The Rise of the Maur an EmpireThe History Behind the Game — Chandragupta

by Stephen R. Welch

This article provides you with the historybehind our latest Great Battles of History seriesgame, Chandragupta (Vol XIII ), including the

battles recreated in the game's scenarios — RBM

In the spring of 327 BC, afterconsolidating his hold on Persia's easternsatrapies, Alexander of Macedon sent word tothe tribal chieftains in Gandhara, the ancientwestern Indian province bordering Bactria,demanding that they submitto his authority. The Macedonian armythen crossed into the Indus Valley, wherethey were set upon by several hill clans whorefused to capitulate to the invasion. Alex-

ander responded by promptly assaulting theirstrongholds, slaughtering those who sur-rendered, and reducing their settlements torubble. Closely watching these events, Ambhi(called "Omphos" by Greek chroniclers), theking of the provincial city-state of Takshashilathat lay directly in the path of the approachingjuggernaut, deemed that cooperation wouldbe a more prudent posture than defiance;he elected to cooperate with Alexander, andinvited the Macedonians into the city. Whilehis soldiers rested, Alexander plotted his nextmarch eastward.

While in Takshashila Alexander gaveaudience to numerous Gandharan notables,accepting their tribute and blandishments,but one visit particularly was anything butflattering. A young Indian prince of the tribeMoriya approached the conqueror and boldlyinformed him that he had failed in makinghimself master of the country, since its rulers

in the East — the Nandas — were still in power.The insolence was breathtaking. To punishsuch impudence, Alexander ordered the boyto be killed.

The lad, whose name Justin records as"Sandracottos," escaped. But for his youthfulbrashness in the face of the greatest general inthe world, Sandracottus of Moriya, known inhis own tongue as Chandragupta Maurya, hadbecome captured, albeit briefly, in the full viewof Western history.

The Clan of the Peacock-Tamers

While Chandragupta's origins are obscure,most traditions attest that he was of royalextraction, placing him with the ruling familyof the republican city-state of Pipphalivana.During a purge of the powerful Kshatriya

(warrior-caste) clans by the Nandas, Chan

dragupta's father was killed and his familyexpelled from their ancestral home. Whilepregnant, Chandragupta's mother fled to herfather's relatives in the Magadhan capital,Pataliputra, where they lived under the guiseof peacock-tamers, or mayura-poshaka ... anironic disguise, as the royal symbol of thepeacock was the only remaining vestige of thefamily's former status.

Chandragupta's uncommon intelligence inhis boyhood is related in several legends, but itis clear that at some point in his early life hispath crossed that of the Brahmin Chanakya,who saw great promise in the lad. The olderman, a Vedic scholar from Takshashila, wasshrewd, politically astute, and nursed anabiding hatred of the Nandas. Combinedwith his noble Kshatriya extraction, the boy'sprecocity presented to the shrewd Brahmin'smind an opportunity around which to rallya Kshatriya-based rebellion.

The NandasThe eastern kingdom of Magadha had been

ruled for some 140 years by the Haryankas,a dynasty that came to an abrupt end afterthe ascension, by dint of popular revolt, of acourt official by the name of Shishunaga. Hewas succeeded peacefully by his son, calledKakavarna, in 383 BC, but his dynasty wouldprove short-lived. A powerful offucial withinKakavarna's court, a man who bore the nameNanda, insinuated himself into the confidenceof the monarch. Unknown to Kakavarna,Nanda was the son of a Sudra (laborer caste)woman and Mahanandin — the last king ofthe Haryanka dynasty who had been deposedby Kakavarna's father. Thus, when the rightopportunity came, Nanda thrust a dagger intoKakavarna's throat and reclaimed the usurped

Magadhan throne. It was 357 BC.In short order Nanda moved to extermi-

nate all of the aristocratic Kshatriya clans thathad retained independence within the Magad-han sphere, incorporating their territories un-der his rule. Gone was the loose assemblageof feudal baronies under Kshatriya bloodlines.For the first time in Indian history, therewas now an empire stretching beyond theGangetic basin, from the Himalayas to theGodavari River, under the absolute rule of asingle man.

Known by the popular epithets Maha-

padma ("lord of immense wealth"), Nanda wasclearly a powerful king, inheriting a rigorousand effucient ministerial apparatus and con-tinuing a program of imperialism and politicalconsolidation first inaugurated by Shishunaga.Nanda also maintained a powerful fightingmachine. Curtius counts the Magadhan armyas consisting of 20,000 cavalry and 200,000infantry, besides some 3,000 elephants and4,000 war chariots. Surviving Buddhist textsname the formidable general of the Nandanarmy as Bhadrasala.

Enter Chanakya

The elder Nanda died — by natural causesas far as we can tell — in roughly 329 BC, andwas survived by his eight sons who wouldshare sovereign power in ruling Magadha forthe next twelve years. The eldest was namedSahalya, but would be referred to by theGreeks as "Agrammes," a corrupted form ofAugrasainya, i.e. "lord of a formidable army."The Nanda brothers were not only powerfulbut exceedingly rich, and their inability to ruleover the vast dominions they had inherited,as well as a reputedly irreligious disposition,quickly made them unpopular. The young-est of the sons, Dhana, was supposedly soaddicted to hoarding treasure that he had thebanks of the Ganges excavated for the expresspurpose of burying the Nandas' cache of goldand silver. The Magadhan state, meanwhile,levied crushing tax levies on almost everycommodity imaginable.

But the greatest cause of public hostilitywas evidence that Magadha's proud empirewas beginning to disintegrate under the sons'reign. The kingdom of Kalinga, Magadha'straditional rival, had been partially conqueredduring Mahapadma's rule, but shortly afterhis death the Kalingans successfully threw offMagadha's yoke and regained their indepen-

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Chandragupta—The Rise of the Mauryan Empiredence. This erosion of Magadha's prestige andpower was squarely blamed upon the Nandabrothers' profligacy and low birth.

The Nanda's waging of war against theKshatariyas had not only gained thempowerful enemies among that caste, but alsogarnered the relentless hostility of politicallyastute Brahmins. One such was a nativeof Pataliputra by the name of VishnuguptaChanakya. An intelligent man with appar-ently formidable political instincts — he wouldlater become the author of the seminal treatiseon Mauryan statecraft, the Arthashastra —Chanakya was not motivated purely for thesalvation of Magadha's honor. After havingbeen publicly insulted by Sahalya during astate ceremony, Chanakya had openly vowedto kill Nanda in revenge and was then forcedto flee Pataliputra to escape arrest. Chanakyadefected to his old home, Takshashila. Thenthe Yavana ("Ionians") invaded, throwing thecountry's future into turmoil. During the oc-cupation Chanakya's path merged with that ofthe young man whose destiny would changethe Brahmin's fate, and India's. He took theMauryan prince under his wing, and in arelationship that would later be compared

to that of Alexander and Aristotle, beganmentoring the young man in the arts ofstatecraft and warfare.

Decimation of the Tribal Kingdoms

Every step of his way through India Alex-ander had been confronted with determinedresistance. His victory against Puru ("Porus")had been nearly a draw, and in his assaultson the strongholds of the other tribes he hadbeen nearly wounded to death. Though theindependent tribal kingdoms and petty-states of India's western provinces had foughtbravely, their mutual jealousies had ultimatelyprevented any organized effort against hisaggression. Had they done so, Alexander's

career would likely have ended long before theHydaspes River.

Ironically, the decimation of the tribalkingdoms would create the very conditionsthat would make a pan-Indian empire, unitedunder centralized rule, possible. When thewars of succession began after Alexander'sdeath, the tide of Greek power quicklyreceded from the shores of the Indian frontier,leaving the tenuous foreign garrisons proppedup by a handful of corrupt Indian kings. Inthis vacuum discontent began to simmer inGandhara. To remove the vestiges of foreignrule under which Gandharans still chafed,military power would have to be brought tobear that could sweep away the garrisons,force the native client kingdoms to submitto Indian rule, and unite the tribes under animperial hegemon. This eventuality would

require a seismic shift in political power,requiring in turn a figure of leadership aroundwhich such power could coalesce — and suchwas Chanakya's plan.

Forging the Mauryan Dynasty

In 319 BC, a coalition of armed malcon-tents, mostly tribals, guild militia and somemercenaries, lined up in battle array outsidethe walls of Pataliputra. The Nanda's ablegeneral Bhadrasala, who enjoyed some respectas a Mahasenapati even among his adversaries,mustered the Magadhan army to put downthe insurgents. By all accounts Chanakyaand Chandragupta were soundly defeated,having recklessly attacked the capital withoutfirst consolidating their power base amongthe Kshatriyas. The insurgency was forced toregroup in the countryside and to build upsufficient military strength and politicalsupport before confronting the Nandas

a second time.Among the freedom-loving clans of Pun-

jab and Sindh, most of whom had given stoutresistance to the foreign invader, they wouldfind the support they had been seeking, andagain the banner of revolt was raised, this timewith the help of the Himalayan tribal chief-tain Parvataka and his brother Vairodhaka.The Mauryan troops were now augmented byprofessional "hereditary" maula troops, andthis time in the countryside of Magadha thearmies faced each other in near parity, withthe young Chandragupta commanding theMauryans himself. The Nandan imperialarmy was this time under command of princeSahalya. When the fighting was over, Sahalyalay dead on the battlefield and his brothers,captured, were put to the sword. It was a totalMauryan victory.

The Mauryan's tribal ally Parvataka hadfought valiantly but succumbed to his wounds.His death would lead to alienation of thetribal allies. Having won power and ascendedthe throne of Magadha with their help, Chan-dragupta — probably under the advisementof Chanakya — promptly evaded a number ofthe pre-war promises he had made them, and,betrayed, the tribal chieftains rose in rebellionagainst him. The revolt was led by the son ofParvataka, a tribal prince named Malayaketu.Employing "other political means" againsthim, Chanakya had several of Malayaketu'sallies poisoned and invoked a campaign ofdisinformation to sow dissension amongthem. Then, commanding the mighty militaryapparatus appropriated from the Nandas,Chanakya crushed the rebellion in an assaultupon the rebel's encampment.

At last, Chandragupta Mauryapossessed unchallenged the throne of theMagadhan Empire. The Mauryan dynasty

was born, and the young emperor then turnedhis attention westward, towards the weakenedkingdoms he had left behind under the yokeof foreign occupation.

Chandragupta Scenarios: The initial battlebetween Chandragupta and Bhadrasala is recre-ated in the introductory scenario, "Pataliputra";the final contest with the Nandans is played inthe set-piece battle, "Magadha." In "Malayaketu"a surprise night assault is simulated on the uniqueterrain features of an Indian military camp.

Ejecting the Yavana

Takshashila was still under the joint ruleof Ambhi and the Thracian general Eudamus.Though Alexander had defeated Puru at thebattle of Hydaspes, he had left Puru's kingshipof Paurava intact; some time after Alexander'sdeath, though, Eudamus had treacherouslyput Puru to death and seized his territories,sparking a native revolt. Chandragupta deftlytransformed this revolt into a pretext for mili-

tary action; not only was the city garrisoned bythe hated Yavana but it was strategically im-portant as a trade-route crossroads, connectingthe Mauryan home kingdom of Magadhawith Bactria. The seizure of Takshashilawould extend the young Mauryan Empire outto India's western frontier.

Eudamus was not committed to this battle— his joint rule with Ambhi had been meantto be temporary, but because of Alexander'suntimely death his permanent appointment assatrap was never made. Confronted with theMauryan army massed across the Tamra Nalariver, Eudamus broke off and quit the battle-field, leaving Ambhi abandoned and greatlyoutnumbered. Chandragupta captured thecity, put the remaining Greek garrison to thesword, and then promptly assigned Chanakya

— born in Takshashila — as its viceroy.Gandhara was not yet out of reach of the

Greek invaders, however. After his stalematewith Antigonus in 308, Seleucus conqueredBactria and then proceeded to march to theIndus River. On the eastern bank of theIndus he was confronted by Chandragupta.Squeezed close to the sands and mud of theIndus, Seleucus had little room to maneuver,and fought the Mauryan army to a tacticaldraw. Politically it was a strategic loss, forhaving gambled so far from home and fail-ing to achieve a victory, Seleucus was forcedto settle for a consolation "gift" of 500 warelephants from the Mauryan emperor, and inexchange surrendered all of his eastern posses-sions, from the Indus to the Hindu Kush.

For Chandragupta's part, this would be washis last major military engagement. He in-clined towards Jainism in later life, abdicatingthe throne to his son Bindusara. Chandra-

TheHistoryBehind theGame—Chandragupta

gupta Maurya, the precocious young man whohad insulted Alexander the Great to his face,freed his country from foreign occupation andin doing so founded India's greatest empire,left the court of Magadha to become anascetic. Having served his purpose on Earth,in 293 BCE he chose to purge his old karmas,and through the Jain ritual of santhara, diedthrough voluntary fasting. He was in hisearly fifties.

Chandragupta Scenarios: "Takshashila"is fought on a mapsheet including thefull city

and its surrounds, with rules for street fighting,artillery, and the use of elephants to break downthe city's gates; another set-piece battle along

thebanksof the Indusbringsto life thecontestbetween the Seleucus and Chandragupta in'Gandhara."

Consolidation of an Empire

Though he was hailed as "Slayer ofEnemies," little is known about Bindusara'sconquests. Buddhist chronicles report thatBindusara "destroyed kings and nobles ofabout sixteen cities" in the rebellious Khasharajya, or realm of the Khashas. The Khashas,whose settlements in the former kingdom ofPunt extended from Jhelum to the west ofKashmir, were likely independent principali-ties, united by clan or tribal connections, whohad chafed at Mauryan imperial power. Infull Mauryan tradition, Bindusara attackedthe Khashas' mountain strongholds anddefeated them.

Bindusara did much to curb the rebelliousclans in the outlying provinces and maintainthe empire inherited from his father, and evenextended its boundaries. During his reign,however, the volatile western provincial capitalTakshashila was the scene of at least tworebellions. The first uprising was against themaladministration of unnamed "heavy-handedofficials" (possibly his eldest son, Sumana, oreven Chanakya himself). The cause of thesecond insurrection is not recorded, but ineither case, it was his younger son Ashokawhom Bindusara commissioned with the taskof restoring order. The "offucial" Mauryanversion of events takes great pains to reassurethat people were not opposed to the "Kumara[prince] or even king Bindusara," but whateverthe reality, it was the victor who wrote the his-tory: Ashoka crushed the rebellion ruthlessly.

Chanakya was certainly an old man by thistime, but probably still active, as Bindusarahad retained him as Prime Minister from hisfather's court. Sometime after the last Tak-shashila rebellion was put down, Chanakya'sname fades from the record. Legend tellsthat during a farewell ceremony for the agedChanakya, a rival Brahmin named Subandhu,

out of jealousy, treacherously hid a smolder-ing charcoal in a heap of dung used as fuel forthe ceremonial fire. Kindled by the wind, thedung heap caught fire, and the author of theArthashastra — and in many ways the MauryanEmpire itself — was burned to death.

Sunset of the Mauryan Dynasty

Ashoka was rumored to have been theson of Bindusara and the Greek princessHelen, daughter of Seleucus. This grandsonof Chandragupta seized the Mauryan throneas outcome of a fratricidal struggle with hisstep-brothers, and ascended the throne inPataliputra in 273 BC.

The Mauryans had always been hostile tonon-monarchial states, and by the time ofAshoka's ascension only a handful of king-doms remained outside the sphere of Mauryandomination. Two were the friendly kingdomson the distant southern tip of the Deccanpeninsula; the other was its traditional rival,the powerful — and unrepentantly indepen-dent — republic of Kalinga, which neighboredMagadha on its southern border.

In 261 BC, eight years after his anoint-ment, Ashoka marched on Kalinga. Ona battlefield near the village of Dhauli theKalingan army was defeated; records affirmthat 100 thousand were slain, 150 thousandwere deported (enslaved), and many times thatnumber died thereafter. It was said that thenearby river Daya had run red with the bloodof the slain.

After the battle Ashoka ascended a hillock

to survey the field he had won; in the light ofthe dying day he saw heaps of bodies of sol-diers and animals, heard the cries of wounded,and witnessed the anguish of women search-ing the dead for their husbands and sons. Theslaughter filled him with such anguish thathe changed his epithet from Chandashoka("Ashoka the Terrible") to Dharmashoka("Ashoka the Pious"). He became a Buddhist.

There seem to have been no more Mauryanwars after Kalinga. Ashoka codified a civillaw for the empire, and expanded its borders— largely through diplomacy, it appears, andthrough Buddhist missions — practically overthe whole if India.

Within fifty years after his death theMauryan Empire collapsed. A succession ofweaker kings followed Ashoka, and the bor-ders of the empire eroded dramatically. Then,during a military parade in 185 BC, the lastMauryan king was assassinated in a coup bythe commander of his honor guard.

Chanakya, the architect of the MauryanEmpire, had adopted as his motto, "A debtshould be paid off till the last penny; an en-emy should be destroyed without a trace." Theaccounts of history would prove him correct:Chanakya would become known to posterityas a precursor of the West's Machiavelli, whilethe legacy of the Mauryan Empire would re-main an ideal never to be again fully achievedby an Indian monarch. Meanwhile, the namesof the Mauryan's enemies — the Kalingan kingdefeated by Ashoka, the chieftains of the hap-less Khashans — would be obliterated by time,lost to history forever.

Chandragupta Scenarios: Mountainousterrain, with a daytime assault and a night-timeambush, are featured in the two "Suppressionof the Khashas" scenarios. In "Revolt in theProvinces," players are given unique "suddendeath" victory conditions involving the rescue ofChanakya from Takshashila. Lastly, the historicbattle of "Kalinga" is recreated in a huge, two-map set-piece battle.

Variants on History: New Speculative

Battle Scenarios and Rout Point Track

for Chandragupta in this issue

C3i Magazine readers are treated to twonew Chandragupta scenarios in this issue,both positing alternative "what-if" versionsof historical events. Both use counters andmaps from Chandragupta; for the GangesRiver scenario, players will need counters fromGreat Battles of Alexander (Deluxe), andfor the Magnesia scenario players will needcounters from SPQR. See the Chandragupta

GBoH/Simple GBoH scenario set-up Insert

Folio and Rout Point Track in this issue.

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