Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/15

Rh power had arisen which could not brook the presence of foreign garrisons, and probably had destroyed most of them prior to the withdrawal of Eudêmos. The death of Alexander in June, B. C. 323, must have been known in India early in the autumn, and it is reasonable to suppose that risings of the natives occurred as soon as the season for campaigning opened in October, if not earlier. The leader of the movement for the liberation of his country which then began was a young man named Chandragupta Maurya, who seems to have been a scion of the Nanda dynasty of Magadha, or South Bihâr, then the premier state in the interior. With the help of an astute Brahman counsellor named Chânakya, who became his minister, Chandragupta dethroned and slew the Nanda king, exterminating his family. He then ascended the vacant throne at Pâtaliputra the capital, the modern Patna, and for twenty-four years ruled the realm with an iron hand. If Justin may be believed, the usurper turned into slavery the semblance of liberty which he had won for the Indians by his expulsion of the Macedonians, and oppressed the people with a cruel tyranny. Employing the fierce and more than half-foreign elans of the north-western frontier to execute his ambitious plans, he quickly extended his sway over the whole of Northern India, probably as far as the Narbadâ. Whether he first made himself master of Magadha and thence advanced northwards against the Macedonian garrisons, or first headed the risings in the Panjâb, and then with the forces collected there swooped down upon the Gangetic Kingdom,