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Sec. VIII]
STUDIES IN THE BHAGAWATI SŪTRA
129
War-Time Relations
The Bhs shows that the corner stone of the external relations of Magadha was a policy of expansion and self-aggrandisement at the cost of its neighbouring states.
So this rising state under the leadership of king Kūņika followed a policy of aggressive imperialism against its strongest northern neighbour, Vaiśālī, to crush its age-old republicanism, to push up its boundaries to all directions in order to achieve a scientific frontier on all sides and to turn the lower courses of the Ganges into a Magadhan lake by ousting the Vaiśālian political and economic interests from the field of commerce and trade, as it was evidenced in his construction of a forward base of operation at Pataliyrāma against the Republic of Vaiśālī.
This policy of Magadha reminds one of the advent of the European trading companies to India in the fifteenth, sixteenth, and seventeenth centuries A. D., to establish their direct commercial relation with her by ousting the monopoly of interests of the Arab merchants from the field of Indian trade with the western countries.
So they came here with the sanction and financial support of their respective states to sell their manufactured goods and in return to purchase raw materials, spices and other Indian commodities, greatly demanded by the western people. But as the time went on, all the European trading companies established factories and forts and entered into the Indian political field to safeguard their respective interests. Conse. quently their participation in local politics led to the building up of their colonies in India and subsequently an empire, as it is fully known from the British rule.
Mugadha wanted to buy all commodities which flowed from North Bihar beginning from the foot of the Himālayas
1 According to the Commentary of Buddha Ghoşa there was
a dispute between king Kūnika and the Vaiśālians over a mine of precious......... articles near the port on the Ganges. See also Dighani kāya (Mahāparinivvāna Sutta), Aftha. kathā ; (Plan of Ajätasatru and his minister-Vassakāra on trade policy). 17
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