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CHAPTER II
THE RISE OF MAGADHA Sarvamūrddhābhishiktānāmesha mūrddhni jvalishyati prabhūharo’yam sarveshāṁ jyotishāmiva bhāskarah enamāsūdya rājānal samriddha-balavāhanā Vināśamupayāsyanti salabhā iva pūvakam.
- Mahābhārata.
SECTION I. GENERAL CHARACTER OF THE PERIOD
C. 544 B. C. to 324 B. C.
The most remarkable feature of the age that commenced with the coronation of Bimbisāra c. 545—44 B.C., and ended with the retirement of Alexander from India and the accession of Chandra Gupta Maurya (324 B. C.), is the rise of a New Monarchy in the Eastern part of the Indian sub-continent which is already heralded by a Brāhmana passage cited above :
"In this eastern quarter (prāchyāi diśi), whatever kings there are of the eastern peoples, they are anointed for overlordship (Sāmrājya) ; '0 Overlord' (Samrāt) they style them when anointed.”
The eastern peoples fprächyas) are not enumerated in the same manner as those of the southern, the northern and the central regions. But it may be safely assumed that the name used in the Aitareya Brāhmaṇa stands for the Prasii of the Graeco-Roman writers. The most famous nations of the east in the Brāhmana-Upanishad period were the Kāśis, the Kosalas and the Videhas. But a new star was
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II. 19. 10-11. See below, Section VII. Pp. 156-7.
