How Was the Nanda Empire Destroyed? | Chanakya & Chandragupta Maurya | The Vedic Vault

How was the Nanda Empire destroyed? The Greeks were told it had 200,000 infantry and 6,000 war elephants. Yet it fell to a teacher and a young man nobody had heard of. Most people picture one great battle. The old sources tell it very differently: a band of robbers, a battle of "corpse dances", a buried fortune, a fever on the seventh day, a goddess carried out of her own temple, a chariot wheel with nine broken spokes, and a minister who would not give up. This is Source-First: no eyewitness account of this war survives, so we take the oldest voices first, say when each was written, and show exactly where they clash. Which do you think won it: the fortune, the ally, the trick, or the minister? Tell me in the comments. Chapters 0:00 The gates of Pataliputra 1:35 No eyewitness survives 1:58 What the Greeks remembered 3:30 A battle of corpse dances 4:25 A buried fortune 5:16 A fever on the seventh day 5:47 The ally and the trick 7:11 The Arthashastra parallel 8:01 Nine broken spokes 9:42 Rakshasa, the last minister 11:35 So how was the Nanda Empire destroyed? 12:22 Which do you think won it? Sources Plutarch, Life of Alexander 62 (trans. B. Perrin, Loeb 1919) Justin, Epitome of Pompeius Trogus 15.4 (trans. J. S. Watson, 1853) Milindapanha, The Questions of King Milinda (p. 292) Mahavamsa 5 (trans. W. Geiger, 1912) and its commentary, the Vamsatthappakasini (Sri Lanka) Somadeva, Kathasaritsagara (Kashmir, 11th century, trans. C. H. Tawney) Hemachandra, Parishishtaparvan, canto 8 (Jain, 12th century; ed. H. Jacobi, 1891) Arthashastra, Books 13.1 and 1.14, credited to Kautilya (trans. R. Shamasastry) Vishakhadatta, Mudrarakshasa (trans. H. H. Wilson, Select Specimens of the Theatre of the Hindus) Vishnu Purana 4.24 (trans. H. H. Wilson, 1840) Image credits Arthashastra palm-leaf manuscript, Oriental Research Institute, Mysuru. Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Silver coin of Menander I, photo by M. Ed Snible. Wikimedia Commons, public domain. Magadha maps adapted from "India location map" by Uwe Dedering, Wikimedia Commons, CC BY-SA 3.0. creativecommons.org/licenses/by-sa/3.0 World base map: Natural Earth data, public domain. Music: Epidemic Sound. Illustrations, maps and diagrams: The Vedic Vault. Scenes marked "artistic reconstruction" are illustrations, not historical records. Hindi audio: choose Settings → Audio track → Hindi. हिंदी में सुनने के लिए: Settings → Audio track → Hindi. Watch the story before this one: Why Did Chanakya Swear Revenge on Dhana Nanda? Next in the Maurya Series: Chandragupta vs Seleucus. #Chanakya #NandaEmpire #ChandraguptaMaurya