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MAHAPADMA
231
(c. 326 B.C.) is supplied by the contemporaries of Alexander whose writings form the bases of the accounts of Curtius, Diodoros and Plutarch. Unfortunately, the classical writers do not mention the family name 'Nanda'. The reading “Nandrum' in the place of 'Alexandrum' in the account of Justin is absolutely unjustifiable..
For a detailed account of the dynasty we have to rely on Indian tradition. Indian writers seem to be mainly interested in the Nanda age partly as marking an epoch in a social upsurge and the evolution of imperial unity, and partly as accessory to the life-sketch of Jaina patriarchs and to the Chandragupta-kathā of which we have fragments in the Milindapañho, the Mahāvaṁsa, the Purāṇic chronicles, the Brihat-Kathā and its later versions, the Mudrā-rākshasa and the Arthaśāstra.
The first Nanda was Mahāpadma or Mahāpadmapati? according to the Purānas and Ugrasena according to the Mahābodhivaṁsa. The Purāṇas describe him as a son of the last Kshatrabandhu (so-called Kshatriya) king of the preceding line by a šūdrā mother. (Sūdrā-garbh-odbhava). The Jaina Parisishțaparvan, on the
hid itself in the floods of the Ganges." Beginnings of South Indian History, p. 89.
According to Ceylonese tradition "The youngest brother (among the sons of Ugrasena) was called Dhana Nanda, from his being addicted to hoarding treasure. ...He collected riches to the amount of eighty koțis-in a rock in the bed of the river (Ganges) having caused a great excavation to be made, he buried the treasure there... Levying taxes among other articles even on skins, gums, trees, and stones he amassed further treasures which he disposed of similarly." (Turnour, Mahā. vamsa, p. xxxix).
Hiuen Tsang, the Chinese pilgrim, refers to "the five treasures of King Nanda's seven precious substances."
i 'Sovereign of an infinite host' or 'of immense wealth' according to the commentator (Wilson, Vishnu P. Vol. IX, 184n). A city on the Ganges, styled Mahāpadmapura, is mentioned in Mbh. XII. 353. 1.
2 P. 46. Text VI, 231-32
