Chandragupta Maurya and the Arthashastra

Soon after the Greeks withdraw, Chandragupta overthrows the Nanda dynasty in Magadha and builds a state from Bengal to present-day Afghanistan. From Alexander's successor Seleucus he wins the eastern lands, giving five hundred war elephants in exchange, and receives the Greek envoy Megasthenes at his court. With his name is linked the counsellor Kautilya, credited with the Arthashastra — a treatise on statecraft that lays out taxation, espionage, courts and the upkeep of an army without the least regard for piety. Tradition has it that in old age the king renounced power and went to the Jain monks.