Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/68

40 of the dynasty be determined with accuracy. It is quite certain that the two generations did not last for a hundred and fifty-five, or even for a hundred, years; but it is impossible to determine the actual duration, and the period of forty years has been assumed as reasonable and probably not far from the truth.

However mysterious the Nine Nandas may be—if, indeed, there really were nine—there is no doubt that the last of them was deposed and slain by Chandragupta Maurya, who seems to have been an illegitimate scion of the family. There is no difficulty in believing the tradition that the revolution involved the extermination of all related to the fallen monarch, for revolutions in the East are not effected without much shedding of blood. Nor is there any reason to discredit the statements that the usurper was attacked by a confederacy of the northern powers, including Kashmir, and that the attack failed owing to the Machiavellian intrigues of Chandragupta's Brahman adviser, who is variously named Chanakya, Kautilya, and Vishnugupta.

His accession to the throne of Magadha may be dated with practical certainty in 321 The dominions of the Magadha crown were then extensive, certainly including the territories of the nations called Prasii and Gangaridai by the Greeks, and probably comprising at least the kingdoms of Kosala and Benares, as well as Anga and Magadha proper. Four years before the revolution at Pataliputra, Alexander had swept like a hurricane through the Pan jab and Sind, and it is said that Chandragupta, then a youth,