Page:History of India Vol 2.djvu/235

CHAPTER IX THE INDO- GREEK AND INDO - PARTHIAN DYNASTIES 250 B. C. TO 60 A. D. THE story of the native dynasties in the interior must now be interrupted to admit a brief review of the fortunes of the various foreign rulers who estab- lished themselves in the Indian territories once con- quered by Alexander, after the sun of the Maurya empire had set, and the northwestern frontier was left exposed to foreign attack. The daring and destructive raid of the great Macedonian, as we have seen, had effected none of the permanent results intended. The Indian provinces which he had subjugated, and which Seleukos had failed to recover, passed into the iron grip of Chandragupta, who transmitted them to the keeping of his son and grandson. I see no reason to doubt that the territories west of the Indus ceded by Seleukos to his Indian opponent continued in posses- sion of the successors of the latter, and that conse- quently the Hindu Kush range was the frontier of the Maurya empire up to the close of Asoka's reign. But it is certain that the unity of the empire did 197