Chandragupta Maurya: Chanakya, 500 Elephants for Seleucus, a Jain Fast

Got something to say to this podcast? Send a voicemail, and you might hear yourself on the next episode!

When Alexander the Great's exhausted troops mutinied at the Beas River and Alexander died in Babylon in 323 BCE, the Greek satraps he left in the Punjab were cut off. Chandragupta Maurya, called Sandrokottos in Greek texts, led a rebellion that killed them, recruiting mercenaries, forest hunters and military republics with promises of spoils; Plutarch even claims he met Alexander, and Justin notes he ruled as oppressively as the Greeks. With the Brahmin strategist Chanakya, who had been publicly insulted by the Nanda king Dhana Nanda, he attacked the Nanda capital Pataliputra head on and was repelled. The pair switched to taking frontier provinces, garrisoning them and using espionage until the capital fell in a siege around 322 to 319 BCE.

Around 305 BCE Seleucus I Nicator crossed the Indus to reclaim Alexander's eastern lands. The war ended in a treaty around 303 BCE: Seleucus ceded territory including Paropamisadae, Gedrosia and Arachosia, roughly eastern Afghanistan and Baluchistan, for 500 war elephants he later used to win at Ipsus in 301 BCE. The Greek ambassador Megasthenes described a Pataliputra ringed by a wooden wall with 64 gates and 570 towers. Then, according to Jain tradition recorded by the 12th century writer Hemachandra, Chandragupta abdicated around 298 BCE, gave away his possessions, followed Jain monks to a cave at Shravanabelagola in southern India and fasted to death in the ritual of santhara.

• A Jain legend says Chanakya recruited him after watching the boy play king in a mock game in the Vindhya forest.
• Seleucus sent sweet wine and figs, and Chandragupta reportedly sent aphrodisiacs in return.
• The empire worked like a spiderweb of fortified cities such as Taxila and Ujjain linked by trade routes like the Uttarapatha.
• The state supplied peasants with seeds, tools and famine reserves in return for tribute.
• His grandson Ashoka's lion capital is still India's state emblem.