Page:Asoka - the Buddhist Emperor of India.djvu/77

 CHAPTER II

limits of the vast empire governed successfully by Asoka for so many years can be determined with sufficient accuracy by the testimony of the Greek and Roman authors concerning the dominions of his grandfather, by the internal evidence of the edicts, and by the distribution of the monuments and inscriptions, with some aid from tradition.

The Indian conquests of Alexander to the east of the Indus, which extended across the Panjâb as far as the Hyphasis or Biâs river, quickly passed, as we have seen, soon after the death of Alexander, into the hands of Chandragiupta Maurya, and the four satrapies of Aria, Arachosia, Gedrosia, and the Paropanisadai were ceded to him by Seleukos Nikator about 305. The Maurya frontier was thus extended as far as the Hindû Kush Mountains, and the greater part of the countries now called Afghanistan, Balûchistan and Makrân, With the North-Western Frontier Province, became incorporated in the Indian Empire. That empire included the famous strongholds of Kâbul, Zâbul, Kandahar, and Herat, and so possessed the