Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/66

38 and Prasii nations on the banks of the Ganges was named, as nearly as the Greeks could catch the unfamiliar sounds, Xandrames or Agrammes. This monarch was said to command a force of twenty thousand horse, two hundred thousand foot, two thousand chariots, and three or four thousand elephants. Inasmuch as the capital of the Prasii nation was undoubtedly Pataliputra, the reports made to Alexander can have referred only to the King of Magadha, who must have been one of the Nandas mentioned in native tradition. The reigning king was alleged to be extremely unpopular, owing to his wickedness and base origin. He was, it is said, the son of a barber, who, having become the paramour of the queen of the last legitimate sovereign, contrived the king's death, and, under pretence of acting as guardian to his sons, got them into his power and exterminated the royal family. After their extermination he begot the son who was reigning at the time of Alexander's campaign and who, "more worthy of his father's condition than his own, was odious and contemptible to his subjects."

This story confirms the statements of the Puranas that the Nanda dynasty was of ambiguous origin and comprised only two generations. The Vishnu Purana brands the first Nanda, Mahapadma, as an avaricious person, whose reign marked the end of the Kshatriya, or high-born, princes, and the beginning of the rule of those of low degree, ranking as Sudras. The Mahavamsa, when it dubs the last Nanda by the name of Dhana, or "Riches," seems to hint at the imputation