Magadhan Empire

Magadhan Empire
544 BC – 28 BC
The Magadhan Empire in 400 BC The Magadhan Empire in 325 BC The Magadhan Empire in 250 BC The Magadhan Empire in 150 BC The Magadhan Empire in   50 BC
Expansion of the Magadhan Empire between 544 BC AND 28 BC
Capital	Rajagriha (Girivraj) Later, Pataliputra (modern-day Patna)
Common languages	Sanskrit[1] Magadhi Prakrit Ardhamagadhi Prakrit
Religion	Brahmanism (later Hinduism) Buddhism Jainism
Demonym(s)	Māgadhī
Government	Absolute monarchy[a]
Notable emperors
• c. 544 – c. 492 BCE	Bimbisara
• c. 492 – c. 460 BCE	Ajatashatru
• c. 413 – c. 395 BCE	Shishunaga
• c. 345 – c. 329 BCE	Mahapadma Nanda
• c. 329 – c. 321 BCE	Dhana Nanda
• c. 321 – c. 297 BCE	Chandragupta Maurya
• c. 268 – c. 232 BCE	Ashoka
• c. 185 – c. 149 BCE	Pushyamitra Shunga
Currency	Panas
Preceded by Succeeded by Magadha Principality of Pataliputra Satavahana dynasty Vidarbha kingdom
Today part of	India Pakistan Afghanistan Bangladesh

The Magadhan Empire was an ancient Indian empire that succeeded the Magadha Mahajanapada. It was established by Bimbisara^[2] in 544 BC. It was ruled by the Haryankas (544–413 BCE), the Shaishunagas (413–345 BCE), the Nandas (345–322 BCE), the Mauryas (322–184 BCE), the Śungas (184–73 BCE), the Kanvas (73–28 BCE).^[3]

Under the Mauryas, Magadha became a pan-Indian empire, covering large swaths of the Indian subcontinent and Afghanistan. The Kanva dynasty lost much of its territory after being defeated by the Satavahanas of Deccan in 28 BCE and was reduced to a small principality around Pataliputra.^[4][5]

The Haryanka dynasty was founded by Bimbisara. Bimbisara led an active and expansive policy, conquering the kingdom of Anga in what is now West Bengal. King Bimbisara was killed by his son, Ajatashatru. Pasenadi, king of neighbouring Kosala and brother-in-law of Bimbisara, promptly reconquered the Kashi province.

Accounts differ slightly as to the cause of King Ajatashatru's war with the Licchavi, a powerful tribe north of the river Ganges. It appears that Ajatashatru sent a minister to the area who worked for three years to undermine the unity of the Licchavis. To launch his attack across the Ganges River, Ajatashatru built a fort at the town of Pataliputra. Torn by disagreements, the Licchavis fought with Ajatashatru. It took fifteen years for Ajatashatru to defeat them. Jain texts tell how Ajatashatru used two new weapons: a catapult, and a covered chariot with swinging mace that has been compared to a modern tank. Pataliputra began to grow as a centre of commerce and became the capital of Magadha after Ajatashatru's death.

The Haryanka dynasty was overthrown by the Shishunaga dynasty. The last Shishunaga ruler, Mahanandin, was assassinated by Mahapadma Nanda in 345 BCE, the first of the so-called "Nine Nandas", i.e. Mahapadma and his eight sons, last being Dhana Nanda.

In 326 BCE, the army of Alexander approached the western boundaries of Magadha. The army, exhausted and frightened at the prospect of facing another giant Indian army at the Ganges, mutinied at the Hyphasis (the modern Beas River) and refused to march further east. Alexander, after the meeting with his officer Coenus, was persuaded that it was better to return and turned south, conquering his way down the Indus to the Ocean.

Around 321 BCE, the Nanda Dynasty ended with the defeat of Dhana Nanda at the hands of Chandragupta Maurya.

After the death of Alexander the Great in 323 BCE, Chandragupta led a series of campaigns in 305 BCE to take satrapies in the Indus Valley and northwest India.^[6] When Alexander's remaining forces were routed, returning westwards, Seleucus I Nicator fought to defend these territories. Not many details of the campaigns are known from ancient sources. Seleucus was defeated and retreated into the mountainous region of Afghanistan.^[7]

Chandragupta established a strong centralised state with an administration at Pataliputra, which, according to Megasthenes, was "surrounded by a wooden wall pierced by 64 gates and 570 towers". Aelian, although not expressly quoting Megasthenes nor mentioning Pataliputra, described Indian palaces as superior in splendor to Persia's Susa or Ecbatana.^[8] The architecture of the city seems to have had many similarities with Persian cities of the period.^[9]

Chandragupta renounced his throne and followed Jain teacher Bhadrabahu. He is said to have lived as an ascetic at Shravanabelagola for several years before fasting to death, as per the Jain practice of sallekhana.

Bindusara's life has not been documented as well as that of his father Chandragupta or of his son Ashoka. Chanakya continued to serve as prime minister during his reign. According to the medieval Tibetan scholar Taranatha who visited India, Chanakya helped Bindusara "to destroy the nobles and kings of the sixteen kingdoms and thus to become absolute master of the territory between the eastern and western oceans". During his rule, the citizens of Taxila revolted twice. The reason for the first revolt was the maladministration of Susima, his eldest son. The reason for the second revolt is unknown, but Bindusara could not suppress it in his lifetime. It was crushed by Ashoka after Bindusara's death.^[10]

Bindusara maintained friendly diplomatic relations with the Hellenic world. Deimachus was the ambassador of Seleucid king Antiochus I at Bindusara's court.^[11] Diodorus states that the king of Palibothra (Pataliputra, the Mauryan capital) welcomed a Greek author, Iambulus. This king is usually identified as Bindusara.^[11] Pliny states that the Ptolemaic king Philadelphus sent an envoy named Dionysius to India.^[12][13] According to Sailendra Nath Sen, this appears to have happened during Bindusara's reign.

Unlike his father Chandragupta (who at a later stage converted to Jainism), Bindusara believed in the Ajivika religion.

As emperor he was ambitious and aggressive, re-asserting the Empire's superiority in southern and western India. But it was his conquest of Kalinga (262–261 BCE) which proved to be the pivotal event of his life. Ashoka used Kalinga to project power over a large region by building a fortification there and securing it as a possession.^[14] Although Ashoka's army succeeded in overwhelming Kalinga forces of royal soldiers and citizen militias, an estimated 100,000 soldiers and civilians were killed in the furious warfare, including over 10,000 of Imperial Mauryan soldiers. Hundreds of thousands of people were adversely affected by the destruction and fallout of war.

The Edicts of Ashoka, set in stone, are found throughout the Subcontinent. Ranging from as far west as Afghanistan and as far south as Andhra (Nellore District), Ashoka's edicts state his policies and accomplishments. Although predominantly written in Prakrit, two of them were written in Greek, and one in both Greek and Aramaic. Ashoka's edicts refer to the Greeks, Kambojas, and Gandharas as peoples forming a frontier region of his empire. They also attest to Ashoka's having sent envoys to the Greek rulers in the West as far as the Mediterranean. The edicts precisely name each of the rulers of the Hellenistic world at the time such as Amtiyoko (Antiochus II Theos), Tulamaya (Ptolemy II), Amtikini (Antigonos II), Maka (Magas) and Alikasudaro (Alexander II of Epirus) as recipients of Ashoka's proselytism. The Edicts also accurately locate their territory "600 yojanas away" (1 yojana being about 7 miles), corresponding to the distance between the center of India and Greece (roughly 4,000 miles).^[15]

Following Ashoka's death the empire went into a decline. According to the Ashokavadana, Pushyamitra the Vidisha general of the last Mauryan king assassinated Brihadratha in a military coup, and declared himself the emperor of Magadha.^[16] He was known for suppressing Buddhism. Then it describes how Pushyamitra sent an army to Pataliputra and as far as Sakala (Sialkot), in the Punjab, to persecute Buddhist monks.^[17]

The Indo-Greeks, called Yavanas in Indian sources, either led by Demetrius I or Menander I, then invaded India, possibly receiving the help of Buddhists.^[18] Menander in particular is described as a convert to Buddhism in the Milindapanha.

The Hindu text of the Yuga Purana, which describes Indian historical events in the form of a prophecy,^{[19][note 1]} relates the attack of the Indo-Greeks on the Shunga capital Pataliputra, a magnificent fortified city with 570 towers and 64 gates according to Megasthenes,^[21] and describes the impending war for city:

Then, after having approached Saketa together with the Panchalas and the Mathuras, the Yavanas, valiant in battle, will reach Kusumadhvaja "the town of the flower-standard", Pataliputra. Then, once Puspapura (another name of Pataliputra) has been reached and its celebrated mud-walls cast down, all the realm will be in disorder

— Yuga Purana, Paragraph 47–48, 2002 edition)

However, the Yuga Purana indicates that the Yavanas (Indo-Greeks) did not remain for long in Pataliputra, as they were faced with a civil war in Bactria.

Western sources also suggest that this new offensive of the Greeks into India led them as far as the capital Pataliputra:^[22]

Those who came after Alexander went to the Ganges and Pataliputra

— Strabo, 15.698

Vasumitra was the grandson of Pushyamitra and the third king. Before becoming king, he gained fame by defeating the Greeks (Yavanas) on the banks of the Sindhu river. An account of a direct battle between the Greeks and Vasumitra is also found in the Mālavikāgnimitram, a play by Kālidāsa which describes a battle between a squadron of Greek cavalrymen and Vasumitra, the grandson of Pushyamitra, accompanied by a hundred soldiers on the "Sindhu river", in which the Indians defeated a squadron of Greeks and Pushyamitra successfully completed the Ashvamedha Yagna.^[23] This river may be the Indus River in the northwest, but such expansion by the Shungas is unlikely, and it is more probable that the river mentioned in the text is the Sindh River or the Kali Sindh River in the Ganges Basin.^[24]

According to Sailendra Nath Sen, he (Vasumitra) "After becoming king, gave himself up to pleasure".^[25] But we know that the Shunga decline began during his reign.^[26] Sensing an opportunity, enemies began plotting.^[25] Banabhatta's Harshacharita mentioned him as Sumitra and informed us that he was killed by Mitradeva (or Muladeva, according to some manuscripts) while enjoying a drama. Muladeva is regarded as the founder of the independent Principality of Kosala. The secession of Kosala extinguished the Shunga hold over territories west of Magadha but also must have encouraged other rulers to rebel and declare independence. Examples of these include Panchala, Kausambi, and Mathura.^[25][27]

Vasudeva Kanva, originally an Amatya (minister) of the last Shunga king Devabhuti, killed the latter and established Kanva dynasty.^[28] Bana's Harshacharita informs us that he came to power after the death of Devabhuti by a daughter of his slave woman disguised as his empress.^[29][30][31]

He was a Vaishnavite (worshipper of Lord Vishnu).^[31] Most of the taxes collected during his reign were used for temples. He was one of the famous patrons of arts.^[32][30][31] During his reign, the Indo-Greeks invaded, but he managed to keep his throne.^{[31][33][30][31]} Vasudeva was succeeded by three other Kanva kings. The Magadhan Empire collapsed in 28 BC, likely due an invasion by the Satavahanas.

After Alexander ended his campaign and left, Chandragupta's army conquered the Nanda capital Pataliputra around 322 BCE with Chanakya's counsel.^[34]

Chandragupta laid siege to Patliputra (now Patna), the capital of Magadha around 322 B.C, by deploying guerrilla warfare methods with the help of mercenaries from conquered areas.^[35][36] Historian P. K. Bhattacharyya states that the empire was built by a gradual conquest of provinces after the initial consolidation of Magadha.

Justin mentions Chandragupta as a rival of the Alexander's successors in north-western India.^[37] He states that after Alexander's death, Chandragupta freed Indian territories from the Greeks and executed some of the governors.^[38] According to Boesche, this war with the northwestern territories was in part fought by mercenaries hired by Chandragupta and Chanakya, and these wars may have been the cause of the demise of two of Alexander's governors, Nicanor and Philip.

Seleucus and Chandragupta waged war until they came to an understanding with each other. Seleucus married off his daughter, Berenice, to Chandragupta to forge an alliance, R. C. Majumdar and D. D. Kosambi note that Seleucus appeared to have fared poorly after ceding large territories west of the Indus to Chandragupta. The Maurya Empire added Arachosia (Kandahar), Gedrosia (Balochistan), and Paropamisadae (Gandhara) to her territories.^[39][40] According to Strabo, Seleucus Nicator gave these regions to Chandragupta along with a marriage treaty, and in return received five hundred elephants.

Chandragupta began expanding his empire southwards beyond the Vindhya Range and into the Deccan Plateau.^[34] By the time his conquests were complete, Chandragupta's empire extended over most of the subcontinent.^[41]

The northern part of Kalinga was known as the Utkala (Uttar: North, Kal: Kalinga), they were the first from the region to use a navy and traveled offshore to Southeast Asia for trade. For that reason, Kalinga was able to develop several ports and a skilled navy. This is the only major war Ashoka fought after his accession to the throne, and marked the close of the empire-building and military conquests of ancient India that began with the Mauryan Emperor Chandragupta Maurya.^[42] The war cost nearly 250,000 lives.^[42]

Ashoka's response to the Kalinga War is recorded in the Edicts of Ashoka. The Kalinga War prompted Ashoka, already a non-engaged Buddhist, to devote the rest of his life to ahimsa (non-violence) and to dharma-vijaya (victory through dharma). Following the conquest of Kalinga, Ashoka ended the military expansion of the empire and began an era of more than 40 years of relative peace, harmony, and prosperity.^[43]

According to Curtius, Alexander learned that Agrammes had 200,000 infantry; 20,000 cavalry; 3000 elephants; and 2,000 four-horse chariots.^[44][45] Diodorus gives the number of elephants as 4,000.^[46] Plutarch inflates these numbers significantly, except the infantry:^[47] according to him, the Nanda force included 200,000 infantry; 80,000 cavalry; 6,000 elephants; and 8,000 chariots.^[48] It is possible that the numbers reported to Alexander had been exaggerated by the local Indian population, who had the incentive to mislead the invaders.^[49]

The Nanda army did not have the opportunity to face Alexander, whose soldiers mutinied at the Beas River, refusing to go any further in the east. Alexander's soldiers had first started to agitate to return to their homeland at Hecatompylos in 330 BCE, and the stiff resistance that they had met in north-western India in the subsequent years had demoralised them. They mutinied, when faced with the prospect of facing the Nanda army, forcing Alexander to withdraw from India.^[50]

Megasthenes mentions military command consisting of six boards of five members each, (i) Navy (ii) Military transport (iii) Infantry (iv) Cavalry and Catapults (v) Chariot divisions and (vi) Elephants.^[51]

Chandragupta and his successors devoted much of their wealth to building military power. At the height of the Mauryan empire, army was counted at 600,000 infantry, 30,000 cavalry, 9,000 war elephants, and 8,000 chariots.^[52]

There is much uncertainty about the succession of kings and the precise chronology of Magadha prior to Mahapadma Nanda; the accounts of various ancient texts (all of which were written many centuries later than the era in question) contradict each other on many points.

Two notable rulers of Magadha were Bimbisara (also known as Shrenika) and his son Ajatashatru (also known as Kunika), who are mentioned in Buddhist and Jain literature as contemporaries of the Buddha and Mahavira. Later, the throne of Magadha was usurped by Mahapadma Nanda, the founder of the Nanda Dynasty (c. 345 – c. 322 BCE), which conquered much of north India. The Nanda dynasty was overthrown by Chandragupta Maurya, the founder of the Maurya Empire (c. 322–185 BCE).

Furthermore, there is a "Long Chronology" and a contrasting "Short Chronology" preferred by some scholars, an issue that is inextricably linked to the uncertain chronology of the Buddha and Mahavira.^[53]

According to historian K. T. S. Sarao, a proponent of the Short Chronology wherein the Buddha's lifespan was c.477–397 BCE, it can be estimated that Bimbisara was reigning c.457–405 BCE, and Ajatashatru was reigning c.405–373 BCE.^[54]

According to historian John Keay, a proponent of the "Long Chronology," Bimbisara must have been reigning in the late 5th century BCE,^[55] and Ajatashatru in the early 4th century BCE.^[56] Keay states that there is great uncertainty about the royal succession after Ajatashatru's death, probably because there was a period of "court intrigues and murders," during which "evidently the throne changed hands frequently, perhaps with more than one incumbent claiming to occupy it at the same time" until Mahapadma Nanda was able to secure the throne.^[56]

The following "Long Chronology" is according to the Buddhist Mahavamsa:^[57]

Haryanka dynasty (c. 544 – 413 BCE)

Shishunaga dynasty (c. 413 – 345 BCE)

Nanda Empire (c. 345 – c. 322 BCE)

Puranic list

The Hindu Literature mostly Puranas give a different sequence:^[58]

• Shishunaga dynasty (360 years)
  • Shishunaga (reigned for 40 years)
  • Kakavarna (36 years)
  • Kshemadharman (20 years)
  • Kshatraujas (29 years)
  • Bimbisara (28 years)
  • Ajatashatru (25 years)
  • Darbhaka or Darshaka or Harshaka (25 years)
  • Udayin (33 years)
  • Nandivardhana (42 years)
  • Mahanandin (43 years)
• Nanda dynasty (100 years)

List by Jain literature

A shorter list appears in the Jain tradition, which simply lists Shrenika (Bimbisara), Kunika (Ajatashatru), Udayin, followed by the Nanda dynasty.^[58]