The Mauryan Empire

Chandragupta Maurya founded the Mauryan Empire in about 321 BCE; it stretched as far north-west as Afghanistan and Baluchistan. His grandson Asoka, perhaps the most famous ruler of early India, conquered Kalinga (coastal Odisha).

Sources for Mauryan history: sculpture and archaeological finds; the account of Megasthenes, a Greek ambassador to Chandragupta's court; the Arthashastra, parts of which may have been written by Kautilya (Chanakya); later Buddhist, Jaina and Puranic texts; and, above all, Asoka's inscriptions on rocks and pillars.

The empire had five major political centres: the capital Pataliputra, and the provincial centres Taxila, Ujjayini, Tosali and Suvarnagiri. Control was strongest around the capital and these centres, and much weaker in distant areas.

Megasthenes describes a committee with six subcommittees for military affairs: the navy, transport and provisions, foot soldiers, horses, chariots and elephants. Asoka tried to hold the empire together by spreading dhamma: respect for elders, kindness to slaves and servants, respect for other religions and for Brahmanas and renouncers. Special officers, the dhamma mahamattas, were appointed to spread it.

In the nineteenth and twentieth centuries, nationalist historians admired the Mauryan Empire as proof of early India's greatness. But it lasted only about 150 years, and it did not cover the whole subcontinent. A large empire, unevenly controlled.