Political History Of Ancient India

SR No.: 032292
Original Sutra Author: N/A
Author: Hemchandra Raychaudhari
Publisher: University of Calcutta
Publication Year: 1950
Total Pages: 714
Language: English
Classification: Book_English
File Size: 17 MB

Page 211

182 POLITICAL HISTORY OF ANCIENT INDIA
Kalpanāmanditikā of Kumāralāta, the Life of Vasubandhu by Paramārtha and the Harsha-charita (Deeds of Harsha) by Bāṇabhatta.
For the history of the period from Bimbisāra to Asoka the writer of these pages cannot claim much originality. The subject has been treated by Rhys Davids and Smith, and a flood of new light has been thrown on particular dynasties by Geiger, Bhandarkar, Rapson, Jayaswal, Jackson, Herzfeld, Hultzsch and others. Use has been made of the information contained in their works, and it has been supplemented with fresh data gathered mainly from epical, Jaina, Buddhist and classical sources. As instances it may be pointed out that attention to the name Haryanka, given to the Bimbisārid family by Ašvaghosha, was first drawn in these pages. The tradition recorded in the Harsha-charita and Jaina works regarding the tragic end of Siśunāga's line and origin of the Nandas has been collated with the evidence of the Graeco-Latin writers. Epic data have been used largely to locate tribes like the Kambojas and the Pulindas who figure in the Asokan edicts, and to explain expressions like stryadhaksha, vihārayātrā, anusamyāna etc. Old materials have also been presented in many cases in a new shape, and the author's conclusions are often different from those of former writers.
In the chapter on the Later Mauryas the author has examined the causes of the dismemberment of the Maurya Empire, and has tried to demonstrate the unsoundness of the current theory that "the fall of the Maurya authority was due in large measure to a reaction promoted by the Brāhmaṇs.
The treatment of the history of the Early PostMauryan and Scythian periods, though not entirely
1 The Chapter on the Later Mauryas was published in the AJSB., 1920 (No. 18, pp. 305 ff.).