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270 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA Unfortunately the name of the Maurya leader is not given. But the expression Vamba Moriyar, or Maurya upstarts, would seem to suggest that the first Maurya, i.e., Chandragupta, and his adherents were meant.
Certain Mysore inscriptions refer to Chandragupta's rule in North Mysore. Thus one epigraph says that Nāgarkhanda in the Shikārpur Tāluq was protected by the wise Chandragupta, "an abode of the usages of eminent Kshatriyas.” 3 . This is of the fourteenth century and little reliance can be placed upon it. But when the statements of Plutarch, Justin, Māmulanār, and the Mysore inscriptions referred to by Rice, are read together, they seem to suggest that the first Maurya did conquer a considerable portion of trans-Vindliyan India.
Whatever we may think of Chandragupta's connection with Southern India, there can be no doubt that he pushed his conquests as far as Surāshțra in Western India. The Junāgadh Rock inscription of the Mahākshatrapa Rudradāman refers to his Rāshtriya or High
1 Beginnings of South Indian History, p. 89. Cf. Maurye nave rājani (Mudrārākshasa, Act IV). ** 2 Barnett suggests (Camb. Hist. Ind., I. 596) that the 'Vamba Moriyar' or 'Bastard Mauryas' were possibly a branch of the Konkani Mauryas. But there is hardly any genuine historical record of the penetration of the Mauryas of the Konkan deep into the southern part of the Tamil country. For other suggestions, see TRAS., 1923, pp. 93-96. Some Tamil scholars hold that "the Moriyar were not allowed to enter Tamilakam, and the last point they reached was the Venkata hill" (IHQ., 1928, p. 145). They also reject Dr. Aiyangar's statement about the Košar. But the view that the arms of Chandragupta possibly reached the Pandya country in the Far South of India which abounded in pearls and gems receives some confirmation from the Mudrārākshasa, Act III, verse 19, which suggests that the supremacy of the first Maurya eventually extended from the lord of mountains (the Himālayas), cooled by showers of the spray of the divine stream (Ganges) playing about among its rocks, to the shores of the southern ocean (Dakshiņārnava) marked by the brilliance of gems flashing with various colours." The description, however, may be purely conventional.
3 Rice, Mysore and Coorg from the Inscriptions, p. 10. Fleet, however, is sceptical about the Jaina tradition (Ind. Ant, 1892, 156 ff.). Cf. also JRAS, 1911, 814-17.
