A section from the journey
The Nandas
Just before the great empire, one dynasty held Magadha: the Nandas. They were enormously wealthy and ruled a vast realm with a huge army. But they were not loved. Their rulers were said to be of low birth and greedy in taxing the people. Their wealth and their unpopularity together set the stage for what came next.
We are almost at the threshold of empire. But one dynasty stands in the doorway first, and we must meet it before we go on. They ruled Magadha in the century before the Mauryas, and they were called the Nandas.
The first thing every account agrees on is their wealth. The Nandas were fabulously rich. Their treasury was so famous that stories of hidden Nanda gold were still being told hundreds of years later. With that wealth they held a vast realm and paid for a very large army.
How large? Large enough to be felt far away. When Alexander of Macedon marched to the edge of the Indus, his weary soldiers heard of the mighty army waiting in the east, the Nanda host with its thousands of foot, horse, chariots, and elephants. It was, the Greek writers hint, one of the reasons his men refused to march further. The Nanda name carried weight across half the known world.
And yet, for all that strength, the Nandas were not loved. The old traditions remember their kings as men of low birth who had pushed aside the older royal line. They are remembered, too, as harsh and greedy in the way they squeezed taxes from the people. Strength they had in plenty. Affection they had little of.
Hold that strange shape in your mind, for it is the heart of their story. Here was a throne both very strong and very brittle. Its power was immense, but it rested on a thin base of loyalty. A wall can be tall and thick and still have a crack running through it.
That crack is exactly where our next chapter enters. For a dynasty so rich and so disliked is a tempting thing to topple. Someone bold, with a clever guide at his side, would soon see the opening and take it. The Nandas had, without meaning to, set the stage for the first true empire.
The Nandas show us that wealth and might are not the same as goodwill. A ruler can hold everything and still hold no one's heart. Where in the world around you have you seen great power that rested on too little trust?
Now we reach the dynasty that ruled Magadha in the years just before the Mauryan dawn. They were the Nandas, and they reigned in the fourth century before the common era. By every account they were fabulously rich. Their treasury was famous, and stories of buried Nanda gold echoed for centuries. They held a vast realm and could put an army into the field so large that, the Greek writers tell us, it gave even Alexander's soldiers pause far to the west. Yet the Nandas were not loved by their people. Tradition remembers their kings as men of low birth who had pushed aside the old royal line, and as harsh, greedy collectors of taxes. So here is the strange shape of their power: immense strength resting on a thin base of loyalty. A throne can be very strong and very brittle at the same time. That brittleness is exactly the opening through which the next chapter of the story would arrive.
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