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Telugu Historyతెలుగు చరిత్ర

Chandragupta Maurya

Founder of the Maurya empire (reigned c. 322–296 BCE). His empire probably did not reach the Telugu country, but Megasthenes, the Greek envoy at his court, described the Andhras and the Kalingas as powerful peoples with kings and armies of their own.

Chandragupta founded the Maurya dynasty of Magadha. Indian, Sri Lankan and Burmese traditions all give him a reign of twenty-four years.1 Sewell dated it to 322/321–296 BCE. E. Hultzsch, working from the Greek evidence, preferred a working date of 320 BCE for his accession.23 The Greeks called him Sandrokottos.1

Rise to power

According to Robert Sewell, Chandragupta overthrew the Nanda dynasty of Magadha and took the throne in 322 or 321 BCE. He drove out the garrisons Alexander had left in north-western India, and became in effect the emperor of northern India.4 Vincent Smith wrote that he was helped by a Brahman counsellor, Chanakya, who became his minister.5 The Puranas say that Kautilya (Chanakya) would set Chandragupta on the throne.1 The Roman historian Justin, in J. W. McCrindle’s translation quoted by Hultzsch, says he was “born in humble life”. Justin adds that after freeing India from foreign rule, Chandragupta “oppressed with servitude the very people whom he had emancipated”.6

In about 305 BCE Seleukos Nikator, ruler of western Asia, invaded India. The war ended in a treaty and a marriage alliance. Seleukos gave up territory west of the Indus and received 500 elephants.47 Smith thought Chandragupta’s empire then reached from the Hindu Kush to the Narbada river.8 If so, it did not include the Telugu country.

Megasthenes and the peoples of the south-east

Seleukos sent Megasthenes as his ambassador to Chandragupta’s capital, Pataliputra. Megasthenes described the city’s walls, with 570 towers and 64 gates.49 His book is lost, but later writers quoted it.8

Two passages of Pliny that drew on Megasthenes concern the Telugu coast. The first describes the Calingae, whose royal city was called Parthalis. Their king was guarded by 60,000 foot-soldiers, 1,000 horsemen and 700 elephants.10 The second describes the Andarae:

a still more powerful race, which possesses numerous villages, and thirty towns defended by walls and towers, and which supplies its king with an army of 100,000 infantry, 2000 cavalry, and 1000 elephants.11

Hultzsch identified the Andarae with the Andhras and held that Pliny had borrowed this information from Megasthenes.12 McCrindle placed the Andhras originally between the middle courses of the Godavari and Krishna rivers.11 On this reading, in Chandragupta’s day the Andhras and the Kalingas each had their own king and army. Pliny himself wrote in the 1st century CE, so the attribution to Megasthenes is an inference.1312

Government

Smith noted that the later inscription of Rudradaman at Girnar, in Kathiawar, records an irrigation lake first embanked in Chandragupta’s time.14 Tradition makes his minister Chanakya, also called Kautilya, the author of the Arthashastra, a treatise on government. Sewell doubted this, noting that many scholars thought the work was at least partly later.4 Like his grandson, Chandragupta is given the epithet Piyadamsana (“of pleasing appearance”) in a Sanskrit drama.15

Death and the southern tradition

Jain tradition, as Sewell relates it, carries Chandragupta to the south. Warned by the Jain teacher Bhadrabahu of a twelve-year famine, he is said to have abdicated in about 296 BCE. He travelled with Bhadrabahu to Sravana Belgola in Mysore and there, years later, starved himself to death in the Jain manner.16 Smith wrote only that he “died or abdicated”.17 No source used here records Chandragupta in the Telugu country itself. He was succeeded by his son Bindusara.16

Footnotes

  1. Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), p. xxxii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3

  2. Sewell, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 320 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  3. Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), p. xxxv (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  4. Robert Sewell, The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 5 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2 ↩3 ↩4

  5. Vincent A. Smith, Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of India, 3rd ed. (1920), p. 13 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  6. Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), pp. xxxiii–xxxiv (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  7. Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), p. xxxiv (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  8. Smith, Asoka (1920), p. 17 and n. 1 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  9. Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), p. xxxvii (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  10. J. W. McCrindle, Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian (1877), pp. 135–136 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  11. McCrindle, Megasthenes and Arrian (1877), p. 138 and note † (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  12. Hultzsch, Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), p. xxxix (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  13. Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Madras, Vol. I (1908), p. 192 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  14. Smith, Asoka (1920), p. 95 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  15. E. Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. I: Inscriptions of Asoka (1925), p. xxx (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

  16. Sewell, Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (1932), p. 6 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩ ↩2

  17. Smith, Asoka (1920), p. 18 (archive.org (opens in a new tab)). ↩

Dynasties

Mauryas

c. 322 BCE – 184 BCE

The Mauryan empire of Magadha (c. 322–185 BCE) held part of the Telugu country in the 3rd century BCE. Asoka's edicts at Erragudi and Rajula-Mandagiri in Kurnool district are among the earliest written records found in the region. His conquest of Kalinga reached the coast north of the Godavari.

References

Sources (5)
  1. Robert Sewell (ed. S. Krishnaswami Aiyangar), The Historical Inscriptions of Southern India (Collected till 1923) and Outlines of Political History (opens in a new tab), University of Madras, 1932, pp. 5–6, 320. [Public domain in India]
  2. E. Hultzsch, Corpus Inscriptionum Indicarum, Vol. I: Inscriptions of Asoka (New Edition) (opens in a new tab), Clarendon Press, Oxford, for the Government of India, 1925, xxx, xxxii–xxxv, xxxvii, xxxix. [Public domain]
  3. Vincent A. Smith, Asoka, the Buddhist Emperor of India (Rulers of India), 3rd edition (opens in a new tab), Clarendon Press, Oxford, 1920, pp. 13–18, 95. [Public domain]
  4. J. W. McCrindle (tr.), Ancient India as Described by Megasthenes and Arrian (opens in a new tab), Thacker, Spink & Co., Calcutta; Trübner & Co., London, 1877, pp. 135–138. [Public domain]
  5. Government of India, Imperial Gazetteer of India, Provincial Series: Madras, Vol. I (opens in a new tab), Superintendent of Government Printing, Calcutta, 1908, pp. 192. [Public domain]

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