Durdhara was the Queen of

Chandragupta Maurya Chandragupta Maurya (350-295 BCE) was a ruler in Ancient India who expanded a geographically-extensive kingdom based in Magadha and founded the Maurya dynasty. He reigned from 320 BCE to 298 BCE. The Maurya kingdom expanded to become an emp ...

, the founder of the 4th-century BCE

Maurya Empire The Maurya Empire, or the Mauryan Empire, was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in the Indian subcontinent based in Magadha, having been founded by Chandragupta Maurya in 322 BCE, and existing in loose-knit fashion until ...

of ancient India, according to the 12th century CE

Jain Jainism ( ), also known as Jain Dharma, is an Indian religion. Jainism traces its spiritual ideas and history through the succession of twenty-four tirthankaras (supreme preachers of ''Dharma''), with the first in the current time cycle being ...

text '' Parishishtaparvan'' by

Hemachandra Hemachandra was a 12th century () Indian Jain saint, scholar, poet, mathematician, philosopher, yogi, grammarian, law theorist, historian, lexicographer, rhetorician, logician, and prosodist. Noted as a prodigy by his contemporaries, he gain ...

. She is stated by this text to be the mother of the second Mauryan emperor, Bindusara also known as Amitraghāta. Nothing is mentioned or known about Durdhara outside of this legend written 1,600 years after Chandragupta's era. Other sources, such as the Burmese Buddhist records do not corroborate the Jain legend.

Megasthenes Megasthenes ( ; grc, Μεγασθένης, c. 350 BCE– c. 290 BCE) was an ancient Greek historian, diplomat and Indian ethnographer and explorer in the Hellenistic period. He described India in his book '' Indica'', which is now lost, but ha ...

, the Greek ambassador in the final years of Chandragupta's court, does not mention Durdhara nor use the name Bindusara, but refers to Chandragupta's successor as Amitrochates, while the Hindu scholar Patanjali calls him Amitraghata (meaning "vanquisher of foes"). Scholars consider the Bindusara of Jain texts to be the same as Amitraghata.

In popular culture

* Durdhara was portrayed by Nidhi Tikko in ''Chandragupta Maurya'' (2011 TV series) * Saanvi Talwar played Durdhara in the 2016 historical fiction series Chandra Nandini. * Pranali Ghoghare and Aditi Sanwal portrayed Durdhara in ''Chandragupta Maurya'' (2018 TV series)

Sources

References

{{Reflist Mauryan empresses 4th-century BC women Year of birth unknown 4th-century BC Indian people