Power may win the throne, but legitimacy alone sustains the state.
The Nanda-Maurya transition needs to be examined beyond the familiar narrative of Cāṇakya and Candragupta overthrowing Dhana Nanda. The Nandas must be understood not merely as greedy or illegitimate rulers, but as builders of a formidable fiscal-military state that made imperial Magadha possible. Amātya Rākṣasa is a profound figure of defeated loyalty and institutional continuity, while we should also examine Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s critique of harsh statecraft. Rather than replacing one character with another, a layered reading of power, legitimacy, loyalty, suspicion, and dharma in early Indian political thought is needed.
Introduction
The rise of the Mauryan Empire is often told as thus: Cāṇakya, the brilliant strategist, recognises the promise of Candragupta Maurya, guides him against the arrogant Dhana Nanda, overthrows a corrupt dynasty, and establishes one of the greatest empires of ancient India. This version is powerful, memorable, and politically satisfying. But it is also incomplete. When one looks at the wider textual and historical memory around the Nandas, Cāṇakya, Candragupta, Amātya Rākṣasa, the Arthaśāstra, Viśākhadatta’s Mudrārākṣasa, Buddhist narratives, Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s Kādambarī, Greek accounts, and later reflections on imperial decline, a more complex picture emerges.1
The Nandas were not merely villains. Cāṇakya was not merely a flawless sage of statecraft. Rākṣasa was not merely an obstacle to be removed. The Mauryas did not arise from a political vacuum. And the Arthaśāstra was not simply a one-man manual written in one sitting for Candragupta.2
The story is better understood as a major civilizational debate about state capacity, loyalty, political violence, legitimacy, centralisation, regionalisation, suspicion, and the moral limits of power. The Nanda-Maurya transition is not only about the change of one dynasty into another. It is about a deeper political question:
What kind of power deserves to rule?
Is it wealth? Is it force? Is it strategic intelligence? Is it loyalty? Is it moral restraint? Or must a durable state somehow hold all of these together?
Let’s reopen the Nanda-Maurya story not as a simple tale of hero and villain, but as a layered reflection on Indian statecraft. The Nanda-Maurya story is not a tale of darkness replaced by light. It is a story of one form of power being captured, disciplined, expanded, and morally reinterpreted.
Historical Source-Criticism and Political Memory
A useful distinction must be made between historical reconstruction and political memory. Historical reconstruction asks: what probably happened, based on comparison of sources, chronology, inscriptions, literary traditions, and external testimony?
Political memory asks: how did later communities choose to remember what happened, and why did particular images endure?
The Nanda-Maurya transition survives in both modes. The historian must separate evidence from embellishment, chronology from legend, and inference from fact. But the student of political thought must also ask why the embellishment endured. Why did traditions remember Dhana Nanda as greedy? Why did they remember Cāṇakya as brilliant but dangerous? Why did Rākṣasa become the model of loyal resistance? Why did Aśoka need to speak in the language of dhamma after the violence of conquest?12
These memories are not useless simply because they are not always literal history. They reveal how later Indian thinkers reflected on power, legitimacy, violence, loyalty, and moral rule. V. S. Pathak’s work on ancient Indian historical traditions and biographies is especially useful here because it reminds us that Indian historical memory often survives through literary, dynastic, sectarian, and ethical frames, not only through modern archival forms.
In this sense, the Nanda-Maurya story must be read on two levels:
As historical reconstruction, it concerns the fall of one dynasty and the rise of another.
As political memory, it concerns the ethical problem of power itself.
Cāṇakya, Kauṭilya, and Viṣṇugupta: One Person or Three Memories?
The first question is whether Viṣṇugupta, Kauṭilya, and Cāṇakya were the same person.13
Cāṇakya is the famous political teacher and minister associated with Candragupta Maurya. Kauṭilya or Kauṭalya is the name attached to the Arthaśāstra. Viṣṇugupta is often treated as the personal name.
Yet, from a critical historical perspective, some caution is necessary. The life of Cāṇakya is surrounded by later legends, dramatic narratives, Buddhist stories, Jaina accounts, and political memory. We do not possess contemporary biographical records that can prove every detail of his life in the modern historical sense.
Therefore, the balanced formulation is:
Modern scholarship accepts this as a powerful and influential tradition, but treats the identification with caution when reconstructing strict history.
This distinction matters because Cāṇakya is not only a historical figure. He is also a symbolic figure: the mind of statecraft, the strategist behind regime change, the maker of empire, and, in some traditions, the dangerous embodiment of ruthless political intelligence.
The Arthaśāstra: One Author or a Layered Śāstra?
The Arthaśāstra is traditionally attributed to Kauṭilya. It is one of the most important Sanskrit works on polity, economics, administration, law, espionage, taxation, diplomacy, war, and kingship. In popular imagination, it is often thought of as Cāṇakya’s direct manual for Candragupta Maurya.
But the text we possess is more complex.
The Arthaśāstra is best understood as a layered śāstra. It likely contains older material from pre-existing artha and nīti traditions, a major act of compilation and systematisation associated with Kauṭilya, and later scholastic redaction.14
We should not imagine it only as one person writing one book in one moment. Rather, it is more like a gathered tradition of statecraft that reached a coherent form under the authority of the name Kauṭilya.
We should not imagine it only as one person writing one book in one moment. Rather, it is more like a gathered tradition of statecraft that reached a coherent form under the authority of the name Kauṭilya.
A reasonable view would be that at least three layers are involved.
First, older arthaśāstra teachers and schools contributed ideas on kingship, taxation, punishment, diplomacy, forts, armies, and administration.
Second, a major compiler or redactor, remembered as Kauṭilya or Kauṭalya, organised these materials into a systematic śāstra.
Third, later redactors or scholastic hands may have expanded, refined, arranged, and transmitted the text in the form that eventually survived.
Thus, if one asks how many writers contributed to the Arthaśāstra, the honest answer is: we cannot count them exactly. But we can say that it likely represents more than one hand, more than one generation, and more than one political context. Its formation may have stretched across several centuries, with older Mauryan or pre-Mauryan material preserved within a later received text.
This does not reduce its importance. On the contrary, it makes the Arthaśāstra more significant. It becomes not merely Cāṇakya’s personal opinion but a crystallisation of a long Indian tradition of political reasoning.
Two Models of Kingship
The wider Nanda-Maurya through two models of kingship.
1. The Nanda Model: Fiscal-Military Centralisation
The Nanda model is centred on treasury, taxation, army, expansion, and central authority. Its strength lies in state capacity. It understands that sovereignty requires resources. Without wealth, a king cannot pay soldiers, maintain officers, build roads, protect frontiers, support public works, or conduct diplomacy.
The Nanda state may be summarised through the terms:
kośa — treasury
daṇḍa — coercive power, punishment, army
kara — taxation
rājya-vistāra — territorial expansion
kendrīkaraṇa — centralisation
The Nandas show that a state cannot survive on ritual prestige alone. It needs material power.
2. The Kauṭilyan-Mauryan Model: Strategic Imperial Statecraft
The Kauṭilyan-Mauryan model adds systematic strategy to state capacity. It is not satisfied with wealth and army alone. It thinks in terms of intelligence networks, diplomacy, enemy management, ministerial discipline, internal security, fortification, revenue, punishment, and expansion.16
It is a model of disciplined power.
This model understands danger. It assumes that political life is unstable and filled with rivals, traitors, spies, enemies, weak allies, hidden motives, and opportunities. It is effective, but morally unsettling if left unchecked.
The Nandas teach us that empire needs wealth and force. Kauṭilya teaches us that empire needs intelligence and discipline. Aśoka teaches us that empire also needs moral legitimacy.
No one model is sufficient by itself. Wealth without legitimacy becomes oppression. Intelligence without compassion becomes manipulation. Morality without institutions becomes weak. Durable governance needs all three: capacity, strategy, and ethical purpose.
The Problem of Legitimacy
The Nanda-Maurya transition is not only about power. It is also about legitimacy.
Power can seize a throne. Legitimacy allows a state to endure.
The Nandas had enormous power: treasury, army, expansion, and administrative capacity. But they seem to have suffered from a legitimacy problem, especially in the memory of traditions that emphasise their low or non-kṣatriya origin, harsh taxation, and unpopularity.18 Their problem was not lack of state capacity. Their problem was that their authority could be remembered as extractive, socially suspect, and morally unattractive.
Candragupta had new sovereignty, but he needed legitimacy. He could not rule only as the man who overthrew the Nandas. He had to stabilise the capital, win over officers, integrate regions, create alliances, and inherit the administrative seriousness of Magadha. This is why the figure of Rākṣasa becomes so important. Winning Rākṣasa means winning the moral and institutional residue of the previous regime.
Cāṇakya had strategy, but strategy too needs justification. Political intelligence can seize opportunity, but if it becomes associated only with manipulation, intrigue, and killing, it creates moral unease. This is why later Buddhist narratives and Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s critique are significant. They show that classical and religious traditions could admire intelligence while also fearing its ethical cost.
Rākṣasa had loyalty, but he too faced a legitimacy dilemma. How long should loyalty to a fallen house continue when a new ruler has taken power? At what point does fidelity to the old order become obstruction to public stability? His eventual reconciliation with Candragupta resolves this tension: loyalty is not erased, but redirected toward a new political order.
Aśoka had imperial authority, but after Kaliṅga he needed ethical legitimacy. His dhamma did not replace the empire’s administrative structure, but it gave kingship a moral language. It allowed the ruler to appear not merely as conqueror, but as guardian, instructor, and welfare-giver.19
Thus, the entire arc may be read as a series of legitimacy problems:
The Nanda-Maurya transition shows that state power has many layers. It requires capacity, but capacity alone is not enough. It requires strategy, but strategy alone is not enough. It requires loyalty, but loyalty must eventually serve order. It requires moral language, but morality must be supported by institutions.
The deeper lesson is this:
A throne may be won by force, but a state is sustained by legitimacy.
Mahāpadma Nanda: Founder of the Nanda Dynasty
The Nanda dynasty was founded by Mahāpadma Nanda, also remembered as Mahāpadmapati or Ugrasena. He should not be confused with Dhana Nanda, who was the last Nanda ruler.20
Mahāpadma Nanda stands at a crucial moment in early Indian political history. He inherited Magadha’s growing power from earlier dynasties and expanded it aggressively. In Purāṇic memory, especially Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.24.20–24, he is described as born from Mahānandin through a Śūdra woman, as Mahāpadma, and as a Paraśurāma-like destroyer of kṣatriya power who would bring the earth under one umbrella.21
This need not be read literally as a total extermination of kṣatriyas. Politically, it suggests that he broke the strength of many older ruling houses and consolidated Magadha into a far more formidable imperial centre.
Traditional accounts also describe the Nandas as being of low or non-kṣatriya origin. This has often been used against them. But it can also be read differently. The rise of Mahāpadma Nanda may represent one of the earliest major instances of social and political mobility in ancient India. He challenged older aristocratic lineages and built power through wealth, military force, administrative strength, and expansion.
In this sense, Mahāpadma Nanda was not simply an upstart. He was a state-builder. He created the conditions in which Magadha became the central imperial power of northern India.
The Great Legacy of the Nandas
The Nandas are often remembered for wealth, taxation, and severity. But these very features can also be read as signs of state capacity.22
A large treasury was not merely hoarded greed. In the language of statecraft, kośa, the treasury, is a limb of the state. The Arthaśāstra places kośa among the seven state-constituents in 6.1.1, and its Book II devotes detailed attention to revenue, accounts, and the treasury through the offices of samāhartṛ and kośādhyakṣa.23
Without revenue, there can be no army, no administration, no public works, no diplomacy, no famine response, and no imperial ambition. The Nandas appear to have understood this with unusual clarity. They built a fiscal state.
Without revenue, there can be no army, no administration, no public works, no diplomacy, no famine response, and no imperial ambition. The Nandas appear to have understood this with unusual clarity. They built a fiscal state.
They also maintained a formidable army. Greek accounts associated the eastern kingdom beyond the Ganges with enormous military strength: cavalry, infantry, chariots, and war elephants. Even if the numbers are exaggerated, the political meaning is unmistakable.24
The Nanda state was feared. It was not a weak or collapsing power waiting to be removed by a clever plot.
The Nanda state was feared. It was not a weak or collapsing power waiting to be removed by a clever plot.
This is crucial. The Mauryas did not inherit emptiness. They inherited a powerful Magadhan political machine built substantially by the Nandas. The Nandas gave later India the model of a centralised fiscal-military state, with Pāṭaliputra as a major imperial centre, revenue systems, administrative offices, military strength, and expansionist ambition.
Their legacy may be summarised as follows:
The Nandas made Magadha powerful before the Mauryas made it subcontinental.
The Nandas built power, but they did not leave behind a voice.
The hostile memory of Dhana Nanda may contain exaggeration, but it may not be entirely baseless. Heavy taxation, centralised extraction, elite resentment, and popular dissatisfaction may have been real features of Nanda rule. A strong treasury may indicate fiscal capacity, but it may also indicate severe revenue pressure. A huge army may show military strength, but it may also show the burdens of maintaining coercive power. A centre-heavy state may produce order, but it may also produce resentment.
Dhana Nanda may indeed have ruled harshly. The Nandas may have alienated older political elites. Their social origin may have been unfairly weaponised against them, but their unpopularity cannot be dismissed entirely as propaganda.
The purpose of rebalancing the Nanda story is to show that harshness and state capacity can coexist.
The Nandas may have been both formidable and resented.
They may have been both administratively serious and politically unpopular.
They may have been both builders of empire and contributors to their own delegitimisation.
This is precisely what makes them historically important. They reveal that power without adequate legitimacy produces vulnerability, even when the state appears strong.
Was the Nanda State Centre-Heavy?
The Nanda state was very likely centre-heavy. It accumulated wealth, sustained a massive army, expanded territorially, and held Magadha as the core of power. Such a state required a strong centre. It needed revenue extraction, officers, military command, storage, transport, fortification, political coordination, and control over conquered territories.
The Nandas therefore appear to have created one of the earliest great fiscal-military monarchies in India. Their model was not primarily remembered as moral or dharmic kingship. It was remembered as power: wealth, army, taxation, conquest, and administrative seriousness.
However, one must be cautious before calling the Nanda state “spy-based” in the explicit Kauṭilyan sense. We do not possess a Nanda administrative manual. We do not have Nanda inscriptions explaining their system of intelligence. Most surviving references to them come through later traditions, hostile memories, or external accounts.
The sources criticise the Nandas mainly for low origin, heavy taxation, enormous wealth, ruthless expansion, military strength, and unpopularity. They do not clearly state that the Nandas ruled through a vast formal spy network.
Still, any large ancient state of this kind would almost certainly need informants and intelligence channels. A ruler who conquers older dynasties and extracts large revenues must monitor officers, rivals, provincial elites, frontier chiefs, and rebellious groups. The Arthaśāstra’s later systematisation of gūḍhapuruṣa or secret agents, especially in 1.11–12, shows how such anxieties were theorised in classical statecraft.25
So the most careful formulation is:
The Nandas were likely centralised and information-conscious, but we cannot prove that they had the fully systematised espionage doctrine later associated with the Arthaśāstra.
Another useful formulation is:
The Nandas practised hard central power; the Kauṭilyan tradition theorised hard central power.
Dhana Nanda: Villain or Strong Ruler?
Dhana Nanda, the last Nanda ruler, is usually presented negatively. He is described as arrogant, greedy, unpopular, and socially illegitimate. In the Cāṇakya-Candragupta tradition, he is the ruler who must be overthrown.
But a defence of Dhana Nanda is possible.
First, he inherited one of the strongest states in India. Such a state could not have existed through stupidity alone. It required revenue, officers, soldiers, logistics, fortification, intelligence, and treasury management.
Second, the criticism of his low birth may have been political propaganda. Older elites may have disliked the Nandas not simply because they were unjust, but because they disrupted hereditary political hierarchies.
Third, the wealth associated with Dhana Nanda can be interpreted not only as greed but as fiscal strength. A king with a strong treasury could act independently of rival nobles, external powers, and unstable coalitions.
Fourth, the fact that Cāṇakya and Candragupta were not immediately successful against the Nandas strengthens the case for Nanda power. Jaina tradition, especially Hemacandra’s Pariśiṣṭaparvan 8, remembers the struggle as requiring strategy, reversal, and renewed effort rather than a single easy conquest.26 This suggests that the Nanda state was resilient.
A weak ruler can be removed in a single stroke. Dhana Nanda was not removed so easily.
Why the Nandas Lost the Narrative
The Nandas did not only lose power. They also lost the narrative.
This may be their greatest posthumous defeat.
The Mauryas inherited the future. The Nandas became the past that had to be overcome. Later traditions remembered Candragupta as the founder, Cāṇakya as the strategist, and Aśoka as the moral emperor. The Nandas, by contrast, survived largely in the memory of their opponents, successors, and later narrators.
Several factors contributed to this.
First, the Nandas were overthrown. Defeated dynasties are often remembered through the eyes of victors.
Second, their social origin became an easy tool of delegitimation. Traditions that valued kṣatriya pedigree or elite lineage could portray the Nandas as socially unworthy, even if their actual political capacity was formidable.
Third, their wealth became moralised as greed. A strong treasury could have been remembered as state capacity, but hostile memory turned it into miserliness and extraction.
Fourth, unlike Aśoka, the Nandas did not leave behind a powerful inscriptional self-representation that could speak in their own voice across centuries. Aśoka carved his dhamma into stone. The Nandas were remembered mostly through the words of others.
Fifth, the story of Cāṇakya and Candragupta required a morally defective opponent. The greater the villainy of Dhana Nanda, the more justified the regime change appeared.
Thus, the Nandas lost twice: first politically, then narratively.
A sharp way to put it is:
The Nandas built power, but they did not leave behind a voice. Aśoka carved his conscience into stone; the Nandas were carved into memory by their enemies.
This does not mean every criticism of them was false. It means their memory is not neutral. It must be read as the memory of a defeated and delegitimised dynasty.
Porus and the Greek Memory of Dhana Nanda
Greek accounts also preserve an interesting memory of the eastern ruler often identified with Dhana Nanda. Alexander, after defeating Porus, heard about the powerful kingdom beyond the Ganges. One account says that Alexander first questioned Phegeus, who described the strength of the eastern kingdom, and then asked Porus whether the report was true. Porus reportedly confirmed the power of that kingdom but disparaged its ruler as a common and undistinguished man, said to be the son of a barber.27
This does not mean Porus “complained” about Dhana Nanda. Rather, he confirmed the military strength of the eastern king while insulting his social origin and character.
This too can be read in two ways.
Against Dhana Nanda, it shows that hostile traditions remembered him as socially low and personally unimpressive.
In favour of Dhana Nanda, it reveals the politics of elite contempt. Porus, a defeated or subordinate ruler now speaking in Alexander’s presence, had reason to present the distant Magadhan king as socially illegitimate. Yet even in that hostile framing, the military power of the Nanda state could not be denied.
Amātya Rākṣasa: Antagonist, Not Villain
Amātya Rākṣasa is one of the most dignified figures in the Nanda-Maurya cycle. He appears most prominently in Viśākhadatta’s Mudrārākṣasa, a later Sanskrit political drama centred on Cāṇakya’s effort to bring Rākṣasa into Candragupta’s service.28
Rākṣasa is technically the antagonist of the play because he resists the Mauryan settlement. But he is not a villain. His greatness lies in loyalty.
He remains loyal to the fallen Nanda house even after defeat. He does not opportunistically shift to the winning side. He stands by svāmibhakti, loyalty to his master, and by the dignity of office. He represents the old order’s moral continuity. This loyalty is visible across the dramatic arc: Act I establishes Cāṇakya’s political problem as the continued influence of Rākṣasa; Acts II–V show Rākṣasa acting from fidelity to the defeated Nanda cause and in alliance with Malayaketu; Acts VI–VII bring the pressure to its climax, where Rākṣasa’s loyalty to his friend Candanadāsa and to the old Nanda order becomes the very means by which Cāṇakya draws him into the Mauryan settlement.29
The most important point is this: Cāṇakya does not merely seek to destroy Rākṣasa. He seeks to recruit him. This is the highest testimony to Rākṣasa’s worth. A useless enemy is eliminated; a valuable statesman is absorbed.
Rākṣasa possesses administrative ability, political intelligence, loyalty, courage, and public credibility. The new Mauryan state needs him. In that sense, his presence proves that the Nanda administration was not merely corrupt or hollow. It had men of great calibre.
A fair assessment would be:
Rākṣasa is written as an antagonist, but morally he remains one of the noblest figures in the story. He is politically defeated by Cāṇakya but ethically elevated by his loyalty.
Rākṣasa is not the villain of the story; he is the conscience of defeated loyalty.
Rākṣasa and the Ethics of Defeated Loyalty
Rākṣasa should not be treated merely as a dramatic character. He can be read as a political concept.
He raises a question that every regime change must face:
When power changes hands, what should an honourable minister do?
Should he immediately serve the new ruler for the sake of stability? Should he remain loyal to the fallen house that trusted him? Should loyalty belong to a person, a dynasty, a state, a people, or an abstract idea of order?
Rākṣasa’s greatness lies in the fact that he does not treat political service as employment alone. For him, service is bound to memory, gratitude, duty, and honour.
This is why his loyalty is so powerful. He remains faithful not when loyalty is profitable, but when it is costly. He continues to serve the defeated Nanda cause when it brings danger, exile, and political isolation. His loyalty is not merely professional; it is ethical.
From one perspective, this makes him stubborn. He refuses to accept the new reality of Candragupta’s rule. He risks prolonging instability. He aligns with forces that oppose Pāṭaliputra under the Mauryan settlement.
But from another perspective, his refusal is the last defence of political honour. If every minister instantly serves the victor, then loyalty means nothing. Oaths mean nothing. Gratitude means nothing. The dignity of office collapses into careerism.
Rākṣasa therefore embodies the ethics of defeated loyalty. He shows that a polity is not held together only by power. It is also held together by memory, trust, and fidelity.
This is why Cāṇakya must win him, not merely defeat him. A new empire cannot be stable if all honourable men of the old order remain outside it. By bringing Rākṣasa into Candragupta’s administration, the new regime absorbs the moral capital of the defeated regime.
This is one of the deepest political insights of Mudrārākṣasa:
Regime change becomes durable only when the excellence of the old order is reconciled with the authority of the new.
Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s Critique of Cāṇakya in Kādambarī
Bāṇabhaṭṭa’s Kādambarī, especially the section known as Śukanāsopadeśa, offers a moral counterpoint to harsh statecraft.32
Śukanāsa, an experienced minister, advises the young prince Candrāpīḍa before he enters royal life. His counsel warns against youth, beauty, wealth, flattery, arrogance, pleasure, and the intoxication of royal fortune. Within this moral universe, the Kauṭilyan style of politics appears dangerous when taken as the whole of kingship.
Bāṇa’s critique is not that a king needs no strategy. Nor is it that political intelligence is useless. Rather, the warning is that a ruler trained only in suspicion, rivalry, intrigue, and the acquisition of power may lose moral balance. Lakṣmī, royal fortune and wealth, is unstable and intoxicating. Those who become excessively attached to her may justify cruelty in the name of necessity.
This is a profound internal critique of statecraft within Sanskrit literature.
Bāṇa’s position may be summarised as:
Kauṭilya teaches how power is acquired and protected. Śukanāsa asks what happens to the king’s heart when power becomes supreme.
This critique helps us understand why Rākṣasa’s suspicion of Cāṇakya is not irrational. If the new order rises through manipulation, secret operations, and strategic deception, then the old minister’s resistance may be read as an ethical defence of institutional loyalty.”
What Did the Mauryas Inherit from the Nandas?
The Mauryas inherited a great deal from the Nandas: Magadha’s imperial centre, Pāṭaliputra, treasury, revenue systems, military strength, administrative habits, and the very idea that Magadha could dominate much of northern India.33
But they did not simply inherit an empire ready-made. They had to seize, stabilise, expand, and legitimise it.
A regime change is never a clean transfer. Some Nanda officers had to be defeated. Others had to be persuaded. Some provincial powers had to be absorbed. Some old loyalties had to be converted. The drama of Rākṣasa reflects this exact problem.
The Mauryas inherited the machine, but they had to win control of the machine.
The Mauryas inherited the machine, but they had to win control of the machine.
What Did the Mauryas Add?
The Mauryas added scale, integration, diplomacy, ideology, public communication, and enduring memory.
Under Candragupta, the Magadhan state expanded into a much larger imperial formation. He engaged the post-Alexander world, fought the Seleucids, and secured the northwest. Bindusāra extended Mauryan power further into the Deccan. Aśoka added Kaliṅga, though that conquest became the turning point after which he publicly embraced dhamma.34
The Mauryan state also became more visibly bureaucratic and imperial. It operated through officers, provinces, civil administration, military organisation, revenue systems, inspectors, and communication across a vast territory.35
Aśoka’s inscriptions were especially transformative. The king now spoke directly to his subjects through edicts carved on rocks and pillars. This public inscriptional voice is one of the great Mauryan additions to Indian political history.
Thus:
The Nandas built state capacity. The Mauryas expanded and moralised imperial power.
Aśoka carved into stone what the Nandas never left behind: a royal self-explanation.
How Mauryan Rulership Differed from Earlier Rulership
The Mauryans did not invent kingship in India. Before them there were mahājanapadas, gaṇasaṅghas, monarchies, republic-like polities, expanding kingdoms, and the powerful Magadhan dynasties. The Nandas in particular had already made Magadha wealthy, militarised, and administratively serious.
But the Mauryas changed the scale, organisation, language, and moral framing of rulership.
Before the Mauryas, rulership was becoming imperial. Under the Mauryas, it became subcontinental, bureaucratic, inscriptional.
The differences may be seen in several ways.
First, there was the shift from regional power to subcontinental empire. Earlier kings had conquered and expanded, but the Mauryas created the first empire that covered most of the subcontinent.
Second, there was a shift from strong monarchy to organised bureaucracy. The Nandas had a powerful centre, but the Mauryas appear to have systematised imperial administration at a larger scale through officers, provinces, civil service, military organisation, inspectors, and revenue administration.
The End of the Mauryas
The Mauryan Empire did not end immediately after Aśoka, but it gradually weakened. After Aśoka’s death, the empire faced succession quarrels, provincial defections, invasions, and the difficulty of holding together a vast imperial structure.37
The last Mauryan ruler was Bṛhadratha. Around 185 BCE, he was killed by his commander-in-chief Puṣyamitra Śuṅga during a military parade. Puṣyamitra then founded the Śuṅga dynasty.38
This was not merely a sudden collapse from nowhere. It was the final event in a longer process of imperial shrinkage. The Mauryan centre had weakened; the commander-in-chief delivered the decisive blow.
After the Mauryas, India did not become politically empty. Instead, the subcontinent entered a more regional and competitive phase, with Śuṅgas, Indo-Greeks, Sātavāhanas, and other powers shaping different parts of the political map.39
Did Kauṭilyan Suspicion Cause Mauryan Regionalisation?
It is tempting to ask whether the gradual regionalisation after the Mauryas was caused by Cāṇakya or Kauṭilya’s suspicion-and-spy-based policies. The answer must be careful.
Empires decline for many reasons: weak successors, succession disputes, overexpansion, economic strain, provincial autonomy, frontier pressures, military cost, and external invasions.
But the question raises an important political issue. A highly centralised, surveillance-heavy state can hold a large empire together for some time. It can detect rebellion, corruption, conspiracy, and disloyalty. It can strengthen the centre. But if excessive, it can also create distrust between the centre and the provinces.
Such a state may produce obedience without loyalty. Officers may comply because they fear punishment, not because they feel genuine allegiance. Provincial elites may remain quiet when the centre is strong, but detach quickly when the centre weakens.
So the more subtle formulation is:
Kauṭilyan suspicion did not directly cause regionalisation, but it reflects the anxiety of ruling a vast and diverse empire. If such suspicion becomes excessive, it may suppress fragmentation temporarily while failing to build durable trust.
The deeper issue is not spies alone. It is over-centralisation.
A vast empire cannot be governed only through suspicion. It needs cooperation, legitimacy, shared benefit, local trust, and regional partnership. If the centre treats all provincial actors mainly as possible enemies, it may gain information but lose affection. It may gain control but weaken loyalty.
Thus, the real question is not merely:
The better question is:
Can an empire built on surveillance and central command survive without strong rulers at the centre?
For the Mauryas, this question has force. The early Mauryan state may have required unusually strong rulers to sustain its machinery. Under weaker successors, that machinery may have become difficult to maintain.
The Gupta Period and the Question of Decline
The Gupta period restored a major imperial formation in northern India and is often remembered as a classical age of Sanskrit culture, literature, mathematics, astronomy, art, architecture, and religious development. But the Gupta state was not identical to the Mauryan state. It appears to have been more decentralised, relying on provinces, local elites, feudatories, alliances, and regional authorities.40
After the great Gupta rulers, especially after Candragupta II, Kumāragupta, and Skandagupta, the empire weakened. The Hūṇa invasions placed pressure on the northwest and drained imperial resources. Later rulers were less able to maintain central authority. Feudatories and regional powers became more independent. Land grants and localised authority also contributed to decentralisation.41
What declined was large-scale imperial unity, not civilizational vitality.
The post-Gupta world was not a dark age. It was an age of regionalisation.
Was Gupta Regionalisation Also Caused by Kauṭilyan Suspicion?
Their system was more decentralised from the beginning. They relied more visibly on feudatories, regional elites, land grants, and local power structures.
Therefore, Gupta decline was more directly connected to Hūṇa pressure, weaker successors, growing independence of subordinate rulers, fiscal decentralisation, and the political empowerment of regional centres.42
In fact, the Gupta problem was almost the reverse of the Mauryan problem.
The Mauryan state may have leaned toward centralisation and control.
The Gupta state leaned more toward negotiated regional authority.
Both models had strengths and weaknesses. A highly centralised system can be powerful under strong rulers but brittle under weak ones. A decentralised system can expand through alliances but fragment when the centre loses prestige.
Thus, Indian imperial history repeatedly faces a central dilemma:
How can a vast and diverse land be governed without either crushing regional autonomy or losing imperial unity?
Re-reading Regionalisation
Regionalisation should not be treated only as decline. It is also a political rebalancing.
After the Mauryas, regional powers emerged. After the Guptas, regional powers again rose. This does not mean civilisation collapsed. It means authority moved from a single imperial centre into multiple centres. New courts, new regional cultures, new temple networks, new languages, new artistic forms, and new political experiments emerged.43
So the decline of empire is not always the decline of civilisation.
The better distinction is:
Imperial decline means the weakening of a central political structure. Civilizational continuity may continue through regional institutions, religious networks, literary cultures, and local polities.
This is especially important in Indian history, where political unity and civilizational unity are not always the same thing. India could lose imperial unity while retaining deep cultural, ritual, intellectual, and sacred geographies.
Re-reading the Nanda-Maurya Transition
When all these strands are brought together, the Nanda-Maurya transition appears less like a simple morality tale and more like a deep political drama.
The Nandas were not merely greedy tyrants. They were builders of fiscal and military power. Mahāpadma Nanda created an imperial Magadhan base. Dhana Nanda inherited a formidable state. The wealth of the Nandas may have been remembered as greed by their enemies, but it also indicates administrative and fiscal strength.
The Nanda state was probably centre-heavy, extractive, wealthy, militarised, administratively serious, and politically feared. It may have used spies and informants, as any large monarchy would, but the fully articulated suspicion-and-espionage model belongs more clearly to the Kauṭilyan tradition.
Cāṇakya was not merely a wicked schemer. He was a profound political mind who understood the machinery of power. But he was also remembered in some traditions as ruthless, manipulative, and morally dangerous. This dual memory matters.
Candragupta was not simply handed an empire. He had to struggle, fail, learn, and eventually succeed. His rise required strategy, alliances, timing, and the capture of a pre-existing state structure.
Amātya Rākṣasa was not a villain. He was the old order’s most honourable representative. His loyalty proves that the Nanda state had moral and administrative depth. His eventual incorporation into the Mauryan order shows that stable states are built not only by defeating enemies but by absorbing excellence.
The Arthaśāstra is not a simple manual of cruelty, but neither is it a sentimental text. It represents a hard, unsentimental science of power. Later writers like Bāṇabhaṭṭa remind us that power must be morally restrained.
Mudrārākṣasa is not direct history, but it is a priceless window into political imagination. Buddhist narratives are not neutral chronicles, but they preserve ethical discomfort around the means of power. Greek accounts are not free from distortion, but they show that the Nanda state was known as militarily formidable.
The real lesson is this:
Empire is not born from virtue alone. It is born from wealth, force, administration, strategy, legitimacy, memory, and moral contestation.
The Central Dilemma of Indian Empire
The larger question that emerges from the Nanda, Mauryan, and Gupta histories is not simply who ruled after whom. It is: what kind of political form can hold a vast and diverse civilisation together?
The Nandas show the power of fiscal centralisation.
The early Mauryas show the power of disciplined imperial statecraft.
The post-Mauryan period shows that imperial centralisation can give way to regional powers.
The Guptas show that a more decentralised imperial model can produce cultural brilliance but also be vulnerable to fragmentation.
The post-Gupta period shows that political regionalisation need not mean civilizational collapse.
This gives us a profound political insight:
A state can be too weak to hold unity, but it can also be too suspicious to create loyalty. A ruler can centralise power, but unless that power becomes legitimate, trusted, and morally meaningful, it may not survive weak succession.
Kauṭilya’s model understands danger. Aśoka’s model understands moral legitimacy. Rākṣasa’s character understands loyalty. The Nandas understand the importance of wealth and army. The Guptas reveal both the splendour and fragility of regionalised imperial culture.
Taken together, they show that political order requires more than conquest. It requires trust, institutions, revenue, protection, communication, restraint, legitimacy, and ethical imagination.
The Modern Governance Question
The Nanda-Maurya-Gupta arc is not merely ancient history. It raises a permanent question of governance:
How can a large and diverse political order remain united without becoming oppressive, and how can it respect regional autonomy without dissolving into fragmentation?
This question is not confined to empires. It applies to modern states, federal systems, institutions, organisations, and civilizational projects.
Centralisation gives strength, but it can create brittleness.
Regionalisation gives flexibility, but it can weaken unity.
Surveillance gives information, but not necessarily loyalty.
Moral language gives legitimacy, but it must be supported by institutions.
Revenue gives capacity, but excessive extraction creates resentment.
Strategy wins power, but trust sustains it.
The Nandas show the value and danger of fiscal-military centralisation. Cāṇakya shows the brilliance and danger of suspicion-based strategy. Rākṣasa shows that loyalty is not a minor virtue but the moral glue of institutions. Aśoka shows that governance must eventually speak the language of welfare and ethical legitimacy. The Guptas show that cultural brilliance can coexist with political decentralisation, but that decentralisation can become fragmentation when the centre weakens.
The most durable state is not the one that chooses only one of these principles. It is the one that can hold them in balance:
power, intelligence, trust, dharma, and regional accommodation.
A state that has power but no trust becomes feared.
A state that has morality but no institutions becomes ineffective.
A state that has intelligence but no restraint becomes manipulative.
A state that has regional freedom but no centre becomes fragmented.
A state that has central authority but no local dignity becomes oppressive.
The central lesson is therefore not anti-Cāṇakya, anti-Nanda, or anti-empire. It is a more mature lesson:
Governance must know danger, but it must not become paranoid. It must build capacity, but not become extractive. It must seek unity, but not crush plurality. It must use intelligence, but not abandon ethics. It must honour loyalty, but still create space for political renewal.
Bibliography
Primary and Classical Sources
Arrian. Anabasis of Alexander. Translated by P. A. Brunt. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1976–1983.
Aśoka. Inscriptions of Asoka. Edited and translated by D. C. Sircar. Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1957.
Bāṇabhaṭṭa. Kādambarī. Edited by P. V. Kane. Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1921.
Bāṇabhaṭṭa. The Harṣacarita of Bāṇabhaṭṭa. Translated by E. B. Cowell and F. W. Thomas. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1897.
Bāṇabhaṭṭa. The Kādambarī of Bāṇa. Translated by C. M. Ridding. London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1896.
Curtius Rufus, Quintus. History of Alexander. Translated by John C. Rolfe. 2 vols. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1946.
Diodorus Siculus. Library of History. Vol. 8, Books 16.66–17. Translated by C. Bradford Welles. Loeb Classical Library 422. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1963.
Hemacandra. Pariśiṣṭaparvan. Also known as Sthavirāvalīcarita. See especially canto 8.
Justin. Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus. Translated by J. C. Yardley. Atlanta: Scholars Press, 1994.
Kauṭilya. The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra. Translated and edited by R. P. Kangle. 3 vols. Bombay: University of Bombay, 1960–1965.
Kauṭilya. Kautilya’s Arthashastra. Translated by R. Shamasastry. Mysore: Government Branch Press, 1915.
Machiavelli, Niccolò. The Prince. Translated by Harvey C. Mansfield. 2nd ed. Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998.
Plutarch. Lives. Vol. 7, Demosthenes and Cicero; Alexander and Caesar. Translated by Bernadotte Perrin. Loeb Classical Library. Cambridge, MA: Harvard University Press, 1919.
Viśākhadatta. The Mudrārākṣasa of Viśākhadatta. Edited and translated by M. R. Kale. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976. First published 1927.
Wilson, H. H., trans. The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition. Vol. 4. London: Trübner, 1868.
Indian / Indic and Reliable Secondary Sources
Bhandarkar, D. R. Asoka. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1925.
Ghoshal, U. N. A History of Indian Political Ideas: The Ancient Period and the Period of Transition to the Middle Ages. Bombay: Oxford University Press, 1959.
Jayaswal, K. P. Hindu Polity: A Constitutional History of India in Hindu Times. Calcutta: Butterworth, 1924.
Kane, P. V. History of Dharmaśāstra. 5 vols. Poona: Bhandarkar Oriental Research Institute, 1930–1962.
Kosambi, D. D. An Introduction to the Study of Indian History. Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1956.
Majumdar, R. C., ed. The Classical Accounts of India. Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1960.
Majumdar, R. C., ed. The Classical Age. Vol. 3 of The History and Culture of the Indian People. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954.
Majumdar, R. C., and A. D. Pusalker, eds. The Age of Imperial Unity. Vol. 2 of The History and Culture of the Indian People. Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1951.
Mookerji, R. K. Asoka. London: Macmillan, 1928. Reprint, Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass.
Mookerji, R. K. Chandragupta Maurya and His Times. 4th ed. Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1966.
Pathak, V. S. Ancient Historians of India: A Study in Historical Biographies. Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1966.
Raychaudhuri, H. C. Political History of Ancient India: From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty. 7th ed. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1972.
Sharma, R. S. Indian Feudalism, c. 300–1200. Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1965.
Sircar, D. C. Inscriptions of Asoka. Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1957.
Footnotes
1. For the broad Nanda-Maurya transition and the difficulty of reconstructing it across multiple traditions, see H. C. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India: From the Accession of Parikshit to the Extinction of the Gupta Dynasty, 7th ed. (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1972), 199–224; R. K. Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times, 4th ed. (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1966); and R. C. Majumdar and A. D. Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity, vol. 2 of The History and Culture of the Indian People (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1951). ↩
2. On the layered nature and debated dating of the Arthaśāstra, see R. P. Kangle, trans. and ed., The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, 3 vols. (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1960–1965), vol. 1, Introduction; and Kangle, The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, vol. 3, A Study. ↩
3. On ancient Indian historical traditions, literary memory, and source criticism, see V. S. Pathak, Ancient Historians of India: A Study in Historical Biographies (Bombay: Asia Publishing House, 1966); Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, Introduction; and R. C. Majumdar, ed., The Classical Accounts of India (Calcutta: Firma K. L. Mukhopadhyay, 1960). ↩
4. Diodorus Siculus, Library of History 17.93.2–3; Curtius Rufus, History of Alexander 9.2; Plutarch, Life of Alexander 62; Arrian, Anabasis of Alexander 5.25–26; Justin, Epitome of the Philippic History of Pompeius Trogus12.8. ↩
5. Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.24.20–24; Bhāgavata Purāṇa 12.1. For discussion, see Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 199–206; and Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity, relevant chapters on Magadha, the Nandas, and the Mauryas. ↩
6. On Buddhist traditions surrounding Cāṇakya and Candragupta, see the narrative materials associated with the Mahāvaṃsa Ṭīkā / Vaṃsatthappakāsinī. Treat these as later narrative traditions, not contemporary Mauryan records. ↩
7. Hemacandra, Pariśiṣṭaparvan 8. ↩
8. Kauṭilya, The Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, trans. and ed. R. P. Kangle, 3 vols. (Bombay: University of Bombay, 1960–1965); R. Shamasastry, trans., Kautilya’s Arthashastra (Mysore: Government Branch Press, 1915). ↩
9. Viśākhadatta, The Mudrārākṣasa of Viśākhadatta, ed. and trans. M. R. Kale (Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass, 1976; first published 1927), Introduction and acts 1–7. ↩
10. Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Kādambarī, ed. P. V. Kane (Bombay: Nirnaya Sagar Press, 1921), Śukanāsopadeśa section; Bāṇabhaṭṭa, The Kādambarī of Bāṇa, trans. C. M. Ridding (London: Royal Asiatic Society, 1896). ↩
11. For political and historical discussions of the Nandas, Mauryas, and Guptas, see Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India; Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity; R. C. Majumdar, ed., The Classical Age, vol. 3 of The History and Culture of the Indian People (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954); R. S. Sharma, Indian Feudalism, c. 300–1200 (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1965); and D. D. Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History (Bombay: Popular Prakashan, 1956). ↩
12. Pathak, Ancient Historians of India; Majumdar, ed., The Classical Accounts of India; Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, Introduction. ↩
13. For the conventional identification of Cāṇakya with Kauṭilya and Viṣṇugupta, see Kangle, Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, vol. 1, Introduction; Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times. ↩
14. Kangle, Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, vol. 1, Introduction; Kangle, Kauṭilīya Arthaśāstra, vol. 3, A Study. ↩
15. Compare Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra, books 1, 6, and 7, with Niccolò Machiavelli, The Prince, trans. Harvey C. Mansfield, 2nd ed. (Chicago: University of Chicago Press, 1998). The comparison is heuristic, not genealogical. ↩
16. Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra 1.8–10 on ministers, councillors, priests, and testing officials; 1.11–12 on the institution of spies; 6.1.1 on the seven state-constituents; books 7–12 on interstate policy and war. ↩
17. Aśoka, Major Rock Edict 13, in D. C. Sircar, Inscriptions of Asoka (Delhi: Publications Division, Ministry of Information and Broadcasting, Government of India, 1957); R. K. Mookerji, Asoka (London: Macmillan, 1928; repr., Delhi: Motilal Banarsidass); and D. R. Bhandarkar, Asoka (Calcutta: University of Calcutta, 1925). ↩
18. Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.24.20–24; Diodorus, Library of History 17.93.2–3; Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 199–206; Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times. ↩
19. Aśoka, Major Rock Edicts 2, 5, 12, and 13. See Sircar, Inscriptions of Asoka; Mookerji, Asoka; and Bhandarkar, Asoka. ↩
20. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 199–206; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity, relevant chapters on Magadha and the Nandas. ↩
21. Viṣṇu Purāṇa 4.24.20–24. H. H. Wilson’s translation describes Mahāpadma as born of a Śūdra woman, “exceedingly avaricious,” “like another Paraśuráma,” and as one who would bring the earth “under one umbrella.” See H. H. Wilson, trans., The Vishnu Purana: A System of Hindu Mythology and Tradition, vol. 4 (London: Trübner, 1868), Book 4, chap. 24. Compare Bhāgavata Purāṇa 12.1; wording varies by recension. ↩
22. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 199–206; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity. ↩
23. Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra 6.1.1: svāmy-amātya-janapada-durga-kośa-daṇḍa-mitrāṇi prakṛtayaḥ — “the king, minister, territory, fort, treasury, force, and ally are the constituents.” For revenue and treasury, see Arthaśāstra 2.6–8 on revenue collection, accounts, and embezzlement; and 2.12 on the superintendent of the treasury (kośādhyakṣa), following the Shamasastry/Kangle chapter arrangement. ↩
24. Diodorus, Library of History 17.93.2–3. ↩
25. Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra 1.11, “The Institution of Spies,” and 1.12, “Creation of Wandering Spies”; see also 1.13–14 on factions in one’s own and enemy states. In Shamasastry’s translation, Book I chapters 11–12 explicitly concern spy institutions. ↩
26. Hemacandra, Pariśiṣṭaparvan 8. ↩
27. Diodorus, Library of History 17.93.2–3. ↩
28. Viśākhadatta, Mudrārākṣasa, acts 1–7; Kale, Introduction. ↩
29. For act-wise political movement, see Mudrārākṣasa Act I on Cāṇakya’s anxiety over Rākṣasa’s influence; Acts II–V on Rākṣasa’s continued resistance and the Malayaketu alliance; Act VI on the Candanadāsa crisis; and Act VII on Rākṣasa’s final reconciliation and acceptance into Candragupta’s service. See Kale, ed. and trans., Mudrārākṣasa, acts 1–7. ↩
30. The Pabbata / Parvataka episode belongs to later Buddhist narrative tradition associated with the Mahāvaṃsa Ṭīkā / Vaṃsatthappakāsinī. It should be treated as narrative memory rather than verified political history. ↩
31. Kale, Introduction to Mudrārākṣasa; Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 207–24, for the historical background of the Nanda-Maurya transition. ↩
32. Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Kādambarī, ed. Kane, Śukanāsopadeśa; Ridding, Kādambarī of Bāṇa. ↩
33. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 207–24; Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity. ↩
34. Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times; Mookerji, Asoka; Bhandarkar, Asoka; Sircar, Inscriptions of Asoka. ↩
35. Kauṭilya, Arthaśāstra, books 2–5; Mookerji, Chandragupta Maurya and His Times; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity. ↩
36. Aśoka, Major Rock Edict 2 on medical treatment, herbs, wells, and trees; Major Rock Edict 5 on Dhamma-Mahāmātras; Major Rock Edict 12 on restraint and honour toward other sects; Major Rock Edict 13 on Kaliṅga and remorse. See Sircar, Inscriptions of Asoka; Mookerji, Asoka; and Bhandarkar, Asoka. ↩
37. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 304–18; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity; Mookerji, Asoka, concluding chapters. ↩
38. Bāṇabhaṭṭa, Harṣacarita, ucchvāsa 6; Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 304–18; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity. ↩
39. Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, 318–45; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity. ↩
40. R. C. Majumdar, ed., The Classical Age, vol. 3 of The History and Culture of the Indian People (Bombay: Bharatiya Vidya Bhavan, 1954); Raychaudhuri, Political History of Ancient India, relevant chapters on the later Guptas and post-Gupta polities. ↩
41. Sharma, Indian Feudalism, chapters 1–3; Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, 280–310; Majumdar, ed., The Classical Age. ↩
42. Majumdar, ed., The Classical Age; Sharma, Indian Feudalism; Kosambi, An Introduction to the Study of Indian History, 280–310. ↩
43. Majumdar, ed., The Classical Age; Majumdar and Pusalker, eds., The Age of Imperial Unity; Sharma, Indian Feudalism. ↩
