The Maurya Empire.    Megasthenes   37

upon this move. The revolt was largely organized
by Sandrakottus, or Chandragupta, to give him
his proper name, the remarkable adventurer who
founded the Maurya dynasty 1.

Chandragupta had originally lived in the Panjab,
and a tradition says that as a young man he came ■
into contact with Alexander. He then went to
seek his fortune at the court of the Nanda kings
of Magadha (there is some reason for supposing
that he was of royal blood), and there he met with
a fellow-countryman, the crafty Brahmin minister
Chanakya^ from Taxila. Becoming implicated
in a plot which Chanakya had made against his
master, he was forced to flee to his former home,
and here he found the tribes ripe for revolt against
their Greek rulers. Putting himself at the head of
the rising, he helped his compatriots, says Justin^,
" to cast off the yoke of servitude from their necks
and slay their masters." The people afterwards
repented of their choice, he adds, for Chandra¬
gupta turned out to be as harsh as those whom he
had displaced*.

^ There are various stories of the youth of Chandragupta.
V. A, Smith {Early History of India, p, no), gives another
version. He says that Chandragupta was an illegitimate
scion of the Nandas, and was banished to the Panjab for
insolence (Justin, xv, 4, with Nandrum for Alexandrum).

2 Also called Kautilya and Vishnugupta,

^ Post mortem Alexandri, velut cervicibus jugo servitutis
excusso, praefectos ejus occiderat,    Justin, xv. 4.

* Populum, quem ab externa dominatione vindicaverat,
ipse  servitio  premebat.    Ibid.