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by jane_is_here
3936 days ago
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He was far more effective and far more successful than Machiavelli. He selected Chandragupta to destroy the Nanda dynasty and used him to create the Maurya empire. The Mauryas ruled the largest empire ever in the Indian subcontinent. Ashoka, the third to rule the empire was responsible for the global transmission of Buddhism. He was also far more vindictive than Machiavelli. "It is also told that once, the thorns of a bush hurt Chankya's feet while he was passing through a forest. The wily Brahmin was cut to the quick, and wanted revenge. He got his revenge by pouring sugar syrup into the roots of the bush, thus ensuring that the ants ate up the root and destroyed the bush." His main philosophy was "A debt should be paid off till the last penny; An enemy should be destroyed without a trace". |
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> "It is also told that once, the thorns of a bush hurt Chankya's feet while he was passing through a forest. The wily Brahmin was cut to the quick, and wanted revenge. He got his revenge by pouring sugar syrup into the roots of the bush, thus ensuring that the ants ate up the root and destroyed the bush."
This seems wrongly interpreted on two levels. Processing sugarcane, while first occurring in India, happened about six centuries later [0]. That's hardly important, just that this legend, as people also tell it with milk[1], makes much more sense, allegorically.
As a metaphor, considering that it was while he did this that Chandragupta first saw Chanakya, and that together they united a bountiful, resilient people to overthrow a tyrant, we start to see his character. This legend also seems to show how forces of Nature bring people together in mystical ways that work to fix mistakes, ie, Chanakya avenging his father's murder by an extortionist king[2] with help from noble kings.
0: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_sugar#Early_use_of_...
1: http://bhojpuria.com/people/chankya.php
2: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Nanda_Empire