DHANANANDA-THE GREAT SON OF INDIA

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DHANANANDA THE GREAT SON OF INDIA

 KING DHANANANDA succeeded his illustrious father Mahapadmananda as the emperor of Magadha in 363 B.C. He was a terror to his enemies. He would himself inspect and direct the deployment of forces to defend the nation’s borders.His strategic planning blunted the advance of Alexander and made him turn away . Imagine the fate and future of India if Dhanananda were defeated.!

Alexander, the prince of Macedonia in Greece, invaded India in 326 BCE, when Dhanananda was ruling in India and his western borders extended upto river Beas in Punjab..

Alexander, while on his expedition to India, had earlier invaded Persia and put an end to the Achaemenid empire in 323 BCE. In Persian history he is known  not as ‘Alexander the Great’ but as ‘Alexander the accursed’ because he killed priests and burned down the royal palace of Persepolis (The World’s Religions : A Lions Handbook, 1982,  p.83).

Dhanananda was the last of the Nanda Kings but by that time Magadha had become a very powerful kingdom. The Greek army, exhausted and frightened by the prospect of facing another encounter with the Indian army on the banks of the river Sutlej, declined to move  further east beyond the river Beas. Alexander, on the advice of his men, was convinced that it was better to return, and turned south,  sailing  his way down the  Jhelum to the Ocean.

In war the Indians were by far the  bravest of all the races inhabiting Asia at that time (source: Will  Durant).

Nanda Army

The Nanda Kings had a huge four-fold army.  According to Plutarch, at the time of Alexander's Battle of the Hydaspes River, the size of the Nanda Empire's army further east numbered two lakh infantry,eighty thousand cavalry, eight thousand chariots and  six thousand  war elephants, which was discouraging for Alexander's men and stayed their further progress into India:

	As for the Macedonians, however, their struggle with Porus blunted their courage and stayed their further advance into India. For having had all they could do to repulse an enemy who mustered only twenty thousand infantry and two thousand horses, they violently opposed Alexander when he insisted on crossing the river Ganges also, the width of which, as they learned, was thirty-two furlongs, its depth - a hundred fathoms, while its banks on the further side were covered with multitudes of men-at‑arms and horsemen and elephants. For they were told that the kings of the Ganderites and Praesii were awaiting them with eighty thousand horsemen, two hundred thousand footmen, eight thousand chariots, and six thousand fighting elephants. And there was no boasting in these reports (Plutarch, Parallel Lives: Life of Alexander).

The Decline of Nandas

Just a few years after Alexander’s death at Babylon, a massive Indian empire rose into prominence with headquarters at Pataliputra (near  the present city of Patna). The renowned  Chanakya, a young professor at the University of Taxila and a trusted confidant of Chandragupta Maurya,  realised the political dynamics of the world at that time and  managed to build a very strong army. He is said to have employed massive networks of spies, information warfare and treacherous strategies and at last with his help Chandragupta Maurya, an ambitious young man, attacked  the Nandas and conquered Magadha. That was the end of the  powerful Nandas .

By: O P Gupta