Life in the Mauryan period

Cities like Pāṭaliputra were busy centres of government and trade: palaces, public buildings, well-planned streets. A good tax system and lively trade kept the treasury full. Officials, merchants and artisans ran city life.

The Sohagaura copper plate (4th–3rd century BCE), found in Sohgaura, Uttar Pradesh, is one of India's earliest government records. It's written in Prakrit in Brahmi, probably under Chandragupta Maurya. It mentions setting up a granary to store grain against famine: an early plan for food security.

Megasthenes wrote that most people were farmers, and farming brought the empire much of its money. Rain fell in summer and winter, so two crops grew each year. Famines were rare and granaries were kept full.

Even when war was close by, farmers were protected and kept farming. That way the food kept growing, even for the soldiers. Kauṭilya would agree: wreck the countryside and you wreck the empire.

In the cities lived blacksmiths, potters, carpenters, jewellers and other artisans. Streets had signs; couriers carried messages. Houses were wooden, up to two storeys tall, so jars of water stood along the streets in case of fire.

People wore cotton: a lower garment reaching below the knee, and an upper one thrown over the shoulders. Some wore patterned leather shoes with thick soles, to look taller!

The most famous Mauryan object: the capital (here meaning the top of a pillar) that Aśhoka put up at Sarnath, near Varanasi, where the Buddha first taught. Four lions stand for royal power. On the ring below are an elephant, a bull, a horse and a lion, with the dharmachakra (wheel of dharma).

This capital is India's national emblem, with the motto *satyameva jayate*, 'truth alone triumphs', from the Muṇḍaka Upaniṣhad. And the dharmachakra sits at the centre of our national flag.