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Xandrames of the Classical accounts and His Puranic Counterpart [jainde masanama nrpah - tasya puranesu pratirupah] / By Sri K. D. Sethna; Pondicherry / 121-139

asmin [ puranapatrikayah VIII. 1, 2 amkayoh mudrite " megasthanijah 'pauranika- vamsakalakramasca " iti lekhasya bhagadvaye lekhakamahodayena pratipaditamasit yad gupta- vamsiyah candraguptaprathama eva grika lekhakairuktah 'saimdrokots ' nama nrpah | parisistarupalekhe idam pratipadyate yat alekjemdarakalinah grikalekhakairnardisto jaimdemesa ' (Xandrames) namako bharatiyo nrpatih vayupuranai prokto nagavamsiyo raja candramsa eva | adhunikaih aitihasikah manyate yad jaimdremesa- nama nrpah nandarajnam madhye kacid nanda evasit | idam matam lekhakamahodayenatra nirakrtam | ] When Alexander the Great reached the river Hyphasis (Vipasa, modern Beas) he heard from the Indian prince Phegelas (Bhagala) the news, which the renowned Porus (Paurava) confirmed, that on the eastern bank of the Ganges there was waiting for him Xandrames, king of the Gangaridai' and the Prasii, with an army of 20,000 horses, 200,000 infantry, 2,000 chariots and 4,000 elephants. The news struck terror in the hearts of the tired Macedonians and they forced their leader to call a retreat. If, as we have argued, the Puranas point to Chandragupta I, founder of the Imperial Guptas, instead of to Chandragupta Maurya as being Sandrocottus to whose court Megasthenes was sent in c. 305 B. C. as ambassador by Seleucus Nicator, the question must inevitably arise: "Who, according to the Puranas, was Xandrames, whom the Classical accounts put in time a little before Sandrocottus became king of Palibothra (Pataliputra) ?" Modern historians identify Xandrames with a king of the Nanda dynasty preceding the Mauryas. Failure to discover his * A supplementary note to Parts I and II of 'Megasthenes and the Problem of Indian Chronology as Based on the Puranas', published in Purana, January and July 1966. 1. Sometimes misspelled "Gandaridai', once "Gandaritai" and often mentioned as "Gangaridan" and "Gangarides". 16

122 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 counterpart as a predecessor of the Guptas is likely to be construed as a serious defect in the traditional Puranic chronology and as a sign that the current theory is correct. We may admit that the failure would be a defect but we should also remark that it could help in no way at all the plea for Chandragupta Maurya. What evidence worth crediting-from any source, Puranic or other has ever been put forth to identify Xandrames with any Nanda? The All-Round Weakness of the Current Theory The name "Xandrames" is indubitably the Greek form of some Sanskrit appellation like "Chandramas". No Nanda bears in the Puranas a name echoing it. The founder is known as Mahapadma and one of his eight sons is mentioned as Sumalya or Sumatya or Sukalpa. In Buddhist tradition we do not hear of a father and 'eight sons but of nine Nanda brothers, all of whose names are given in the Mahabodhivamsa (1) Ugrasena, (2) Panduka, (3) Pandugati, (4) Bhutapala, (5) Rashtrapala, (6) Govishanaka, (7) Dasasiddhaka, (8) Kaivarta and (9) Dhana.' Here too, there is nothing answering to "Xandrames." But R. C. Raychaudhuri,³ reminding us that Curtius, unlike Diodorus, speaks of Agrammes and not Xandrames, has ingeniously proposed that the Sanskrit patronymic "Augrasainya", derivable from Ugrasena and meaning "Son of Ugrasena", is the Indian original of the name preserved by the Greeks. But it is difficult to see how Ugrasena who is explicitly called the eldest amongst the Nanda brothers can give rise to a term which clearly makes him the father of the rest of them. "Augrasainya" is a sheer misnomer in the context in which alone the name "Ugrasena" occurs. Besides, in its second part it has not the least correspondence to Agrammes. What perhaps goes most against it is the baselessness of the belief underlying its formation-namely, that, in R. K. Mookerji's 1. F. E. Pargiter, The Purana Text of the Dynasties of the Kali Age (London, 1913), p. 26, with fn. 24. 2. The Age of Imperial Unity, edited by R. C. Majumdar and A. D. Pusalker (Bombay, 1953), p. 31. 3. The Political History of Ancient India (3rd ed.), p. 15.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 123 words, "the form Agrammes is modified into Xandrames by Diodorus". Actually, Curtius who uses "Agrammes" belongs to the 1st century A. D., whereas Diodorus wrote in the 1st century B.C. Chronologically, there can be no doubt that "Agrammes" is a corruption of "Xandrames", possibly through an intermediate version like "Andrames" analogous to Plutarch's "Androcottus" in the 1st century A. D. for Strabo's "Sandrocottus" in the 1st century B.C. Moreover, a corruption cannot have-as "Xandrames" does-so plainly Indian a ring, while the original has none. Hence we have to ignore Agrammes and take only Xandrames into consideration. But then no Nanda can have any standing. The sole remaining argument is sought to be founded on some details in the reports by both Diodorus and Curtius. The former (VII. XCIII)' says of his Xandrames: "...the king of the Gandaridai was a man of quite worthless character and held in no respect, as he was thought to be the son of a barber. This man-the king's father-was of a comely person, and of him the queen had become enamoured. The old king having been treacherously murdered by his wife, the succession had devolved on him who now reigned." Curtius (IX. II) reports essentially the same story but with one or too variations in the details: "...the present king was not merely a man originally of no distinction but even of the very meanest condition. His father was in fact a barber scarcely staving off hunger by his daily earnings but who, from his being not uncomely in person, had gained the affection of the queen and was by her influence advanced to too near a place in the confidence of the reigning monarch. Afterwards, however, he treacherously murdered his sovereign and then, under pretence of acting as guardian to the royal children, usurped the supreme authority, and having put the young princes to death begot the present king who was detested and held cheap by his subjects as 1. Chandragupta Maurya and His Times (Madras, 1943), p. 32. 2. Life of Alexander, Ch. LXII. 3. The Classical Accounts of India, edited by R. C. Majumdar (Calcutta, 1960), pp. 262, 270, 272. 4. Ibid., p. 172. 5. Ibid., p. 128.

124 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 he rather took after his father than conduct himself as the occupant of the throne." Our historians draw upon Jain tradition in their attempt at a parallel for the Nandas. In the Avasyaka Sutra (p. 693) we have a Nanda described as begotten of a barber. Hemachandra's Parisishta parvan (VI. 232) makes him the son of a barber by a courtezan. Struck by the barber-story, our historians forget a central discrepancy. Even in Jain tradition there are nine Nandas and, as in the Puranas, they are a father and eight sons. Now, it is only the first, the father, who is called the son of a barber. Yet it is not he who can be deemed Xandrames. The ninth Nanda immediately preceding Chandragupta Maurya is our man. He is nowhere spoken of as a barber's son or stigmatised as belonging to a barber-family. Thus once more the Nandas are out. The Puranic evidence on them, it should be obvious, is *pretty unhelpful. Else there would be little inducement to resort to Buddhist or Jain tradition. The Puranas' see Mahapadma as Here the son of the Sunga king Mahanandin by a Sudra woman. it is the mother instead of the father who is of mean origin. And there is no question of the queen conspiring with a lover and murdering her husband and bringing to the throne her son by that lover. Mahapadma comes to the throne rightfully and normally. The only point of agreement with the classical accounts of Xandrames is, in a very general sense, "mean origin." Jain tradition also agrees with them. But Mookerji notes how here at variance: "Buddhist glaringly Buddhist records are tradition does not impute any base origin to the Nandas and thus runs counter to the Brahminical and Jain traditions." We may add that neither of the last two is uniform in its voice. While the Puranas label the Nandas as Sudras, the famous Indian drama Mudra-rakshasa (VI.6), by which many scholars set considerable store, regards the Nandas as prathitakalajah, "of illustrious birth", or uchchhairavijanam, "of high birth". And even in the Jain Parisishtaparvan (VIII. 320), which makes a 1. Pargiter, Op. cit., p. 25. 2. Op. cit., p. 32.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 125 barber breed the first Nanda on a courtezan, the daughter of the Nanda king preceding Chandragupta Maurya claims after her father's deposition a certain right from him possible only to a Kshatriya princess and the claim is conceded. This leads us to suspect that the single feature in which Jain tradition broadly approaches the Greek accounts-namely, the barber-birth-is not meant to be taken literally. Perhaps the very fact of its exclusive occurrence in this tradition implies that it is not literally meant. And, when the Parisishtaparvan itself is internally inconsistent, we may endorse B. M. Barua's remarks: "The barber story is almost proverbial in the ancient royal tradition of India. When a reigning monarch was found stingy in the payment of rewards or in making gifts, he was taken to be a barber's son." Even the mean and avaricious disposition of the Nandas is The Buddhist not unequivocally asserted in our literature. Mahavamsatika which speaks of the last of them being "addicted to hoarding treasure" says that towards the time when he was dethroned "he, instead of any more hoarding wealth, was bent upon spending it in charities which he organised through the machinery of an institution called Danasala administered by a Samgha whose President was to be a Brahman." The Buddhist Manjusri-mulakal pa³ has the same charities but they are set in an entirely different story. This book knows of no nine Nandas. It has only one single Nanda who gained the throne from the position of a prime minister, as though by a magical process, and who was a pious and sagacious man, a Buddhist who was yet a patron of Brahmans. is as far as can be from the Greeks' Xandrames. This character The Nanda, known as Yoga-Nanda, who in the Kashmiri tradition' is himself overcome by a magical spell practised by 1. Asoka and His Inscriptions (Calcutta, 1946), I, p. 47. 2. Mookerji, op. cit., pp. 33-4. 3. Barua, Op. cit., p. 43. 4. As preserved in the Kathasaritsagara and the Brihat kathamanjari, two Sanskrit works usually dated to the 11th century A. D.

126 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 Chanakya against him and is supplanted on the throne by Chanakya's protege Chandragupta Maurya, has also no resemblance to Xandrames, except that he is stated to be of the lowest caste, a Sudra. There is too much ambiguity about him to permit any appreciable comparison. None of our historians accept the Kashmiri tradition, believing they have found better substance elsewhere. But this tradition has one notable point. In addition to Yoga-Nanda a Purva-Nanda is mentioned. So there are two instead of the usual nine Nandas or the one Nanda of the Manjusri-mula kalpa. Although, as Mookerjee¹ remarks, the relation between the two is not specified and we are not told even what PurvaNanda's status is, nowhere except here-however vaguely-do we have, as in the Classical accounts, just two figures of the same family. The stories which our historians prefer have, all of them, the ninth and not the second family-member to match with Xandrames. The Kashmiri tradition, while having no appearance of rapport in its story with the Classical accounts, serves yet by this stray similarity in number to show up an extra inadequacy in the proposed Nanda parallel. Thus there is not a single element in this parallel that does not break down. Both at the centre and at the periphery the alleged correspondence fails to hold together. And the very search for likenesses in the Nanda-legends appears a superfluity when we open the Puranas to seek out Xandrames in the period between the fall of the Andhras (Satavahanas) and the rise of the Guptas. For, there he stands in striking relief with a most recognisable physiognomy. The Clear-cut Pre-Gupta Xandrames in the Puranas The greatest initial recommendation here is that this figure whose historicity is not doubted by modern historians bears a name which is the only one in the entire history of India to approximate to the name whose echo to "Xandrames" has been 1. Op. cit., p. 21.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 127 widely noted: "Chandramas." Pargiter¹ gives us, in a list of Naga kings, from the Vayu Purana, of the post-Andhra and preGupta epoch the phrase: Sadachandras tu Chandramo dvitiyo Nakhavams tatha. In the third word we have surely a name sounding very much like "Xandrames". The complete phrase is rendered by Pargiter :² "Sadachandra, and Chandramsa who will be a second Nakhavant." He³ cites in a footnote a variant from another copy of the Vayu for the qualifying words. The variant runs: Nakhapana-jah, meaning for Pargiter "Nakhapana's offspring". He sees in "Nakhavam" or "Nakhapana" the Puranic version of "Nahapana", the name of the Saka ruler belonging to the Kshaharata family whom Gautamiputra Satakarni of the Andhra dynasty destroyed. Modern scholars concur with him here, but not with his distinction between Sadachandra and Chandramsa. They rightly find in tu a sign of identity: if cha had been used the names would have applied to different persons. So they speak of "Sadachandra, surnamed Chandramsa, who is described as a second Nakhavat." But never having questioned the current hypothesis about Sandrocottus, they have never connected Chandramsa with Xandrames. the The qualifying words about Chandramsa can themselves be a very important prop to the identification with Xandrames if we reject Pargiter's gloss and disjoin the words from Nahapana the Saka king. First, we must get the central term right: Puranic term is not "Nakhavant" or "Nakhavat", it is "Nakhavan" and Pargiter himself in the introductory note to the passage uses this very form. Now, it is extremely suggestive that a description of one whose name and Puranic chronological position lead us to identify him with Xandrames whose father was a barber should have the term "Nakha" in it." "Nakha" means "nail" and in 1. Op. cit., p. 49. 2. Ibid., p. 72. 3. Ibid., p. 49, fn. 11. 4. Ibid., fn. 24. 5. The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 169. 6. Op. cit., p. 48. 7. I owe this observation to Dr. M. Venkataraman of Madurai University.

128 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 India a barber has to deal with nailcutting no less than with hair-cutting and actually one of the synonyms for "barber" is Nakhakutta ("nail-cutter"). In "Nakhavan", therefore, we are invited, as it were, to read the barber-idea. But it is apparently fused with another notion. The word signifies 'one who has nails" and with "Nakhakutta" in our mind we may interpret "having" in a double sense so that the name would imply "one who at the same time possesses nails to cut with and has nails in his possession by cutting them"-that is to say, a nail-cutter who wounds and tears his customer; or, if we wish to reflect in brief the pun which appears to be in the Sanskrit van in this context, we may say "a barbed barber". Such a lesha or double entendre, accompanied by the adjective dvitiyo, "second", is just what would be appropriate in the case of Chandramsa if he were Xandrames, since Xandrames, according to Curtius, "took after his father", the barber who, as we are told, had killed his royal patron and, patron's children too. But it is not only because Xandrames was like his father in character and manner that Chandramsa is affined to him: it is also by Xandrames being the very next in number to his father in this respect that the Naga king's affinity can be affirmed. Dvitiyo, "second", is a most pertinent expression. Both Xandrames and Chandramsa, unlike Dhana-Nanda of our historians, come immediately after their fathers: they are both "second" in the family and not ninth. The rank common to them drives their equation home with a definitive accuracy. In the variant Nakhapana-jah, which Pargiter renders by "Nakhapana's offspring", we have the same suggestion of immediate succession. And, by exposing the absurdity of relating Chandramsa to the Saka Nahapana as son to father, it clinches our interpretation. The barber-idea is even more evident here for, one of the meanings of pana is "protection" and Nakhapana would connote "Nail-protection". But to get the full appositeness out of this word we must glance at the grammatical side of it. Pana has the 1. M. Monier-Williams, Sanskrit-English Dictionary, p. 524, 2. Ibid., p. 613.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 129 It is a word neuter gender: as it is, we cannot apply it to a man. like shasana, meaning "mastery" or "subdual", which also being neuter cannot go into a personal name unless there is h after it as in the well-known name of Indra, Pakashasanah, which that god carries as the subduer of or master over the demon Paka. So the one whose offspring is Chandramsa must bear the name Nakhapanah. Our text does not contradict such an assumption, since the only instance in which his name appears is the word Nakhapana-jah and, when there is already h at the end of a word, Sanskrit grammar will not allow another in the midst of the expression. The absence of h after pana is just what we should expect if the original name were Nakhapanah to personify "nail-protection." The purpose of employing this term instead of Nakhakutta would seem to be the demarcation of the barber in question from others of his profession: here was a barber who rose to a special post in the household where he worked and thus deserved a distinguishing appellation. And this compound applellation may be taken in an ironic double sense to yield the idea of protecting nails by means of nails. The aptness of the double sense will at once be seen if we remember Diodorus and Curtius. The father of Xandrames or Agrammes was really the nailed protector of nails, for he clove his way through everything to the supreme authority while doing his barber's job. In his relation to the sons of his sovereign he is actually spoken of by Curtius as setting up the "pretence of acting as guardian to the royal children" while planning to "put the young princes to death". In the word "guardian" we have actually the echo of the Puranic panah, "protector" he continued to protect the princes' nails as their "guardian" when all the time digging his own, as it were, deep into their lives. The Exact Chronological Position Chandramsa's chronological position too is just where it should be if he were Xandrames-in the post-Andhra and preGupta interval. He is in a group of rulers whom the Puranas mention after naming Vindhyasakti. On the one hand we are 1. Pargiter, op. cit. pp. 72-3. 17

130 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 told of the Nagas of Vidisa, along with some other monarchs, and on the other hand we get Vindhyasakti's son Pravira and Pravira's four sons. Then we are informed of the cessation of the Vindhyaka family and provided with a list of various subsequent rulers and dynasties who are not distinguished in terms of time and whose beginnings must therefore be taken as simultaneous. Among them are the Guptas. Chandramsa stands with the Nagas of Vidisa. About them Pargiter's text¹ runs: "Bhogin, son of the Naga king Sesa, will be king, conqueror of his enemie's cities a king who will exalt the Naga family. Sadachandra, and Chandramsa who will be a second Nakhavant, then Dhanadharman, and Vangara is remembered as the fourth. Then Bhutinanda will reign in the Vaidisa kingdom." As Sesha enters only as the father of Bhogin and is not directly put forth as a king of this period, it is with Bhogin we must start, setting him in time on a level with Vindhyasakti in the post-Andhra epoch. Sadachandra being the same as Chandramsa, we have three kings following Bhogin's name. But since here Chandramsa is called the second barber, a first one has to be put before him on a level with Bhogin. a level with Bhogin. Evidently this barber did not sit on the throne and thus remains excluded from the list of kings. The kings after Bhogin are only three. And yet there is the curious fact that Vangara, mentioned next to Dhanadharman who is placed beside Chandramsa, "is remembered as the fourth". However, the puzzle remains as long as we think of "the fourth" in terms of kinghood. Taking our from the word "second" in connection with Chandramsa, we can clear the mystery by regarding Vangara as the fourth "Nakhavan." Then, with Dhanadharman as the understood third, we have a quartet of "barbers, the last three of whom we may count either as successive or as contemporary, either as a continuing threegenerationed family of "barbers" after the first or three sons following a father. If we accept the latter case, the eldest son Chandramsa would rule in the seat of Bhogin's govern- 1. Ibid.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 131 ment, the others in minor localities under him. All the three sons would constitute the next generation after Bhogin (and after the first "barber")-that is, on a time-parity with Vindhyasakti's son Pravira. The second generation after Bhogin-that is, on a level of time with Pravira's four sons-would be Bhutinanda. As nothing is said of his end we may presume that during his reign the Vindhyakas would pass away and the Guptas arise. If Bhutinanda belonged practically to the same generation as Chandragupta I, Chandramsa would precede the latter in time precisely as Xandrames preceded Sandrocottus, and be a powerful monarch in the Indian interior in the middle of 326 B. C. when Alexander halted at the Beas and when, as we know from both Plutarch (LXII)¹ and Justin (XV.iv) Sandrocottus was not yet king. And the fact that Chandramsa's father, the first "Nakhavan" is not enumerated as a king identifies further his circumstances with those of Xandrames and supports the chronological position we have assigned him. A Possible Objection on Grounds of Geography and its Answer We are likely to be sharply pulled up here and told: "Don't you know that Xandrames was king of the Prasii no less than of the Gangaridai? The Gangaridai have been shown to be the people of the Ganges-delta in Lower Bengal and the Prasii to be the Prachya, Easterners, and especially the people of Magadha with their imperial capital at Pataliputra, the Palibothra of the Greeks. How, then, can a Naga king of Vidisa have been Xandrames? And what of the war waged by Sandrocottus against Xandrames to win Palibothra from him? You do not even bring Chandragupta I into conflict with Chandramsa. And, if you did, there would still be no Pataliputra to be won, there would be nothing except the Vaidisa a kingdom to be wrested. All this should cancel your equation of Xandranies with Chandramsa." We can cast grave doubt upon every one of the propositions advanced and as good as nullify their arguments. 1. The Classical Accounts..., p. 199. 2. Ibid., p. 193.

132 puranam -- PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 First, it is not so much with the Prasii as with the Gangaridai that Xandrames is associated. Except once in Diodorus,' the order of the two is not the Prasii and the Gangaridai but the other way round. And in Diodorus himself we soon find Xandrames called simply "the king of the Gandaridai". And, thrice after this, Diodorus speaks of Alexander wanting to make an "expedition against the Gandaridai"." In another context too he uses the very same expression." The Prasii are nowhere on the scene. And nowhere nowhere is Xandrames associated with Palibothra. Sandrocottus is openly linked with the Prasii and described as king of Palibothra. The contrast is glaring. Xandrames is eminently the ruler of the Gangaridai and, if the Prasii are to be linked with him, a small and peripheral part of them may be put under his sway, leaving out the great bulk of them and especially their central part in and about Palibothra. Plutarch' who, unlike Diodorus and Curtius, does not mention Xandrames by name goes even so far as to mention "kings" of the Gangaridai and the Prasii. This may suggest that Xandrames was not the sole opponent of Alexander and, although king of only the Gangaridai, was in command of the Prasii just by being the chief of a coalition against the Macedonian. As such, he was virtually the king of all the Indian interior that was banded to resist the invasion. But it is highly questionable whether in any genuine or literal sense he can be regarded as the monarch of Magadha with his capital at Pataliputra. Nor do we read anywhere of Sandrocottus going to war with Xandrames. In fact, the way he became king of Palibothra and the Prasii is never explicitly mentioned. A passage in Justin,鈸� where from a non-king he becomes a king, is directly concerned 1. Ibid., p. 172. 2. Ibid., pp. 128, 198. 3. Ibid., p. 172. 4. Ibid., pp. 172-3. 5. Ibid., p. 234. 6. Ibid., pp. 262. Also, I. McCrindle, The Invasion af India by Alexander the great, p. 408, 7. Ibid., p. 198. 8. Ibid., 172-3.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 133 only with his collecting an army and defeating the prefects left by Alexander and replacing them in the region of the Indus. In between there is a reference to instigating the Indians to "overthrow the existing government" or soliciting them to "support his new sovereignty" but the context should suggest only the existing Greek government and the replacement of this old sovereignty by Sandrocottus new one in the provinces of the prefects. As Mookerji clear-headedly realises, whatever conquests of the Indian interior were achieved by Sandrocottus came afterwards. And we have no specific account of them they are just assumed as a fait accompli by the time Seleucus crosses the Indus that is to say, by 305 B. C. All we are told is that Sandrocottus was in possession of India when Seleucus was laying the foundations of his future greatness abroad. It would be sheer wishful thinking on our part to bring in Xandrames and a war with him over Magadha, resulting in conquest of and coronation at Pataliputra. As to the location of Xandrames Gangaridai, the general solution of the problem is supplied by Diodorus (VII. XCI), He tells us that the Younger Porus into whose kingdom Alexander had moved after crossing the river (obviously the Acesines, Asikni, modern Chenab) next to the Hydaspes (Vitasta, modern Jhelum) in the eastward direction had fled farther east "to the nation of the Gandaridai". Surely, the Younger Porus did not flee to the Ganges-delta or even to the territory just beyond the Ganges. Diodorus brings Alexander up to the "Hypanis" (Hyphasis) and Porus is still uncaught. All we can say is: Porus had gone across this tributary of the Indus into the valley of the Gangetic river-system. E. R. Bevan' comments: "To the Gandaridai, says Diodorus. The people of the Ganges-region are probably meant." "The people of the Ganges-region"-here Bevan appears to go to the heart of the matter. The very name "Gangaridai" 1. This variant is noted in An Advanced History of India, by R. C. Majumdar, H. C. Raychaudhuri, and K. Datta (London, 1946), p. 99. 2. Op. cit., pp. 52-3. 3. The Classical Accounts..., p. 170. 4. The Cambridge History of India (1935), I, p. 370.

134 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 relates the "nation" concerned to the Ganges, and it would be strange that this "nation" should then be limited to the delta of the river rather than spread out to all the lands through which, together with its tributaries, it flowed. It is a misconception that Megasthenes makes Lower Bengal the home of the Gangaridai. Diodorus (II. 37)' reports from him that the Ganges' final run to the ocean forms "the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai, a nation which possesses the greatest number of elephants and the largest in size," and this "overwhel ming number" he gives as 4,000. Nothing is said here about the other boundaries; we are not told that they confine the Gangaridai's home to the Ganges-delta. Taken along with the information about the Younger Porus flight and the passage (VI. XCIII)' where we learn of Xandrames waiting on the eastern bank of the Ganges for Alexander, Diodorus report creates the definite impression that the Gangaridai extended from the Beas eastward right across Madhyadesa (the Middle Country) through the land of the Prachyas into the delta of the Ganges. Although the Prachyas, with their capital Pataliputra, are themselves in the Ganges-region, the Gangaridai are to be distinguished from the Prasii as those people of this region in connection with whose king we never hear of Pataliputra. The people of the heart of Magadha have, for political purposes, to be set apart from the Gangaridai. Pliny (VI. 22), dealing with the Ganges-delta, does not contradict Diodorus. He says that the "Gangaridae-Calingae" lived there: i. e. the particular section of the Gangaridai, which The other belonged to the widely diffused Calinga people. branches of the Calingae he (ibid) calls the Modogalingae and (VI. 21)* the Maccocalingae, the latter forming also a section of the many-tribed Brachmanae. The idea that the Gangaridai as a whole are to be located in Lower Bengal is due to a passage in 1. The Classical Accounts., p. 234. 2. Ibid., p. 172. 3. Ibid., p. 350, note 8a. A discussion in some detail of the correct and the incorrect readings of Pliny is in J. McCrindle, Ancient India as Described by Megathenes and Arrian (Calcutta, 1920), pp. 137-8, fn. 4. The Classical Account..., p. 841.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 135 Solinus (52.7)1 being taken in isolation instead of in collation with Diodorus and Pliny. Solinus has no mention of the Calingae. But the moment we look at his military figures for his Gangaridae we notice that they are exactly the same as Pliny's. And, when we compare his number of elephants with that which Diodorus. gives, we are shocked at his 700 as against the other's 4,000. Obviously, Diodorus is talking of the entire Gangaridai group, with the Ganges-delta merely their eastern boundary, whereas Solinus is talking of no more than a small section of it. In view of those 700 elephants we cannot even regard the Ganges-delta as the central seat of the Gangaridai, leave aside its being their exclusive home. Can the central seat of a nation possessing the most numerous and the biggest elephants have only a piffling 700 when even small tribes like the Megallae' almost equal it with 500 and the Andarae can actually boast of 1,000 and the Horatae own 1,600 ? No, we cannot without self-contradiction attach importance of any kind to the Ganges-delta. And, if Ptolemy (VII. 1. 81) the geographer (C. 130 A. D.) locates the Gangaridai there, we must assume him to have gone astray because of some passage like Solinus and to have missed the true sense of Megasthenes. Scholars have picked out several errors in his book we may well take this to be one more. The error should also be apparent as soon as we cast about for the full Indian original of the name "Gangaridai". If a single specific tribe is denoted, we should be able to find an ancient Indian one of much prowess and fame. None with any corresponding sound has been lighted upon. The term is evidently a general designation. We may suggest that it answers to a compound Prakrit expression which may have been in colloquial use at the time; Gangarattha, meaning "the Ganges-kingdom". A rattha (Sanskrit Rashtra), according to the Manusmriti (ix, 226, 1. Ibid., p. 457. 2. Ibid., p. 343. 3. Ibid., p. 84. 4. Ibid, p. 344. 5. Ibid., p. 375.

136 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 251; vii, 134), was made up of different countries, desas, or provinces called janapadas or vishayas, held together under a raja. Thus the Gangaridai could very appositely be a collection or confederacy of provinces situated in the Ganges-region, ruled over by King Xandrames in 326 B. C. effectively in some places, loosely in others. By their very nature, they could not be confined to the Ganges-delta. And, if they had at all a central seat of power, though not of origin since they came from no single province, it must have been where, far from that delta, Xandrames was waiting for Alexander, all the military resources of his manifold rattha mobilised to make the huge forces of men and chariots and animals the Classical historians have enumerated. And, when the Gangaridai rather than the Prasii are repeatedly said or suggested to be Alexander's enemy under Xandrames, this king of the Indian interior must be placed principally west of Magadha, at least west of Magadha's capital Pata liputra. There can be no objection to his having had like Chandramsa, Vidisa as his seat of government. The Precise Geographical Situation However, to make Chandramsa's geographical situation precisely like that of Xandrames we have to show that, like Xandrames, he may have ruled over fairly extensive territory from a governmental seat at Vidisa. The Puranas, telling us of the time after the Vindhyakas have passed away, make the Nagas flourish at other centres too, Kantipuri, Mathura, Padmavati.¹ The prevalence of Naga rule over considerable portions of Northern India in both the pre-Gupta and the Gupta periods is also attested by epigraphic and numismatic finds. It seems the Nagas who are specified in the Puranas as rulers of one or another centre were really master over more than one centre and that the object of mentioning this or that centre was to denote the home or the principal city of each Naga. Thus, "some coins bearing the name of Maharaja Ganendra or Ganapa have been discovered 1. Ibid., 2. The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 169,

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS 137 at Padmavati and also at Vidisa and Mathura" which shows that this king of Padmavati may have expanded his influence over the rest of the Naga centres. Again, the Vakataka records which mention Maharaja Bhavanaga, whose daughter married a son of Pravira's and who thus was a contemporary of Chandramsa describes him as belonging to the family of the Bharasivas "who were besprinkled on the forehead with the pure water of the Bhagirathi that had been obtained by their valour": the implication is "that their home was away from the Bhagirathi (Ganga) but that they extended their power as far as the valley of that river". Another king, Virasena, who has left numismatic and epigraphic traces, is believed to have been a Naga with his capital at Mathura and with sovereignty over also Bulandshahr, Etah and Farrukhabad Districts as well as parts of the Punjab.³ The Nagas, whether centred at Vidisa, Kantipuri, Mathura or Padmavati, can be considered prominent rulers of the Gangaridi the people along the course of the Ganges-and Chandramsa the Naga of Vidisa may be equated on geographical grounds with Xandrames. The Nagas and the Guptas In the Gangetic valley west of Magadha the Nagas are known to have been the immediate predecessors of the Guptas. Two of the Aryavarta kings whom Samudragupta claims to have ""extirpated" were Nagas: Ganapatinaga and Nagasena who appear to have been a couple out of the nine Naga kings said by the Puranas to have ruled at Padmavati.' Even during the reign of the Gupta dynasty the Nagas continued in the province over which Xandrames ruled. Samudragupta's son, Chandragupta II, married Kuberanaga who was a Naga princess. "A Naga chief named Sarvanaga was appointed vishayapati (provincial governos) and was ruling the Antarvedi district (between the Ganga and the Yamuna and between Prayaga and Haradvara) under Skandagupta..." 915 1. Ibid., p. 170. 4. Ibid., p. 170. 18 2. Ibid., p. 169. 5. Ibid., 3. Ibid., p. 171.

138 puranam - PURANA [Vol. IX., No. 1 Everything favours our giving to the extraordinarily close resemblance between "Chandramsa" and "Xandrames" the utmost value it deserves on its own merits. The problem of Xandrames of the Classical accounts may be regarded as solved not only by the Puranas themselves but also by all other available evidence in conformity with the Puranic identification of Sandrocottus with Chandragupta I. Sandrocottus and Pataliputra Arrived at this conclusion we may close with some remarks on Sandrocottus acquisition of Pataliputra. We have already noted that the Classical accounts do not permit us to look at Xandrames as king of Palibothra or to conceive Sandrocottus as fighting him. And this posture of events gains support from what we know of Gupta history and of Pataliputra between the fall of the Andhras and the rise of the Guptas. In D. R. Bhandarkar's considered opinion, it is clear not only from the tradition of the clan of the Lichchhavis but also from one of the Nepal inscriptions published by Pandit Bhagwanlal Indraji' that the Lichchhavis were ruling at Pataliputra in this period. R. K. Mookerjis too favours this view. Now, with regard to Chandragupta I, there are two facts facing us: (1) according to the Puranas the territories which the first Guptas enjoyed, as if their rightful heartland, included Magadha and therefore Pataliputra ; (2) Chandragupta married the Lichchhavi princess Kumaradevi,. whose image and name regularly appear on his coins as if to justify by his association with her his right to his new title Maharajadhiraja ("Supreme King of Great Kings") which none of his ancestors had borne. From this pair of facts we may reasonably infer that Chandragupta came into possession of Pataliputra by marrying the Lichchhavi Kumaradevi. No previous sovereign like Xandrames enters the picture of the Guptas' founder becoming king of Pataliputra. 1. Carmichael Lectures, 1921. p. 10. 2. The Indian Antiquary, IX, p. 7. 3. The Gupta Empire, p. 8.

Jan., 1967] XANDRAMES OF THE CLASSICAL ACCOUNTS Sandrocottus and Xandrames 139 However, as Sandrocottus who was overlord of the Gangetic valley, Chandragupta I has to be taken as conquering the territory owned by Xandrames and replacing whoever was master of Vidisa at the time the founder of the Imperial Guptas established himself as the chief power in the Indian interior. Soon after mounting the throne of Pataliputra he must have replaced the sovereignty of Chandramsa's successor, Bhutinanda, in the valley of the Ganges. With this deduction we may end on an irony of history. Although Xandrames cannot be identified with any member of the Nanda dynasty founded by Mahapadma and so Sandrocottus cannot be brought into contemporaneity with the last of the Nandas known to the Puranas, we still have a Puranic Nanda-sounding king confronting him in the dominion over which Xandrames had presided: Bhutinanda. POSTSCRIPT In view of what we have said above about the Lichchavis' sway over Pataliputra after the Andhras and before the Guptas, we shall have partly to revise our Puranic treatment of Arrian's three republics in Part II of our series on Megasthenes and Indian Chronology. The Lichchavis were a republican clan. So one of Arrian's republics would fall between the passing of the Andhras and the advent of the Guptas. This will necessitate certain readjustments in our historical vision. These readjustments, together with some other reconsiderations, we may set forth in a back-glance essay when we have completed our whole series.