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BUDDHIST INDIA
to withstand even the Greeks. At the end of the fourth century B.C. Seleukos Nikator, then at the height of his power, attempted to rival Alexander by invading India. But he met with a very different foe. Alexander found a succession of small kingdoms and republics, whose mutual jealousies more than counterbalanced the striking bravery of their forces, and enabled him to attack and defeat them one by one. Seleukos found the consolidated and organised empire of Magadha, against which all his efforts were in vain. After an unsuccessful campaign he was glad to escape by ceding all his provinces west of the Indus, including Gedrosia and Arachosia (about equal to the Afghanistan of to-day), and by giving his daughter in marriage to the victorious Emperor of India in exchange for five hundred elephants-of-war.
It was then that Megasthenes was sent as ambassador to Pātaliputta. And with the princess and her suite, and the ambassador and his, not to speak of the Greek artists and artisans employed at the court, there must have been quite a considerable Greek community, about 300 B.C., at the distant city on the southern bank of the Ganges, whose foundations, as a mere fort, were being laid by the brahmin minister of the then king of Magadha, when the great Ind. ian Teacher was starting on his last journey a few months before his death. But the Greek commun. ity cared little for these things; and, so far as we know, Megasthenes, in his account of India, has not a word about the Buddha or his system.
The deep impression made by Chandragupta's
Shree Sudharmaswami Gyanbhandar-Umara, Surat
www.umaragyanbhandar.com
