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Only the dates remain problematic. Buddhist sources show a healthy respect for chronology, and usually disdain the mathematical symmetries and astronomical exaggerations found in Vedic and Jain texts. Like Christians, they count the years to, and then from, a major event in the life of their founder. Thus, just as Christians measure time from the birth of Christ, so do Buddhists from the death, or parinirvana (achievement of nirvana), of the Buddha. Neither of these benchmarks can be determined with absolute precision. But because the Christian BC/AD system has become something of an international convention, it matters little that Christ may in fact have been born, not in zero AD, but several years later. On the other hand, it matters much that, depending on the tradition endorsed, the Buddha may have died either 350 to 400, 483 to 486, or even 544 years ‘Before Christ’.

Obviously, if the Buddhist chronology had commanded international regard, an agreed date for the parinirvana would long since have emerged, and it would then be the uncertainties about when Christ was born in terms of the Buddhist reckoning which would be considered unsettling. Euro-centric, or Christo-centric, assumptions about the measurement of time should be viewed with caution. Like those map projections which give mid-sheet prominence to Europe or the Americas, they carry an inherent distortion.

Nevertheless, the widely divergent dates adduced for the Buddha’s parinirvana do pose serious problems. That of 544 BC derives from a much later Sri Lankan tradition and is usually discarded. As between the 486 BC of Indian tradition and the 483 BC of a Chinese record, the difference is slight and not too important. Indeed, it was the near congruence of these two dates which led the majority of scholars to accept their validity; one or other was used to deduce a date for the Buddha’s birth of C566–3 BC, which thus became ‘the earliest certain date in Indian history’. Recently, however, opinion has swung towards a much later dating for the parinirvana, in fact ‘about eighty to 130 years before Ashoka’s coronation [in 268 BC], i.e. not a very long time before Alexander’s Indian campaign [327–5BC], i.e. between C400 BC and C350 BC’.⁵ This reappraisal of the evidence, mainly by German scholars, shunts the Buddha forward by around a century. Besides promoting the Achaemenid conquest of Hindu in C520 BC to the status of India’s first (more or less) certain date, it carries potentially devastating consequences for the chronology of just about every development in India of the first millennium BC. The Vedic period may have to be extended into the sixth century, state-formation and urbanisation brought forward to the fifth century, and the chronology of Magadha before the appearance of Ashoka condensed into a hundred years.

Alternatively, it may be taken to suggest a much longer time-lapse between the India of later Vedic texts, like the Upanisads, and that of the earliest Buddhist and Jain texts. Even a cursory acquaintance with these sources leaves the reader wondering whether they can possibly refer to the same society. The Sanskrit texts evoke a mostly agrarian way of life in which states play a minor part and status is governed by lineage and ritual observance. Buddhist and Jain texts, on the other hand, portray a network of functioning states, each with an urban nucleus heavily engaged in trade and production. Here wealth as much as lineage confers status. Indeed, the Buddhist concept of ‘merit’ as something to be earned, accumulated, occasionally transferred and eventually realised seems inconceivable without a close acquaintance with the moneyed economy. By interleaving between these two societies a further century, Buddhism’s newly revised or ‘short chronology’ allows for a more gradual and credible evolution of state and city without unduly taxing the archaeological record.

Similarly, it allows room for the evolution of a tradition of heterodoxy and dissent. Buddhist texts in particular portray a society that was already in religious ferment when the Buddha was born. Rival holy-men swarm across the countryside performing feats of endurance, disputing one another’s spiritual credentials and vying with one another for followers and patronage. That this was not simply the impression of partisan hotheads is shown by the dispassionate Kautilya whose compendium on statecraft, the Arthasastra, recognises such renunciates as an important constituent of any state; they are to be given legal protection and free passage; special forest areas are to be allotted to them for meditation, and special lodging-houses in the city. Saints or charlatans, they evidently mirrored a society to which the paranormal, the supernatural and the metaphysical had a strong appeal. Many of them went naked or unwashed and they cheerfully flouted the taboos of caste status. Defying social convention, they yet enjoyed society’s indulgence. Renunciation had become an accepted way of life in which asceticism was seen as a prerequisite to spiritual enlightenment.

The philosophies on offer from this rag-tag army of reformers ranged from mind-boggling mysticism to defiant nihilism and blank agnosticism, from the outright materialism of the Lokayats to the heavy determinism of the Ajivikas, and from the rationalism of the Buddha to the esotericism of Mahavira. Most, however, agreed in condemning the extravagance of Vedic sacrifice, in sidelining the Vedic pantheon, and in ignoring brahmanical authority. Moreover many, including the Jains, Buddhists and Ajivikas, recognised an assortment of antecedents whose teachings or experiences had in some sense anticipated their own. In other words, Mahavira, the Buddha, and Gosala of the Ajivikas acknowledged well established traditions of heterodoxy; and as one might infer from their own reception, they were able to capitalise on an already existing thirst for spiritual and moral guidance, as well as on an abiding credulity. Clearly the new sources of wealth and authority associated with state-formation and urbanisation had plunged society into a crisis which the rigidities of the varnasramadharma (the organisation of society into caste varnas and into social vocations based on age) could scarcely accommodate, and to which the ritual oblations of the Vedas seemed irrelevant as well as wildly extravagant.

Adopting, then, not the conventional 486–3BC for the parinirvana but some date between 400 and 350 BC, one may place the birth of Siddhartha Gautama, the ‘Buddha’, some time in the mid-fifth century. Like his contemporary, Mahavira Nataputta of the Jains, he was a ksatriya, the son of Suddhodana, raja of the Sakyas. The Sakya state being one of those republican gana-sanghas, it had many rajas. And since their chief was elected, the ‘Prince’ Siddhartha of later legend must be considered a fabrication. Moreover, Kapilavastu, the Sakya capital, was not a major political centre. Just within the southern border of present-day Nepal, it may have served as a staging post on the uttarapatha. Trade and craftsmanship were more the Buddha’s milieu than royal ceremonial. The affluence against which he eventually reacted by renouncing his wife and family to begin an enquiry into the human condition may have been real; equally it may have been the perceived luxury of more celebrated urban centres like Vaisali, capital of the Licchavis, or the Koshalan metropolis of Sravasti, or Rajagriha in Magadha.

In the course of his quest, Siddhartha visited all of these places and studied under a variety of distinguished but ultimately unconvincing teachers. On one occasion, while traversing Magadha, he met its king. His name was Bimbisara and the date (given the Buddhist ‘short chronology’) must have been around 400 BC. Bimbisara’s origins are uncertain, but he is said to have lived for over fifty years. He was now in the middle of his reign, and had already added to his domain the important kingdom of Anga.

Anga lay to the east, with its famed capital at Champa in west Bengal. Thence Magadha gained access by river to the Bay of Bengal, where Tamluk (Tamralipti, near Calcutta) would become a thriving port for trade with the peninsula, Burma and Sri Lanka. Having inherited access to the rich copper and iron deposits of southern Bihar, Bimbisara had thus in effect laid another of the foundations of Magadhan supremacy. Seemingly a just and practical ruler, he married much but not always wisely. Dealings with Koshala, Avanti (Malwa), Taxila and the Licchhavis are recorded and, with the exception of the last, they were generally amicable. A rudimentary administrative system is evident and, possessed of a ready source of both elephants and metals, it has been suggested that Magadha’s military establishment was well equipped and professionally organised. Whether Bimbisara worried about manpower being drained off by the ferment of heterodox sects is not recorded. But he did advise the wandering Siddhartha to return to his proper ksatriya station, and offered to provide him with a suitable establishment.

The advice was rejected. For the next few years Siddhartha remained in Magadha but was much on the move. Like those earlier exiles in the epics, he had forsaken the security of a settled, civilised life for the uncertainties of the vagrant and the outcaste. Austerities, whether unavoidable or self-imposed, cowed the appetites, cleared the mind, and let the spirit soar. After prolonged meditation beneath a tree at the place henceforth called Buddh Gaya, the now thirty-five-year-old Siddhartha Gautama at last isolated the nature of suffering and transience, formulated a scheme for overcoming it, and so attained Enlightenment. As the Buddha, the ‘Enlightened One’, he hastened to Varanasi, and in the Deer Park at nearby Sarnath, evidently one of those forest areas reserved for ascetics, he propounded his reasoning to five erstwhile companions in what is known as the First Sermon.

The imagery of the Buddha’s ‘Middle Way’ (between the extremes of indulgence and asceticism) with its ‘Noble Eightfold Path’, as also that of the ‘Wheel of Dharma’ and of the ‘Three Refuges’ (the Buddha, the dharma or teaching, and the sangha or monastic community), clearly reflected the itinerant’s experience. Buddhism began as a code for the road, a set of rationalised precepts designed to direct and smooth man’s progress along life’s unhappy highway. Suffering came from within, from desire and indulgence. By mastering desire, restraining indulgence and yet eschewing extreme asceticism, the human condition became bearable, and merit might be accumulated whereby release (nirvana) might eventually be attained. The notion of continuous rebirths and the challenge of escaping from their endless cycle were common to both orthodox teachings derived from the Upanisads and to the Buddha’s teaching. Buddhism was not a belief system, not a rival faith to the post-Vedic cults and practices which prevailed under brahmanical direction, but more a complementary discipline. About gods, worship, offerings, prayers, priests and ritual, the Buddha claimed no special knowledge. He offered merely heightened insight, not divine revelation. It was his followers in the generations to come who would elevate the Buddha and other semi-enlightened ones (Boddhisatvas) into deities, thus claiming for Buddhism the authority and the supernatural paraphernalia of a religion.

For the remaining forty-four years of his long life the Buddha continued as a wandering ascetic, criss-crossing the states bordering the middle Ganga. Teaching and elaborating his ideas to an ever-growing band of followers, especially merchants and artisans, he also won the support of kings, this being a prerequisite for the establishment of the communities of followers and the monastic institutions which would continue his mission after his parinirvana.

Amongst the kings who patronised the new teaching were Prasenajit, king of Koshala, and Magadha’s Bimbisara. In the Koshalan capital of Sravasti the Buddha delivered numerous discourses and, since his own Sakya republic had been overrun by Koshala and remained under its suzerainty, he may have felt some allegiance to Prasenajit. But it was Bimbisara’s patronage that would prove crucial. When the Buddha died (at Kushinara in the Malla republic), it was Bimbisara’s Magadha which made good its claim to most of his hotly contested relics and, immediately afterwards, it was in the Magadhan capital of Rajagriha that the first Buddhist council was convened. Magadha’s economic expansion provided a social ambience particularly favourable to Buddhism. In the wake of Magadha’s political expansion Buddhism would prevail over most of the other heterodox sects (although not brahmanical orthodoxy) and spread throughout the subcontinent.

Meanwhile, Bimbisara had predeceased the Buddha. His long reign came to an end when Ajatashatru, one of his sons, either seized the throne and starved his father to death or was nominated his successor so that the aged Bimbisara, having renounced the throne, could starve himself to death. Both practices appear to have been standard. But Ajatashatru’s elevation was not uncontested and his conduct not unchallenged. He was soon involved in warfare with both Koshala and a powerful coalition of republics headed by the Licchavis. Magadha was about to take another giant stride towards hegemony in the middle Ganga region.

The trouble with Koshala seems to have arisen over a piece of land in the vicinity of Varanasi. It had passed to Bimbisara as the dowry of his Koshalan bride. When she died of grief over Bimbisara’s death, Prasenajit of Koshala, her father, revoked the grant of this land and resumed control of it. Ajatashatru endeavoured to retake it but seems at first to have been defeated. His claim to the disputed enclave was, however, enhanced when the aged Prasenajit, falling prey to the usurpation of his own son, headed for Magadha as a supplicant. Alone but for a devoted servant, the old king reached the walls of Rajagriha and there, while waiting overnight for the gates to open, died of exhaustion and exposure. Despite their past differences, Ajatashatru of Magadha promptly honoured the memory of this Indian Lear and vowed to avenge his treatment by the Koshalans. But he bided his time, first dealing with another major threat to his kingdom and then benefiting from the chance annihilation of the Koshalan army; encamped in the dry bed of the river Rapti, it had been suddenly overwhelmed by a flash flood. Thereafter, although the sources are silent on the details, Ajatashatru seems to have overrun Koshala, which promptly disappears from the record.

This important conquest was made possible by a decisive Magadhan victory in the protracted struggle with its other principal neighbour, namely the Licchavi republic. The Licchavis, with their capital at Vaisali wherein lived those innumerable Licchavi rajas, headed a confederation of republics to the north of Magadha. As with the defeated Sakyas, their defiance has been seen as part of a last stand by the ‘knights-raja’ of the republican gana-sanghas of the east against the professional armies of the centralised monarchies of the Ganga valley. Here again, though, Magadha’s problem seems to have started back in the reign of Bimbisara and to have been greatly complicated by an affair of the heart.

As one might expect in a republic, the beautiful Amrapali (or Ambarapali) was not a princess. In fact she was a courtesan whose physical perfection and outstanding skills had secured her elevation to the status of a national asset. In other republics an elaborate beauty contest was held to select the principal courtesan, and this may also have been the case in Vaisali. But Amrapali, as befitted one of the Buddha’s most devoted future followers, was shrewd as well as comely. Though her favours were supposedly reserved exclusively for those 7707 (or ‘twice 84,000’) Licchavi ‘knights-raja’, she also wielded great political influence and became, in effect, Vaisali’s ‘first lady’. It was therefore a crushing blow to Licchavi self-esteem when it was discovered that, in the midst of desultory fighting with Magadha, the Magadhan king had entered Vaisali in disguise and, undetected, had there enjoyed a week’s dalliance in Amrapali’s delectable company. Bimbisara had to be made to pay for his indiscretion, and the Licchavis had duly multiplied their attacks on Magadhan territory.

Admittedly the detail of this story survives only in a later Tibetan source. Better known, it would surely have inspired poignant verse and operatic libretti. But from other Buddhist texts it is clear that Bimbisara did indeed incur the wrath of the Licchavis and that ‘something really harmful and injurious’⁶ provoked his son Ajatashatru to seek revenge. The subsequent war seems to have lasted on and off for at least twelve years. Initially it was compounded by a succession struggle between Ajatashatru and one of his brothers. The brother, who was domiciled in Anga (presumably as its governor), refused to surrender a priceless necklace. He also withheld an even more priceless elephant which had been trained to act as a shower-hose, sprinkling the ladies of the Magadhan household with a deliciously scented spray when they were bathing. No doubt both necklace and elephant were seen as in the nature of regalia. Ajatashatru’s acquisition of them was therefore essential to the legitimacy of his rule. But his brother remained defiant and, fearing attack, eventually fled to Vaisali where he secured the support of the hated Licchavis.

Another account makes the item of dispute a mountain from which oozed a highly prized, because highly scented, unguent; yet another seems to indicate a disputed island in, or port on, the Ganga, which formed the Magadha-Licchavi frontier. We know of such details because Ajatashatru saw fit to consult the Buddha about the impending hostilities and because later Buddhist commentators therefore saw fit to record them, albeit variously. Buddhist sculptors followed suit. In a relief panel from the second-century BC stupa at Bharhut (now in the Calcutta Museum) a demure and most unwarlike Ajatashatru is depicted arriving on elephant-back with a retinue of wives and then making obeisance before the throne of the Buddha. Well preserved in the hard russet sandstone of Bharhut, this eloquent scene may rate as the earliest depiction in Indian art of a genuine historical figure. Buddhist texts also mention that on his last journey north the Buddha, after his meeting with the king but before crossing the Ganga, passed a building site where a new Magadhan fort was being erected. The place was called Pataligrama. To it the Magadhan court would remove under Ajatashatru’s successor and, greatly extended and beautified, the city by the Ganga at what is now Patna would become, as Pataliputra, the metropolis of the Magadhan empire under the Mauryas.

In its infancy the fort at Pataligrama failed to overawe the Licchavis. Initially the war seems to have gone badly for Ajatashatru, who may even have been forced to seek terms. Further hostilities, as recorded in Jain sources, produced two epic battles with echoes of the great Bharata war, except that Ajatashatru eventually won both thanks to some precocious mechanisation. A new catapult capable of firing massive rocks was developed, and then a heavily armoured robot equipped with club-wielding arms and powered by some invisible means of propulsion – ‘It has been compared to the tanks used in the two great world wars.’⁷ Before this veritable blitzkrieg the Licchavis withdrew to their capital and prepared for a siege. Evidently even the tank made no impression on Vaisali’s fortifications. The siege dragged on, and Ajatashatru was obliged to try psychological warfare. Insinuating into the Licchavi counsels a particularly wily brahman, or suborning the city’s tutelary ascetic with an irresistible prostitute, he either reduced his enemies to discord or duped them into surrender. Magadhan forces occupied Vaisali unopposed, the Licchavi republic was finally reduced, and the 7707 rajas were dispersed, although not eliminated. When the Second Buddhist Council was convened in Vaisali some time in the latter half of the fourth century BC the city was under Magadhan control.

Thus, in the space of two reigns which conveniently straddled the long life of the Buddha, Magadha had emerged from comparative inconsequence to dominate the lower Ganga with a territorial reach that extended from the Bay of Bengal to the Nepal Himalayas. Further up the Ganga, the kingdom of Vatsya, possibly the successor state to that of the Kuru of Hastinapura, still flourished with its capital at Kaushambi (near Allahabad). So did the kingdom of Avanti, based on Ujjain (near Indore) far to the south on the banks of the Narmada river. Kaushambi and Ujjain were engaged in their own power struggle. Into it Magadha seems occasionally to have been drawn, and from it Ajatashatru’s successors were able to profit, although it is unclear when Magadhan supremacy was recognised in these distant regions.

In fact the grave uncertainty which surrounds the history of Magadha immediately after Ajatashatru extends even to the succession. Between Ajatashatru’s death some time between C380 BC and C330 BC (according to the ‘short chronology’) and the accession of Chandragupta Maurya in C320 BC the sources speak mainly of court intrigues and murders. Evidently the throne changed hands frequently, perhaps with more than one incumbent claiming to occupy it at the same time. Eventually it was secured by Mahapadma Nanda, the son of a barber and therefore not only a usurper but also a low-caste sudra. According to the orthodox Puranas, he invoked his caste status to conduct a vendetta against all ksatriyas. Since most existing kings were, or claimed to be, ksatriyas, this represented a declaration of war on the entire political order. Remarkable conquests resulted. By 326 BC the Nanda family was ruling over a greatly extended kingdom which included the whole of the Ganga valley plus Orissa and parts of central India.

Mahapadma Nanda himself may have been responsible for these conquests. He is the first to be described as a ‘one-umbrella sovereign’, a concept closely related to the Buddhist idea of a pan-Indian cakravartin or ‘world ruler’ and implying the association of all existing polities under a single sovereign. Patriotic Indian historians tend to pounce on this early evidence of national integration and to hail Mahapadma Nanda as ‘the first great historical emperor of Northern India’. The wealth of the Nandas also became legendary, and was supposedly buried in a cave in the bed of the Ganga. Their exactions and unpopularity were remembered too, although this may have been the result of failing to placate either brahmanical or Buddhist opinion with the munificence expected of royal patrons.

The Nanda family undeniably commanded the most formidable standing army yet seen in India. Military statistics readily lend themselves to exaggeration, especially when provided by a disappointed adversary. Yet the Nandas’ army of 200,000 infantry, twenty thousand cavalry, two thousand four-horse chariots and three to six thousand war-elephants would have represented a formidable force even if decimated by roll-call reality. It was certainly enough to strike alarm in stout Greek hearts, to awaken in them fond memories of Thracian wine and olive-rich homesteads beside the northern Aegean, and to send packing the age’s only other contender as a ‘one umbrella’ world ruler.