Nanda Empire

The Nanda Empire was the great power of the middle Ganges plain in the fourth century BCE, ruling Magadha from its capital at Pataliputra, near modern Patna. The Puranas name Mahapadma Nanda as its founder, while Buddhist tradition speaks of Ugrasena; both Indian and Greco-Roman sources describe the dynasty as of low birth. The Nandas built on the earlier Haryanka and Shaishunaga kingdoms and created a more centralised administration, with a new currency and taxation system that produced the wealth ancient writers attributed to them. Greek accounts of Alexander's campaign in the Punjab describe a vast kingdom beyond the Jhelum, generally identified with the Nandas, whose army was said to be five times the size of the Macedonian force; the report contributed to the mutiny that ended Alexander's Indian campaign in 326 BCE. The last king, Dhana Nanda, was overthrown around 321 BCE by Chandragupta Maurya, who founded the Maurya Empire on the Nanda foundations.