Mahapadma Nanda

Mahapadma Nanda (450 B.C - 362 B.C) was the first king of the Nanda dynasty. According to some sources, he was born from the union of a courtesan and a barber, while others describe him as an illegitimate son of the last king of the previous Shishunaga dynasty, Mahanandin. The Nandas, under Mahapadma Nanda, established the first great North Indian empire with its political centre in Magadha, which would in the following years lead to the largest empire in ancient India, to be buit by the Mauryas. Mahapadma Nanda vanquished the old dynasties of North, not as was customary, to extract tribute from them and to be recognized as the most powerful, the samrat or the chakravartin, but rather in order to dethorone them and declare himself as an "ekachhatra", the only emperor in the entire land. The collapse of the old Ksatriya dynasties under the rigorous power politics of Mahapadma Nanda, who is explicitly denigrated as the son of a Shudra, and the support extended to followers of non-Vedic philosophies, all has been described as negative signs in the Puranas, which often identify Mahapadma Nanda's rise as a mark of Kaliyuga. Tradition has it that he reigned for 88 years. However, his sons did not prove capable of retaining power, and were soon overthrown by Chandragupta Maurya.

The Indologist F.E. Pargiter dated Nanda's coronation to 382 BCE, and R.K. Mookerji dated it to 364 BCE.

Annexed parts of Kalinga, central India, Anga, and the upper Ganges Valley. He was the first Shudra king of Magadha.

References

• Hindu Myth, Hindu History, Religion, Art, and Politics By Heinrich von Stietencron