The Maurya : Chandragupta Maurya received Megāsthenes as an ambassador of Macedonia. His son Bindusāra was eager to secure the services of a Greek sophist but the laws of that country didn’t permit him. Bindusāra was succeeded by his son Ashōka who was succeeded by his son Kuṇāla who had six sons who succeeded him one after the other. The youngest, inefficient Bṛihadratha was deposed by his commander-in-chief Pushyamitra. There were thus altogether ten kings in the Maurya dynasty which ruled for 137 years (324 to 187 BC). The Mauryan Empire that stretched from the borders of Persia to Bengal was twice as large as Rome under Marcus Aurelius (see Caracalla). Maurya Administration: The Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra declares that “whatever pleases himself the king shall not consider as good, but whatever pleases his subjects he shall consider as good”. The king’s powers were extensive. He took part in war as well as in the administration of justice. While listening to causes he did not suffer himself to be interrupted even though the time arrived for the massage of his limbs. Appointments to the most important offices were made by the ruler himself; he also often laid down the broad lines of policy & issued rescripts & codes of regulation (śāsana, dharmaniyama) for the guidance of his officers & the people. Control was maintained over the most distant officials by an army of secret reporters & itinerant judges, & communication with them was kept up by a network of roads marked with pillars at every 1830 to 2217 metres. Administration: There was the Parishad or the Mantri Parishad, council of advisers, specially consulted in times of emergency. The empire was divided it into provinces subdivided into Pradeśas or Āhāras, Vishayas, districts. Each Janapada was placed under a viceroy or governor who was either a prince of the blood or an official of the crown. There were also bodies Nikāya of trained officials who looked after the ordinary affairs of the realm. In the inscriptions of Asoka refer to Rajukas & Prādeśikas charged with the welfare of the Janapadas, provinces, & Pradeśas, Mahāmātras charged with Nagara Viyohālaka, administration of cities, & sundry other matters, & a host of minor officials including Yukta, clerks & Lipikāra, scribes. The chief amongst the eighteen tīrthas (highest officers) were the Mantrin, Purōhita, Yuvarāja, & Senāpati. Another important class of officials mentioned in Arthaśāstra are the Adhyakshas, superintendents, in charge of the various departments of the state. Officials were appointed irrespective of caste, creed or race – Vaishyas & even Yavanas given the highest offices, at least in the province of Saurāshtra or Kāṭhiāwād. It may be thought that the all-embracing activities of the Maurya Empire left little room for popular initiative or self-government. Nevertheless, it is a fact that autonomous communities did exist in Maurya India as did self-governed cities. Important affairs of the metropolis itself were conducted by a commission of thirty members, divided into six boards of five members each [that] looked after the mechanical arts, foreign residents, registration of births & deaths, sales, exchanges, weights & measures, supervision of manufactured articles, & collection of tithes of sales. Officers in charge of the city, Nagara-Adhyakshas, Nigama-pradhāna, find mention in Indian literature. The Nagaraka or the Town Prefect was a distinct official. The Empire was divided it into provinces subdivided into Pradeśas or Āhāras, Vishayas, districts. The assumption of the title Raja by local rulers, & the grant of autonomy to the Rajukas in the days of Asoka, ultimately let loose centrifugal forces which must have helped in the dismemberment of the empire. In the early Maurya period, however, efficient control over the provincial governors was maintained in several ways. With the princely viceroys were associated a number of Mahāmātras who received orders from the sovereign. The work of erring Mahāmātras in certain areas was supervised by special officers sent periodically from the metropolis. There was, besides, a host of Paṭivedaka, secret emissaries of the central govt. who enquired into & superintended all that went on in India & made reports to the emperor. Asoka gave special directions to the reporters that they were to report to him the affairs of the people at any time anywhere whatever he be engaged in. ― Greek writers refer to judges who listened to the cases of foreigners. Petty cases in villages were doubtless decided by the headman & the village elders. Asoka seems to have introduced many reforms in judicial administration & procedure. While preserving a certain amount of uniformity he is said to have allowed considerable discretion to the Rajukas so they could discharge their duties unperturbed. Greek writers testify to the severity of the penal code & Ashōka admits in some of his inscriptions that in Kalinga individuals suffered from arbitrary imprisonment & torture. To check maladministration in this & other outlying areas the emperor or his viceroys sent forth in rotation every five or three years such officers as were of mild & temperate disposition & regardful of the sanctity of life. Armed Forces: were led by the emperor himself. It was only in the days of the last Maurya emperor Bṛihadratha that we find the Senāpati (Pushyamitra q.v.), overshadowing the king & transferring to himself the allegiance of the troops. The protection of the king’s person was entrusted to an Amazonian bodyguard of armed women. The fighting forces were under the supervision of a governing body of thirty divided into six boards of five members each. Each of these boards was responsible for one of the following: navy, transport & commissariat, infantry, cavalry, chariots, & elephants. Industry: One committee of the municipal board of Pātaliputra was entrusted with the supervision of manufactured articles. – Greek writers make pointed reference to the manufacture of arms & agricultural implements & the building of ships mainly for the purposes of river navigation. Strabo speaks of dresses worked in gold & adorned with precious stones & also flowered robes made of fine muslin worn by wealthy classes, & umbrellas used by their attendants. Indian muslin was exported in large quantities to the Roman Empire in the 1st century AD. Muslins of the finest sorts were then called Gangetic & were produced in the valley of the lower Ganges. The fame of Eastern Bengal & the Gangetic delta for its white & soft dūkūla is also vouched for by the Arthaśāstra. The fabric produced in Northern Bengal was black & as smooth as the surface of a gem. Muslins in great quantity were also exported from several market towns in South India. North-West India was famous for its cotton cloth & silk yarn. The weaving industry gave employment to hundreds of helpless women, & special arrangements were made for those who did not stir out of their houses. Weavers & other craftsmen were organised into economic corporations called Śreṇīs. Śreṇīs or guilds were very much in evidence during this period. Records of the Śatavāhana period refer to guilds of weavers, braziers, oil-millers, bamboo-workers, corn-dealers, & of artisans fabricating hydraulic engines. These guilds served the purpose of banks. Trade & navigation: Kings as well as independent cities depended to a large extent on the tribute paid by the peasantry, but a considerable portion of the state revenues came from traders…. Maurya India had direct relations with Syria, Egypt, & other countries of the Hellenistic West. There was a considerable body of foreign residents in the metropolis whose affairs were looked after by a special board of municipal commissioners. These foreigners could not all have been diplomatists. Some of them were in all probability traders. As early as 1st century BC contact was established between India & the Roman Empire. In the early centuries of the Christian era we have epigraphic as well as literary references to intercourse with China, the Hellenic world, Sri Lanka & Farther India…. Classical writers bear testimony to the activity & daring of the Indian navigators. One writer narrates how, in the reign of Euergetes II (145-116 BC), an Indian was brought to the king by the coast guard of the Arabian Gulf. They reported that they had found him in a ship alone & half dead. He spoke a language which they could not understand. He was taught the Greek tongue & then he related how he had started from the coast of India but lost his course & reached Egypt alone. All his companions had perished from hunger. If he were restored to his country he would point out to those sent with him the route by sea to India. Eudoxus of Cyzicus was one of those sent. He brought back with him aromatics & precious stones. Another writer relates that a present was given by the king of Suevi to a pro-consul of Gaul, consisting of some Indians who, sailing from India for the purpose of commerce, had been driven by the storms into Germany. Sweet wines & dried figs of the West were eagerly sought by a Maurya king in the 3rd century BC. In the 1st century AD presents for the king Bharuch, which was one of the greatest marts in the East, included costly vessels of silver, singing boys, beautiful maidens for the harem, fine wines, thin clothing & the choicest ointments. The Westerners on their part imported articles of luxury including the fine muslins of the lower Gangetic region. Pliny bears testimony to the vast sums of money sent to India in payment for these commodities. As early as the 4th century BC the municipal authorities of Pātaliputra had to constitute a special board to superintend trade & commerce. Its members had charge of weights & measures & saw that products in their seasons were sold with an official stamp. In the 1st century AD trade between India & the West was greatly facilitated when the pilot Hippalus discovered how to lay his course straight across the ocean. The splendid river system of northern India rendered transport comparatively easy in this area. The Maurya government built ships & let them out on hire for the transport of merchandise. Communication was more difficult in South India, where vast tracts were without roads & good had to be carried with difficulty by wagons from Paithan & Tagara to the port of Bharuch. The chief sources of revenue from villages mentioned in an inscription of Asoka are the Bhāga & the Bali. The bhāga was the king’s share of the produce of the soil, which was normally fixed at one-sixth, though in special cases it was raised to one-fourth or reduced to one-eighth. Bali is explained by commentators as an extra impost levied on special tracts for the subsistence of certain officials…. Taxes on land were collected by…who measured the land & superintended the irrigation works. Other state-dues included cattle from herdsmen & tribute & prescribed services from those engaged in trades. In urban areas the main sources of revenue were birth & death taxes, fines & tithes on sales. The distinction between taxes levied in rāshtra (rural) & durga (fortified) areas is indicated in the Arthaśāstra, which refers to the samāhartṛi & the sannidhatṛi (high revenue functionaries). No such officials are mentioned in the known Maurya inscriptions. A considerable part of the revenue was spent on the army. The artisans, too, according to Diodoros, received maintenance from the imperial exchequers. They made armour for the troops & constructed implements for husbandmen & others. The services of some of them must been requisitioned for the city of Pātaliputra, & the splendid palaces which excelled in magnificence the stately regal edifices of Susa & Ecbatana. To them we owe also the splendid monoliths & other monuments of the time of Asoka. ― Herdsmen & hunters received an allowance of grain from the state in return for clearing the land of wild beasts & fowls. Another class that benefited from the royal bounty were the philosophers, among whom were included the Brāhmaṇas (Hindu sadhus) as well as the Śramaṇas (Jain & Buddhist ascetics). Vast sums were also spent on irrigation works of public utility. The most famous of these works of the early Maurya period is the Sudarshana lake of Kāṭhiāwād, constructed by Pushyagupta the Vaishya, an officer of Chandragupta, & provided by supplemental channels by the Yavanarāj Tushāspa in the days of Asoka. Roads furnished with milestones had already been constructed by the officials of Chandragupta. These were provided with shady groves & wells by Asoka who built hospitals all living creatures. Indeed there were so many Greeks amongst his subjects in Afghanistan that Aśoka issued for their edification a bilingual inscription in Greek & Aramaic which has been found near the city renamed Qandahar by its Islamic conquerors. Literature: It is difficult to assign any extant Indian work definitely to the Maurya age. Three works, Kauṭilya Arthaśāstra, Kalpasūtra of Bhadrabāhu & Buddhist Kathā vatthu, are traditionally attributed to personages who are said to have flourished in the Maurya period. A considerable body of literature is presupposed by Patanjali, usually regarded as a contemporary of Pushyamitra. The Mānavadharma Shāstra which mentions the Yavanas, Śakas, Pāradas, & Pahlavas among Kshatriya clans which were degraded for non-observance of sacred rites & neglect of Brāhmaṇas may also be assigned to this period; as also the composition of the Mahābhāśya of Patanjali, an exposition of the aphorisms of Pāṇini. Another grammatical work, the Kātantra or Kalāpaka of Sarvavarman, is traditionally assigned to the Śatavāhana period. To the same age probably belongs the Brihad Kathā of Guṇāḍhya. The Gāthā Saptashati attributed to Hāla, a Śatavāhana king, bears the signs of a much later work. The epoch of the Kushāns produced the great work of Ashwaghosha, poet, dramatist, & philosopher. Among other celebrities of the period mention may be made of Charaka, Sushruta, Nāgārjuna, Kumāralatā, & possibly Ᾱryadeva. The Pāli Buddhist canon is said to have been reduced to writing in the 1st century BC. The celebrated work known as the Milindapaṅho (Menander’s questions) is also regarded as a product of the period under review. Some scholars believe that the astronomical work of Garga, the Paumachariya of Vimalasūri, portions of Divya-avadāna, as well as the Lalitāvistāra & the Sad-dharma puṇḍarīka are also to be assigned to this period. Games & Recreation: Inscriptions of Mauryan-Scythian era refer frequently to utsava & samāja, festivities & gatherings…. Dancing, singing, & instrumental music must have formed an important part of all festivities. Samājas were often held in honour of a god or goddess. A prominent feature of some of these assemblies was wrestling, & combats of men & animals often leading to bloodshed which was why emperor Asoka issued an edict forbidding certain types of samājas “in which he saw much offence”…. Patanjali mentions dramatic representations of actual incidents mentioned in the plays. He also refers to the popularity of Granthikas fortune-tellers at these samājas. Dice & its vices were also part of these gatherings. Buddhist writers refer to games on board with eight or ten rows of squares from which chess play ultimately evolved. The Jaina Sūtrakridāṅga makes explicit mention of ashṭapāda (chess), a game that must have become very popular by the time of Bāṇa’s Harsha-charita & Ratnākara’s Haravijaya (9th century work). In the post-Maurya period…the ruler still considered it to be his duty to please his people. The official machinery of the Ashōkan age continued to function at least in those parts of India that did not come under Greek or Scythian domination. Artha Vidyā (science of governance) was now regularly studied & its influence seen in epigraphic references to education of princes, insistence on prescribed qualification for appointment to high offices, classification of ministers, measures taken to secure the welfare of the citizens both in urban & rural areas, & abstention from oppressive imposition of vexatious taxes like Kara (extra cess), Vishṭi (forced labour) & Praṇaya (benevolence) in addition to the customary Bali (tribute), Sulka (duty), & Bhāga (king’s share of all produce). Innovations in administration were, however, introduced in north-west India, the territory that was ruled by successive dynasties of foreign conquerors. One of the most important changes related to the provincial governments. The system of govt. by hereditary officials with the Persian title of Satrap was introduced in Takshashilā, Mathurā, Ujjain & a few other places, & we have references even to functionaries with Greek titles of meridarch & strategos…. The influence of strategos (military governors) is clearly seen in the appointment by Śatavāhana kings of district officials styled mahā Senāpati. In spite of the prevalence of military rule in certain areas the old self-governing institutions did not wholly perish. Nigama sabhā (town councils) & nagarākshadarśa (city judges) are mentioned in several records & these correspond to the municipal commission & the nagara Viyohālaka of the Maurya period. The affairs of the village continued to be controlled by the village functionaries led by the head-man. The village assembly afforded a field for cooperation between kings & villagers. [Advanced History of India, R.C. Majumdar et al, pp. 92-93, 94, 96, 119-23, 128, 129, 131, 134, 135, 248]
... another source in his present context without any warning. For, almost immediately after mentioning the great power of the "Andarae", he 3 goes on to 1."Political and Social Organisation of the Maurya Empire", The Cambridge History of India, I, p. 485 2."The Sātavāhanas and the Chedis", op. cit., p. 194. 3. The Classical Accounts of India, pp. 142 & 143. Page 243 ... grandson of Sandrocottus? Like the Āndhras, the Kalingas too could not have been independent in the time of Sandrocottus if he and the first Maurya had 1. "Chandragupta, the Founder of the Maurya Empire", The Cambridge History of India, I, p. 473. Page 244 been identical. For, the first Maurya, who took over the empire of the Nandas, must have ruled over Kaliiiga which... (lb., Ancient India, p. 58, n.)." Sandrocottus, according to Megasthenes and Curtius, did exact - 1. The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 32. 2. Ibid. 3."Chandragupta and the Maurya Empire', ibid., p. 61. 4.Bhandarkar, Aśoka, p. 315. 5. Aśoka (Rajkamal Publications Ltd., Delhi, 1955), p. 143, fn. 1. Page 245 ly what Aśoka says his predecessors ...
... "just 1.Pargiter, The Purāna Texts of the Dynasties of the Kali Age, p. 26 with fn. 24; p. 69 with fn. 20. 2. The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 31. 3."Chandragupta, the Founder of the Maurya Empire", The Cambridge History of India, I, p. 469. 4.Barua, Aśoka and His Inscriptions (Calcutta, 1946), Part I, p. 43. 5. Ibid., p. 45. Page 176 amused"?... the first Nanda on a courtesan, the daughter of the Nanda preceding Chandragupta Maurya claims, after falling in love with Chandragupta at first sight, from the deposed father the right to marry the Maurya victor and the claim is conceded "because it is customary for Kshatriya girls to marry according to their choice" (Prāyah Kshatriya-kanyānārh śasyate hi svayamvarah). The Nanda's Kshatriyahood... Sandrocottus's assembling troops and his terminating the prefects' domination. The other war Mookerji 2 designates as "Chandragupta's next task". In quoting Justin about 1."Chandragupta and the Maurya Empire", The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 58. 2. Ibid., p. 59. Page 196 Sandrocottus's instigation of the Indians he' inserts an explanatory word thus: "the existing (Greek) ...
... This is the Pataliputra of yore. This was the capital of the Maurya empire whose founder Chandragupta (reign: 322 to 298 B.C.) left everything at the height of his power, went down south to Sravanabelgola (Karnataka), and became a Jain monk. His grandson Asoka was the emperor who proclaimed, "All men are my children." The boundaries of the Maurya empire stretched from the river Brahmaputra to the east... in Gujarat and radiocarbon dating have fixed the date as 1400 B.C. when Dwaraka of Sri Krishna was submerged by the rising sea. Thus confirming the facts as given in the epic Mahabharata. 1 The Maurya empire (approx. 322-182 B.C.) brings us into historical period. Takshila and Benares were 1. A team of archeologists, led by Dr S.R. Rao, began in 1979 off- and onshore explorations which... subcontinent. This discovery may well one day mean to the Mahabharata Page 26 renowned international universities, where students came from far-flung countries like China. The Maurya emperors took great care to spread learning among their subjects. The cities were well-planned and beautiful. The governing system was minutely worked out: farmers paid tax at the rate of one quarter ...
... A COMPARATIVE GLANCE AT THE RIVAL CLAIMS Even apart from the weighty chronological tilt from Megasthenes favouring the founder of the Imperial Guptas instead of the founder of the Maurya dynasty as the Indian original of the Greeks' Sandrocottus in the time of Alexander and his immediate successor Seleucus Nicator, there are substantial considerations to support the former and not... remark on the first Maurya whom he takes to be Sandrocottus: "Chandragupta does not appear to have been known to Megasthenes, and, for the matter of that, to most of the Greek writers as a scion of the Maurya family." ("Most" is an unconscious misnomer: "any" would be the mot juste.) Sometimes it is argued 2 that the Greeks do mention the Mauryas when they refer to a tribe named the Morieis... stringently to the description by the Greeks. He belonged to a family which, though said to 1. Ibid., p. 24. 2. Ibid., 3. Ibid., p. 22. 4.II. 167. 5."Chandragupta and the Maurya Empire", The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 56. 6. Chandragupta Maurya and His Times, p. 22. 7.Ed. E.B., Cowell and R. A. Neil (Cambridge, 1886), p. 370. Page 205 ...
... Mookerji 1 also writes: "Many scholars... regard the present text as of a much later date. It is doubtful, therefore, how far we may regard the system of administration depicted in it as applicable to the Maurya period." In the context of the current chronology, what Raychaudhuri and Mookerji mean is both that the book carries signs of an epoch subsequent to Sandrocottus's and that it fails to match sufficiently... heavy defence with wooden palisades. 6 The Arthaśāstra turns out to be post-Maurya by mentioning "the use of Sanskrit as the official language [Bk. II, Ch. 10], a feature not characteristic of the Maurya epoch". 7 Further, "the imperial title Chakravarti (IX. 1) is not met with in inscriptions before Khāravela" 8 (second half of the 1st century B.C.) and "the official designations samādhartri... the earlier inscriptions." Another Arthaśāstra-touch in the Gupta period is brought out by Raychaudhuri: 4 "There is no reference in Kautilīya Arthaśāstra to royal titles characteristic of the Maurya age. On the contrary, Indra-Yama-sthānametat (1.13) cannot fail to recall Dhanada-varun-edrāntaka-sama of the Allāhābād prasasti." Yet the marked differences from Megasthenes as well as the ...
... his throne. Many scholars, however, regard the present text as of a much later date. It is doubtful, therefore, how far we may regard the system of administration depicted in it as applicable to the Maurya period." The second point is H. C. Raychaudhuri's observation: 2 "...the Arthaśāstra... refers to certain high revenue functionaries styled the Samādhartri and the Sannidhātri. No such... of the state' or 'Superintendents of the treasury.' " Here Raychaudhuri notes one of the few significant contacts of the Arthaśāstra with the age of Megasthenes but 1."Chandragupta and the Maurya Empire", The Age of Imperial Unity, p. 66. 2. The Political History of India, p. 283. Page 221 dissociates that book from the Mauryas without realising that at the same... our problem is thus solved. It is a negative gain for us. Whether among the Guptas we can find evidence of the functionaries Raychaudhuri emphasises we shall decide later. Speaking broadly, since the Maurya founder and the Gupta founder are the sole alternatives for Sandrocottus the chances for a positive gain for us seem bright provided we look both closely and widely enough for the administrative ...
... The Prasii have been recognised as the Prāchya (Easterners), Palibothra as Pātaliputra and the eastern kingdom whose capital was Palibothra as Magadha. Sandrocottus has been identified with the Maurya adventurer Chandragupta who. like him, founded a dynasty in Magadha. Since Sandrocottus is reported to have not been a king when as an ambitious youth he first met Alexander and-to have already mounted... Harsha. The second mode of dating is: "3736 years after the Kaliyuga." Going backwards by 3736 years from 634 A.D., we arrive at (3736-634=) 3102 B.C. 1. Cf. "Chandragupta, the Founder of the Maurya Empire" by F.W. Thomas. The Cambridge History of India, edited by E. J. Rapson (1922), I, pp. 471,473. See also the choice on p. 698 ("Chronology"), and Rc-mila Thapar, A History of India (A... 'Āguptāyikanam rājriam' seems to mean in the reckoning of those kings whose names end in 'Gupta'..." So he is convinced that the era has to do with the Imperial Gupta family. He points out that in the Maurya family no one except its founder had the term "Gupta" at the end of his name and therefore the era cannot be linked with Chandragupta Maurya. But the usual Gupta Era of 320 A.D. he finds too late ...
... "Aśoka, the Imperial Patron of Buddhism", The Cambridge History of India, edited by E.J. Rapson, 1922, I Thomas, F. W., "Chandragupta, the Founder of the Maurya Empire", "Political and Social Organisation of the Maurya Empire", The Cambridge History of India, edited by E. J. Rapson, 1922, I Tilak, B. G., Orion (Bombay, 1893) Vamsatthappakāsmī, I ... tr. A Record of Buddhistic Kingdoms by Fa-Hien (Oxford, 1886) Lévi, Sylvain, In The Indian Antiquary, 1953 Macdonald, George, "Chandragupta, the Founder of the Maurya Empire", The Cambridge History of India, edited by E. J. Rapson, 1922, I Page 612 Macdonell, A. A., A History of Sanskrit Literature (Willian Heinemann, Ltd., London... Chandragupta Maurya and His Times (University of Mādras, 1943) The Gupta Empire (Hind Kitabs, Ltd., Bombay, 1947) "Rise of Megadhan Imperialism", "Foreign Invasions", "Chandragupta and the Maurya Empire", "Aśoka the Great", "The Fall of the Magadhan Empire", The Age of Imperial Unity, edited by R. C. Majumdar and A. D. Pusalmar (Bhāratiya Vidyā Bhavan, Bombay, 1953) Aśoka ...
... statesmanship of Chanakya and constantly maintained or restored through Page 436 eight or nine centuries, in spite of periods of weakness and incipient disintegration, successively by the Maurya, Sunga, Kanwa, Andhra and Gupta dynasties. The history of this empire, its remarkable organisation, administration, public works, opulence, magnificent culture and the vigour, the brilliance, the... left without any sufficient spiritual or moral check and there was a coarsening of the national mind in the ethics of politics and government already evidenced in the draconic penal legislation of the Maurya times and in Asoka's sanguinary conquest of Orissa. The deterioration, held in abeyance by a religious spirit and high intelligence, did not come to a head till more than a thousand years afterwards ...
... demanded by Megasthenes. Passing backward beyond Chandragupta Maurya we fall very seriously short. Megasthenes's Dionysus can never be reached and therefore his Sandrocottus cannot be the founder of the Maurya dynasty. 1.Op. cit.. ,,. 289. 2. Op. cit., pp. 270-71 3. Op. cit., pp. 22-23. 4. Op. cit., p . 270. Page 71 FROM PARGITER'S ANCIENT INDIAN... 3138 B.C. We may surmise that something in the Purānic information available in the time of Megasthenes and capable of resolving the discrepancy is missing in the extant Purānas. On a close look, the Maurya dynasty-length of 137 years which we have accepted in either calculation gets suspected as the source of the non-alignment. From what Pargiter remarks it would appear that there was an alternative... reign-periods as a possibility in the Purānas of Megasthenes's day looks valid from the very fact that they so easily and naturally combine with the already existing variant of 145 or 146 years for the Maurya dynasty's duration to set Megasthenes alongside the current Purānas. The Several Purānic Alternatives Indeed, the several alternatives hidden away in stray versions of ...
... Chanakya, the preceptor of the Maurya monarch. Here, too, Sethna corrects a widely prevalent mistake among our historians who have blindly followed Jacobi who compared Chanakya to Bismarck as Chancellor of the Empire. Sethna points out the facts: Chankya was instrumental in installing the Prime Minister of the Nandas, Rakshasa, to assume the same post with the Maurya king. Thus, if anyone, ...
... I doubt, unless the Maurya influence can be broken, but that would mean that the Society would lose its practical force of action. It would have either to be transformed and taken up into a greater action or dissolve as a society and its members or the best of them enter into a work of larger inspiration and movement. That represented the hostility of which I spoke. The Maurya influence is a despotic ...
... —we leave aside the danger it brings of an actual death like the Assyrian or Chaldean as well as the spiritual and other gains that may accrue by avoiding it,—is shown in the example of India where the Maurya, Gupta, Andhra, Moghul empires, huge and powerful and wellorganised as they were, never succeeded in passing a steam-roller over the too strongly independent life of the subordinate unities from ...
... moved by the urge of larger needs and tendencies, brought into the field of life. Therefore the old States had to dissolve and disappear, in India into the huge bureaucratic empires of the Gupta and the Maurya to which the Pathan, the Moghul and the Englishman succeeded, in the West into the vast military and commercial expansions achieved by Alexander, by the Carthaginian oligarchy and by the Roman republic ...
... ages. The machinery of the State also was not so mechanical as in the West – it was plastic and elastic. This organisation we find in history perfected in the reign of Ghandragupta and the Maurya dynasty. The period preceding this must have been a period o| great political development in India. Every department of national life, we can see, was in charge of a board or a committee with ...
... kingdoms like those of the Pallavas, Chalukyas, Pandyas, Cholas and Cheras. In comparison she received little from the greater empires that rose and fell within her borders, the Moghul, the Gupta or the Maurya—little indeed except political and administrative organisation, some fine art and literature and a certain amount of lasting work in other kinds, not always of the best quality. Their impulse was ...
... machinery of the State also was not so mechanical as in the West—it was plastic and elastic. Page 177 This organization we find in history perfected in the reign of Chandragupta and the Maurya dynasty. The period preceding this must have been a period of great political development in India. Every department of national life, we can see, was in the charge of a board or a committee with ...
... to continual feuding and raiding between kingdoms. Yet occasionally, for example under the great Emperor Ashoka (268-231 BC), large areas of India were united under one leader. Ashoka, Emperor of the Maurya Dynasty, whose empire covered some two-thirds of the Indian sub-continent, began his rule as a warrior king, but after his conversion to Buddhism, he renounced warfare as an act of policy. Throughout ...
... at the time when he was wounded. Women of royal families were expected to undergo a training in Dhanurveda, to learn the skills of charioteering and horse-riding like kings and princes. During the Maurya dynasty, it is certain that there existed women warriors. Megasthenes, the Greek traveller, who visited India at that time, speaks of armed women who served the king as his body-guards and escorted ...
... spiritual or moral check and there was a coarsening of the national mind in the ethics of politics and government. The signs of these were already in evidence in the draconic penal legislation of the Maurya times and in Asoka's sanguinary conquest of Orissa. The deterioration was held in abeyance by a religious spirit and high intelligence for a long time and did not come to a head till more than a ...
... but finally became a bhikshu and an ascetic. He spent his last days along with his guru in the holy Jain spot of Sravanabelagola in south India. The same thing happened with the third king of the Maurya dynasty. King Ashok. He too tried to mould India into a strong, united country and infuse love and beauty and compassion into life. "With the help of rock-inscriptions on every mountain and hill ...
... something of the glow and sublimity of the Spirit. This attitude has a great humanitarian value, and is productive of immense cultural progress—religious, ethical, aesthetic, literary, etc. The Maurya and Gupta periods of Indian culture were a material flowering of this attitude. Their abounding vitality and creative gusto were directly derived from the pre- ceding burst of spiritual achievements ...
... unconscious restraint which limits the development of her capacities First Set - II Abd-ul-Baha, let him disappear then you will see the connection—He has got rid of Maurya or rather Maurya has got rid of himself—As Maurya—Yes, but at present powerless—He has dissolved his means of action—Not in this world. He is there, but by himself he is [ ] 1 less free, less able to impress himself powerfully ...
... Buddha, 83 Buddhi, 28 Buddhism, 8,46,59,84 Bull, 73 Caste, 54 Casteism, 62 Charanavyuha, 91 Chaturvarna, 53 Chaldea, 1 Chaitanya, 44,59,85 Chandragupta Maurya, 84 Charvaka, 46, 59 Chemistry, 44 Chhandas, 101,102 Chhandogya Upanishad, 68,75,78, 79, 80,81, 82 Cow, 3,13,14 Consciousness, mental, 41 Cosmic-terrestrial, 22 ...
... framework of ancient Indian history —especially when it relates to the period of Alexander's invasion of India and the period immediately succeeding it, the time currently allotted to Chandragupta Maurya and to his grandson Asoka with his numerous informative inscriptions? Do we not have to tackle even Greek and Latin annals derived from the Indica of Magasthenes, the ambassador sent by Seleucus... one of Alexander's military heirs to the court of the Indian king whom these annals called "sandrocottus" which equates to "Chandragupta"? Yes, but "Sandrocottus" is not necessarily a Maurya of that name. There is also the founder of the Imperial Guptas who had the same designation and ruled from the same city Pataliputra, know as "Palibothra" to the Greeks. When the traditional... tradition honours as ādi-rājā , "first king", and who is reached if wecount through the line of kings of Magadha back from the founder of the Imperial Guptas rather than from the first Maurya. The material for this counting is drawn from authorities on historial tradition, like F.E. Pargiter and others, who subscribe to the current chronology and are no partisans of a revolutionary ...
... chronology which is absolutely certain, and regarded with near-certainty the history of a little over 6 centuries preceding this event. Aśoka for us stands at 950 B.C. and his grandfather Chandragupta Maurya at 999 B.C., with his intervening reign of 24 years and Bindusāra's of 25 according to the Purānas, or slightly earlier if the numbers from the Ceylonese Chronicles are adopted. Aśoka's age is of ...
... In India in 350 B.C. Buddhism was flourishing. At the time of Page 91 Alexander's death, the Mauryan dynasty was established (322 B.C.) and the first King of that dynasty, Chandragupta Maurya (322-298 B.C.), came closer to uniting India than had any earlier ruler. Only the extreme South escaped his domination. What happened after Alexander Alexander's sudden death meant ...
... 560 B.C. to 200 B.C. This period witnesses the remarkable life and work of the Buddha, the invasion of Alexander the great, the establishment of the Mauryan empire under the lead of Chandragupta Maurya and his adviser, Kautilya (or Chanakya), the life and work of Ashoka, who provided royal sanction to Buddhism and gave a great impetus to the spread of Buddhism not only in India but even in other ...
... Vasistha, Vishwamtira, Lopamudra, Yajnavalkya, Maitreyi Part II (i) Buddha and Mahavira (ii) Buddhism and Jainism (iii) Invasion of Alexander the Great (iv) Chandragupta Maurya (v) Ashoka III (i) Kushans and Kanishka (ii) Chandragupta, Samundragupta and Vikramaditya (iii) Gupta Period: the Golden Age of India (iv) Kalidasa, Varahamihira ...
... ion of the Divine Personality. It is shocking to our spiritual notions to find cosmic Demiurges of a vague semi-divine character put between us and the All-Powerful and All-Loving and Kutthumi and Maurya taking the place of God. One sees, finally, a new Theocracy claiming the place of the Page 68 old, and that Theocracy is dominantly European. Indians figure numerously as prominent ...
... the Indian experimentation. Great experiments were conducted in democracy and democratic monarchy, and the first Page 52 imperial kingdom of India under the leadership of Chandragupta Maurya and his teacher and prime minister, Chanakya, came to be built up under the shock of the invasion of Alexander, the Great. Hinduism and Buddhism clashed and clasped each other, resulting in confusion ...
... They were immensely drawn to Indian culture. They sought to express, each in his own way, India's soul. It was here in Pondicherry that WS Iyer wrote in Tamil the biographies of Chandra Gupta Maurya, Rana Pratap, Mazzini, Garibaldi, and Napoleon. When he was in England Iyer had become an 'extremist'—especially after the Curzon Willie 1 episode—and in France he came close to Madame Bhaicaji Cama ...
... elements came to occupy the Indian experimentation. Great experiments were conducted in democracy and democratic monarchy, and the first imperial kingdom of India under the leadership of Chandragupta Maurya and his teacher and prime minister, Chanakya, came to be built up under the shock of the invasion of Alexander, the Great. Hinduism and Buddhism clashed and clasped each other resulting in confusion ...
... original meaning of, 28-30,120, 177 perversion of, 119, 120·121 political use of, 18, 32 , 192(11) caturvarna caturvarnya, 90 , 120 Chaitanya, 204 Chandala, 29, 44 Chandernagore,71 Chandragupta Maurya, 178 charity, 102, 112, 129 see also altruism Charkha, 170,215,219,225 Charlemagne, 77 Chatterji, Bankim Chandra, 9, 21 , 155 China, 88 , 137, 202, 220 Communist China, 252 and India, 252,... Page 267 Ma nu, 89 Marx, Karl , 200 materialism, 1,61 ,77-78, 80,85,92, 114 , 140 , 197 ,201 mathematic s, 168 matter , field o f Sri Aurobindo's Yoga , 189, 193, 194 Maurya, the dynasty, 178 Ma Yadava , 183 Mazzini, 57,93 medic a l science, 102-1 03 Me so potamia , 137 Minto , Earl , 47 (fn) see also Morley-Minto re forms Miller, P. (Pramatha Mitra), 13 moderation ...
... shall worship. Who knows? The fires of Smithfield may yet reblaze to save heretics from the perdition which an illustrious voice has declared to us to be the destined doom of all who do not acknowledge Maurya & Kutthumi. These are not mere fantastic speculations. The history of humanity & the peculiar capacities of that apparently incalculable & erratic thing, human nature, ought to warn us of their ...
... pursued by the British in India was nothing brand new imported from outside, but only a continuation, with minor adaptations, of the system consolidated by the Moguls who again had taken it up from the Mauryas; a system initiated perhaps by still earlier legislators and builders of Indian polity. Mussolini of twentieth century Italy is in no way related to Cato or Julius Caesar of ancient Rome, but Sri ...
... to the method of the European scholar or imitate too freely that swiftly leaping ingenious mind of his which gives you in a trice a Scythian or a Persian Buddha, identifies conclusively Murghab and Maurya, Mayasura and Ahura Mazda and generally constructs with magical rapidity the wrong animal out of the wrong bone. We have to combine the laboriousness of the Pundit, the slow and patient conscientiousness ...
... the Indian adventurer named by the Greek historians Sandrocottus, who was a contemporary of Alexander the Great and flourished as a king in the immediate post-Alexandrine epoch was not Chandragupta Maurya but Chandragupta I, founder of the Imperial Gupta dynasty. Then Chandragupta II Vikramaditya would mount the throne around 260 B.C. and Shankara, along with Kumarila Bhatta, might have lived not long ...
... a Māgadhan ernperor with his seat at Pātaliputra. We may add that the Classical accounts also do not speak of Xandrames being fought by Sandrocottus who is currently identified with Chandragupta Maurya, the overthrower of the last Nanda. Page 159 One point, however, calls out for settlement. We may be told: "If the Prasii in their specific role are inhabitants of Māgadha... Alexander's decision to cry a halt to his invasion, referred to the eastern boundary of the Gangaridai and typified them as "a nation which possesses the greatest number of 1. Chandragupta Maurya and His Times, p. 36. 2. Ibid., p. 39. 3. Ibid., p. 42. Page 162 elephants and the largest in size". Arrian (Anabasis, V.25), 1 without mentioning the Gangaridai ...
... whole subcontinent might become Buddhist. The future of Buddhism seemed especially bright under the Mauryan dynasty, which lasted from 322 to about 184 BC. The first king of this dynasty, Chandragupta Maurya (322- 298 BC), came closer to uniting India than had any earlier ruler; only the extreme south escaped his domination. The third Mauryan king, Asoka (ca. 273-ca. 232 BC), became a Buddhist, and with ...
... knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was... knowledge by uncertainty, disputed significance and the continuously increasing ingenuities of the ritualist, the grammarian and the sectarian polemical disputant. When after the fall of the Buddhistic Mauryas, feeble successors of the great Asoka, first under Pushyamitra and his son and afterwards under the Guptas, Hinduism revived, a return to the old forms of the creed and the old Vedic scholarship was ...
... monarch and replace him by another of his family or by a new dynasty and it was in this way that there came about several of the historic changes, as for example the dynastic revolution from the Mauryas to the Page 413 Sungas and again the initiation of the Kanwa line of emperors. As a matter of constitutional theory and ordinary practice all the action of the king was in reality that ...
... 334 Asiad Village New Delhi-110049 24.Bhatia, Ranjana Principal, Amity Institute of Education Amity Campus, M-44, Saket, New Delhi -110017 25.Bhatt, S.R. MP- 23, Maurya Enclave Pitampura, Delhi -110034 26.Bhattacharya, D.K. Director Department of Value Education NCERT Sri Aurobindo Marg New Delhi-110016 27.Chaddha, Sarita ...
... political unity also India has tried to realize and manifest in her life. This is the significance of the Mahabharata and the Ramayana; it is also the truth behind the unification attempt of Chandragupta Maurya, the later Gupta emperors like Harshavardhan and even some of the Mogul emperors. In addition to all this is the religious diversity that makes India the only place in the world where all the religious ...
... Mediterranean world. In India in 350 Be Buddhism was flourishing. At the time of Alexander's death, the Mauryan dynasty was established (322 BC) and the first King of that dynasty, Chandragupta Maurya (322- 298 BC), came closer to uniting India than had any earlier ruler. Only the extreme South escaped his domination. What happened after Alexander Alexander's sudden death meant that he ...
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