Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/17

Rh by his late master for a brief space, and of surpassing his achievement by subduing the central kingdoms. But the vast hosts of teeming India led by Chandragupta were more than a match for the power of the Macedonian, who was compelled to withdraw from the country and renounce his ambition to eclipse the glory of Alexander. No record of the conflict has survived, and we are ignorant of the place of battle and everything save the result. Terms of peace, including a matrimonial alliance between the two royal houses, were arranged, and the Indian monarch obtained from his opponent the cession of four satrapies, Aria, Arachosia, Gedrosia, and the Paropanisadai, giving in exchange the comparatively small recompense of five hundred elephants. This memorable treaty extended Chandragupta's frontier to the Hindû Kush mountains, and brought under his sway nearly the whole of the present Kingdom of Afghanistan, besides Balûchistan and Makrân.

A German writer has evolved from his inner consciousness a theory that Chandragupta recognized the suzerainty of Seleukos, but the plain facts are that the Syrian monarch failed and was obliged to surrender four valuable provinces for very inadequate consideration. Five hundred elephants at a high