Chandragupta Maurya (Sanskrit Devanagari: य्द्रगुप्त मौर्य Candragupta Maurya), sometimes referred to simply as Chandragupta (born c.340 BC, king between c 320 c.1 and 298 a.2 C.2), was the founder of the Maurya Empire. Chandragupta managed to unify most of the territory of the Indian subcontinent, so it is considered the first authentic emperor of India.
The sources to know the reign of Chandragupta are relatively scarce and indirect (as are all our sources for the knowledge of Indian history before the Islamic invasions). On the one hand we have the classic Greco-Roman authors, interested mainly in the campaigns of Alexander the Great in the eastern confines of the Achaemenid Empire and who speak tangentially about India. The main Greco-Roman source about the reign of Chandragupta Maurya is the Greek Megástenes, ambassador of the Macedonian king Seleucus I before the court of Pataliputra. Unfortunately the work of Megástenes (Índica) has been lost and we only have the indirect references to his description of India in the works of later authors such as Estrabón and Arriano. On the other hand we have native sources, Buddhist chronicles such as the Maja-vamsa and above all the work of the counselor of Chandragupta, the Brahmin Kautilia (also known as Chanakia or Visnú Gupta). This counselor wrote a treatise on the art of governing, the Artha-shastra, which Western historians have often compared with the work of Machiavelli. The Artha-shastra is not a work of history, but rather a work of what today we would call political sciences, but inevitably contains a lot of information about the society of its time under the Maury government, so in the absence of something Better, it is one of our best sources about this period. There is also the already mentioned drama Mudrarakshasa of Vishakha Datta. The Mudra-rakshasa is a historical drama of the 4th century AD. C. that narrates the ascent of Chandragupta to the power in the North India. The plot is more or less as follows:
Chanakia, Minister of King Nanda (Dhana Nanda), is offended by him, so he allied himself in revenge to Chandragupta, who had usurping intentions. A pact with King Parvata of a northwestern region ensures victory over King Nanda. Parvata and Chandragupta share the old possessions of the nandas. Parvata then dies poisoned by the cunning of a young girl, after which he is succeeded by his son Malaya Ketu. This one, united to the last minister of the nandes, reclaims the inheritance of all the old territories of the nandas. The drama begins when Malaya Ketu and her allies (the kings of Persia, Sind and Kashmir) are preparing to attack Pataliputra (the present Patna, in the state of Bihar), the capital of Chanragupta. The outcome comes when Chanakia manages by tricks to attract the last minister of the Nanda to the side Mauria, and undo the conflagration of Malaya Ketu.
The authentic historical in this drama is reduced to the facts that are also narrated by the Greek sources: the violent end of the nandas, the usurpation of Chandragupta, the formation of the Maury Empire and the struggle against the barbarian kingdoms of the Northwest created as a result of the conquest of Alexander the Great.
What is known for sure is that Chandragupta, helped by Chanakya, created an empire that ran from the Indus River in the west to Bengal in the east. The first great confrontation of Chandragupta with a foreign monarch occurred when Seleuco I, one of the generals of Alexander who had inherited the eastern regions of his empire, tried to conquer India in 305 BC. C. Chandragupta managed to defeat Seleucus, who was oddly nicknamed Nikator ('victor'), after which all lands west of the Indus until the current Kabul passed to Maury sovereignty. To seal the peace, Seleuco gave Chandragupta one of his daughters as his wife, and Chandragupta in turn gave Seleuco elephants that helped him win the battle of Ipsos over Antigono Monoftalmos.
Towards 298 a. C., Chandragupta resigned to the throne in favor of its son Bindusara. After converting to Yainism, he ended his days in a curious way, letting himself die of hunger in the year 298 BC.
