His second attempt was to mutilate the Divine greatness of Sanskrit language, and his third attempt was to create a fiction about Chandragupt Maurya being the contemporary of Alexander.

Sir William Jones, President of the Asiatic Society of Bengal, gave his tenth anniversary discourse on February 28, 1793. The topic was, “Asiatic history, civil and natural,” and it was published in the fourth volume of the Asiatic Researches, first printed in 1807, reprint 1979. This was his third attempt to destroy the culture and the history of Bharatvarsh by mutilating the historic dates.

Jones says in his speech,

“I cannot help mentioning a discovery which accident threw in my way, (I) thought my proofs must be reserved for an essay which I have destined for the fourth volume of your Transactions. To fix the situation of that Palibothra which was visited and described by Megasthenes, had always appeared a very difficult problem.”

“…but this only difficulty was removed, when I found in a classical Sanscrit book, near 2000 years old, that Hiranyabahu, or golden-armed, which the Greeks changed into Erannoboas, or the river with a lovely murmur was in fact another name for the Son itself, though Megasthenes, from ignorance or inattention, has named them separately. This discovery led to another of greater moment; for Chandragupta, who, from a military adventurer, became, like Sandracottus, the sovereign of Upper Hindostan, actually fixed the seat of his empire at Patliputra, where he received ambassadors from foreign princes; and was no other than that very Sandracottus who concluded a treaty with Seleucus Nicator; so that we have solved another problem, to which we before alluded, and may in round numbers consider the twelve and three hundredth years before Christ.” (pp. xxv to xxvii)

He tells in his speech that he has found a classical Sanskrit book of about 2,000 years old. The other thing he says is that Chandragupt was no other than the very Sandracottus who is described by Megasthenes to have made a treaty with Seleucus around 312 BC; and, to establish that that Chandragupt belonged to the Maurya dynasty, he mentions about some poem by Somdev which tells about the murder of Nand and his eight sons by Chandragupt in order to usurp the kingdom. In this way Jones created a fictitious connection between Chandragupt Maurya and Sandracottus. He says in his speech,

“A most beautiful poem by Somadev, comprising a very long chain of instructive and agreeable stories, begins with the famed revolution at Patliputra, by the murder of King Nanda with his eight sons, and the usurpation of Chandragupta; and the same revolution is the subject of a tragedy in Sanscrit, entitled the Coronation of Chandra.” (p. xxviii)

Anyone could see that these people were adamantly prone to fabricating false statements all the time just to demean our culture and to destroy the genealogy of our religious history. All the things referred to in this speech are absolutely wrong and outrageous.

Finally, Somdev was just a story writer of fun and frolics. Yet he never described Chandragupt Maurya as the usurper of the kingdom and never connected him to the period of Seleucus Nicator and Alexander; and: there was never a written book in India that lasted for 2,000 years, and there is no such statement in our religious writings to show that Chandragupt Maurya was in 312 BC.

The scriptures, in ancient times, were written on bhoj patra (a paper thin bark of a Himalayan native tree) which never lasted in a readable condition for more than 500 to 800 years even with extreme care. These books were written for teaching and learning purposes so they were constantly in use (not like writing and hiding them in a cave as Dead Sea scrolls). When one book was worn out, another one was rewritten by the learned scholars under the guidance of the Master. Thus, the knowledge of the scriptures uninterruptedly continued. Now we know that there was no such book that was 2,000 years old. Moreover, Jones never produced or showed that book to anyone, even to his close associates. It was simply his word of mouth to relate the fake story of a 2,000 year old book.

As regards the period of King Chandragupt Maurya, the Puranas give a detailed genealogical account of all the kings of the Magadh kingdom, starting from the Mahabharat war (3139 BC) and up to the Andhra dynasty. Accordingly, the period of Chandragupt Maurya comes to the 1500’s BC. In no way could it be pushed forward to 312 BC. But those people (the British diplomats) were determined to do it that way because they wanted to squeeze the entire history of India within the time frame of their Aryan fiction story.

Everyone who has read Megasthenes knows that his writings are most unreliable. But Jones found an excuse to quote the writings of Megasthenes where he describes the treaty of Seleucus with Sandracottus, the king of Magadh.

One thing we must mention, that there were two different dynasties that had similar names of their first king: the Maurya dynasty and Gupt dynasty. The first king of the Maurya dynasty, called Chandragupt Maurya, was in BC 1500’s, and the first king of the Gupt dynasty, called Chandragupt Vijayaditya, was in BC 300’s. The second king of Gupt dynasty and the son of Chandragupt Vijayaditya was Samudragupt Ashokaditya. He was the ruler of Magadh between 321 and 270 BC.

Chandragupt Maurya, who was the legitimate heir, was enthroned by a brahman, Chanakya. After cleverly killing Nand and his eight sons, Chanakya coronated him to the throne of Magadh. Chandragupt Maurya was not ambitious of conquering the other states of India and he did not receive foreign ambassadors because there were only trade relations of India with the foreign countries in those days (1500’s BC) not political relations. So his kingdom was much smaller as compared to the kingdom of Chandragupt Vijayaditya of Gupt dynasty.

Chandragupt Vijayaditya, who was the son of Ghatotkach Gupt of Shreegupt Family, was made the commander-in-chief of the large army of Chandrashree of Andhra dynasty. After the accidental death of Chandrashree, his minor son, Prince Puloma, under the guardianship of Chandragupt, ruled for seven years. But Chandragupt finally terminated Puloma, usurped the kingdom and became the crowned king. In this way the kingship of Magadh was transferred from the Andhra dynasty to the Gupt dynasty. There were seven kings in the Gupt dynasty (called Abhir in the Bhagwatam) who ruled for 245 years between 328 to 83 BC. Chandragupt ruled from 328 to 321 BC and his son Samudragupt Ashokaditya from 321 to 270 BC. Chandragupt was an ambitious king. He invaded the neighboring states, conquered them and extended his kingdom up to Punjab. For his constant victories, he was titled vijayaditya, which means the sun of victory.

Thus, taking into account the above facts, it becomes clear that Sandracottus of Megasthenes could only be Samudragupt of Gupt dynasty, historically and also according to the phonetic similarity of both of the names. (1) It was Chandragupt, father of Samudragupt, who was a military adventurer and usurper of the kingdom, not Chandragupt Maurya who was made the king of Magadh in his young age by a brahman, Chanakya. (2) Chandragupt Maurya was in the 1500’s BC, not 300’s BC. (3) In the writings of Megasthenes the word “Maurya” was never used with the name of Sandracottus, and (4) there is absolutely no mention of Chanakya (Vishnugupt) who was the most important person in Chandragupt’s life.

These are such obvious evidences that no historian could deny them. But, Jones, deliberately overlooking these facts and taking an excuse of the unfounded writings of a worldly disdained gossiper, Megasthenes, fabricated the story of matching Chandragupt Maurya with Sandracottus.

In fact, he was doing his job as he was told by his superiors. However, these scheming strategies show the malignancy of their promoters, the people of East India Company.

Now we can look into the statements of Megasthenes.

The original writing of Megasthenes called ‘Indica’ has been lost. Extensive quotations from the writings of later Greek writers, Strabo, Diodorus and Arrian, still survive. Strabo was of the opinion that Megasthenes simply created fables and as such no faith could be placed in his writings. Strabo’s own words: “Generally speaking the men who have written on the affairs of India were a set of liars. Deimachos is first, Megasthenes comes the next.” Diodorus also held similar opinions about him.

Now see the personal situation of Megasthenes. He was a Greek, who had no understanding of Bhartiya language and culture, who knew only Greek mythology, who was appointed as an envoy to the court of Samudragupt in Patliputra (between 302 and 288 BC) so his activities were limited, who did not see much of India as he was mostly in Patliputra, and who was dependent on his translators to communicate with the people who were also ordinary folks. In this situation, how could he have learned about the Bhartiya culture and philosophy which is so extensive and deep, especially when he was dependent upon the incomplete information of his translators.