāni and of the Hittites about 1400 B. C. Among the
gods called to witness are deities common in part to India and Persia, what-
ever the relation may be. The names involved in the tablets are Mi-it-ra,
U-rui-w-na, In-da-ra, and Na-sa-at-ti-ia, corresponding respectively to Mitra,
Varuņa, Indra, and Nāsatyā (the latter regularly a dual in the Veda, and re-
presenting the two Açvins) in the Indian pantheon. They answer likewise
in due order to the Persian Mithra and to those elements common between
the Zoroastrian god Ahura Mazda and the Vedic Varuņa, as explained
above ; but on the other hand Avestan Indra and Nāonhaithya (a singular
in Av. , Vd. x, 9 ; XIX, 43) appear as demons in the Zoroastrian scriptures.
It is not the place here to enter into a discussion of the question as
to whether the super-natural beings thus mentioned in the Boghaz-köi clay
tablets are to be interpreted as being 'proto-Irānian,' “Vedic,' 'Āryan,'
or even “Mitānian' alone, because the matter is still open to debate
by scholars. It is sufficient to draw attention to the general bearings of such
a discovery upon the subject of relationship between India and Persia, how-
ever direct or indirect the connexion may be. ?
1 A convenient summary of these now familiar facts will be found in F. Spiegel,
Die arische Periode, Leipzig, 1887. Throughout the present chapter the terms 'Irān’and
'Irānians' are to be taken broadly, so as to comprehend Persia and its people in
the widest significance—whether Medes, Persians, or Bactrians-as forming a special
division of the Indo-Irānian branch of the great Indo-European, or Indo-Gemanic,
stock. The designation ‘Āryan’ should really be restricted (as is done by scholars) to the
common bond represented historically by the Hindus and the Persians.
2 This valuable find of the tablets by Winckler (who died April 19, 1913) was first
reported in his Vorlaufige Nachrichten uber die Ausgrabungen in Boghaz-koi im Sommer
1907, in Mittheilungen der deutschen Orientgesellschaft, No. 35 (1908). The importance of
the discovery was at once recognised by scholars and has since received wide attention;
compare, for example, Eduard Meyer, Zt. für vergleichende Sprachforschung, Neue Folge
(1908). XLII, 1-27 ; idem, Sitzb. d. kgl. preu88. Akad. d. Wiss. , 1908, pp. 14-19; also
H. G. Jacobi J. R. A S. , 1909, pp. 721-726 ; H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 1095. 1100; A, B.
Keith, ibid. pp. 1100 1106 ; A. H. Sayce, ibid. pp. 1106-1107; J. Kennedy, ibid.
pp. 1107-1119; H. G. Jacobi, ibid. 1910, pp. 456. 464 ; A. B. Keith, ibid. pp. 464-466 ;
H. Oldenberg, ibid. pp. 846-850; see also M. Winternitz, Globus (1909), xcv, 120 ;
Macdonell and Keith Vedic Index, I. p. viii; and most recently J. H, Moulton, Early
Zoroastranism, pp, 5-7, 45, 139, 235 ; Eduard Mayer, Geschichte des Altertums, 3rd ed. ,
vol. I, pt 2. ** 455, 585, 590.
3
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XIV]
COMMON INDO-IRĀNIAN DOMAINS
287
in a
The geographical connexion between India and Persia historically was
a matter of fact that must have been known to both countries in antiquity
through the contiguity of their territorial situation. The realms which
correspond to-day to the buffer states of Afghānistān and Baluchistān
formed always a point of contact and were concerned in antiquity with
Persia's advances into Northern and North-western India as well as,
far less degree, with any move of aggrandisement on the part of Hindustān
in the direction of Irān? . Evidence from the Veda and the Avesta alike
attest the general fact.
Vedic scholars, for example, will agree with Avestan students that the
partly common Indo-Irānian domains comprised in the river-system above
the Indus basin, and verging toward the north-western border adjacent to
Irān, are referred to in the Rigveda in certain allusions to the district
indicated by the rivers Kubhā (Kābul), Krumu (Kurram), and Gomatī
(Gumal). They will equally unite in emphasising the fact that there are
other incidental allusions in the Veda, such as those to Gandhāra and
Gandhari, which may certainly be interpreted as referring to the districts of
Peshāwar and Rāwalpindi S. E. from Kābulº. A part of these districts has
belonged rather to Irān than to India in historic times, but it is equally
impossible to deny or to minimise the role they have played in India's
development ever since the remote age when the tribal ancestors of the
present Hindus occupied them on their way into their later established
home'. For the earliest period, we may well agree with the opinion
expressed by Eduard Meyer in an encyclopaedia article on Persia : The
dividing line between Iranian and Indian is drawn by the Hindu-Kush and
the Soliman mountains of the Indus district. The valley of the Kabul
(Cophen) is already occupied by Indian tribes, especially the Gandharians ;
and the Satagydae (Pers. Thatagu) there resident were presumably also of
Indian stock". These facts, because of their importance in regard to this
1 Arrain, Indica, 9, 12, for example, may be cited in support of this statement ;
for he avers, on Indian authority, that ‘a sense of justice, they say, prevented any
Indian king from attempting conquest beyond the limits of India. The assertion
certainly seems true for the earliest times.
2 For references to passages in the texts and for bibliographical allusions con-
sult Macdonell and Keith, Vedic Index, I, 162 (Kubhā), 199 (Krumu), 238 (Gomati),
and 218-219 (Gandhāra, Gandbāri). In regard to the territory to be located by the
Vedic river Sarasvati, the present tendency among Sanskrit specialists (most recently,
for example, Macdonell and Keith, op. cit. , II, 434-437) is to confine it to India itself
and not to follow the suggestions that have been made, on etymological grounds, to
connect the region thus watered by the Sarasvatſ directly with the region around the
Irānian river Harahvaitſ of the Avesta, or Hara(h)uvati of the Old Persian Inscriptions,
as a designation of the ancient land of Arachosia.
3 The student of history, with an eye to the significance of territorial location,
will at once recall the part played in after ages by Kābul as a strategic centre, and
as the doorway into India from the north, in the annals of Hindustān.
4 Encyclop Brit. , 11th ed. XXI, 203, art. 'Persia,'
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288
[CH.
PERSIAN DOMINIONS IN N. INDIA
>
>
>
bridge between India and Irān, will be touched upon again below
(pp. 303-4).
