Back Maurya ALS मौर्य वंश ANP الإمبراطورية الماورية Arabic মৌৰ্য সাম্ৰাজ্য Assamese Imperiu Maurya AST मौर्य साम्राज्य AWA Mauriya imperiyası Azerbaijani موریا ایمپیراتورلوغو AZB Маурьялар империяһы Bashkir Імперыя Маур’яў Byelorussian
Maurya Empire | |
|---|---|
| ca.320 BCE – 185 BCE | |
![Maurya Empire, conceptualised as a network of core regions connected by networks of communication and trade, with large areas with peripheral or no Maurya control.[a]](view_image.php?q=Maurya_Empire&sq=&lang=&file=File:Maurya_Empire,_c.250_BCE_network_model_v01.png) Maurya Empire, conceptualised as a network of core regions connected by networks of communication and trade, with large areas with peripheral or no Maurya control.[a] | |
![Traditional depiction of the Maurya Empire under Ashoka as a solid mass of Maurya-controlled territory.[b][c]](view_image.php?q=Maurya_Empire&sq=&lang=&file=File:Maurya_Empire,_c.250_BCE_2.png) | |
| Status | Empire |
| Capital | Pataliputra (near present-day Patna) |
| Common languages | Sanskrit (literary and academic), Magadhi Prakrit (vernacular) |
| Religion | |
| Demonym(s) | Indian |
| Government | Absolute monarchy[8] |
| Emperor | |
• ca.320–298 BCE | Chandragupta |
• 298–272 BCE | Bindusara |
• 268–232 BCE | Ashoka |
• 232–224 BCE | Dasharatha |
• 224–215 BCE | Samprati |
• 215–202 BCE | Shalishuka |
• 202–195 BCE | Devavarman |
• 195–187 BCE | Shatadhanvan |
• 187–185 BCE | Brihadratha |
| Historical era | Iron Age |
| ca.320 BCE | |
• Assassination of Brihadratha by Pushyamitra Shunga | 185 BCE |
| Area | |
| 261 BCE[9] (low-end estimate of peak area) | 3,400,000 km2 (1,300,000 sq mi) |
| 250 BCE[10] (high-end estimate of peak area) | 5,000,000 km2 (1,900,000 sq mi) |
| Population | |
• 3rd century BC | 15,000,000–30,000,000[11] |
| Currency | Karshapana |
| Today part of | India Pakistan Bangladesh Nepal Afghanistan |
| History of India |
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| Timeline |
The Maurya Empire was a geographically extensive Iron Age historical power in South Asia with its power base in Magadha. Founded by Chandragupta Maurya around c. 320 BCE,[h] it existed in loose-knit fashion until 185 BCE.[i] The primary sources for the written records of the Mauryan times are partial records of the lost history of Megasthenes in Roman texts of several centuries later;[12] the Edicts of Ashoka, which were first read in the modern era by James Prinsep after he had deciphered the Brahmi and Kharoshthi scripts in 1838;[13] and the Arthashastra, a work first discovered in the early 20th century,[14] and previously attributed to Chanakya, but now thought to be composed by multiple authors in the first centuries of the common era.[j] Archaeologically, the period of Mauryan rule in South Asia falls into the era of Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW).
Through military conquests and diplomatic treaties, Chandragupta Maurya defeated the Nanda dynasty and extended his suzerainty as far westward as Afghanistan below the Hindu Kush and as far south as the northern Deccan;[k] however, beyond the core Magadha area, the prevailing levels of technology and infrastructure limited how deeply his rule could penetrate society.[l] During the rule of Chandragupta's grandson, Ashoka (ca. 268–232 BCE), the empire briefly controlled the major urban hubs and arteries of the subcontinent excepting the deep south.[i] The Mauryan capital (what is today Patna) was located in Magadha; the other core regions were Taxila in the northwest; Ujjain in the Malwa Plateau; Kalinga on the Bay of Bengal coast; and the precious metal-rich lower Deccan plateau.[m] Outside the core regions, the empire's geographical extent was dependent on the loyalty of military commanders who controlled the armed cities scattered within it.[15][16][a]
The Mauryan economy was helped by the earlier rise of Buddhism and Jainism—creeds that promoted nonviolence, proscribed ostentation, or superfluous sacrifices and rituals, and reduced the costs of economic transactions; by coinage that increased economic accommodation in the region; and by the use of writing, which might have boosted more intricate business dealings. Despite profitable settled agriculture in the fertile eastern Gangetic plain, these factors helped maritime and river-borne trade, which were essential for acquiring goods for consumption as well as metals of high economic value.[n] To promote movement and trade, the Maurya dynasty built roads, most prominently a chiefly winter-time road—the Uttarapath—which connected eastern Afghanistan to their capital Pataliputra during the time of year when the water levels in the intersecting rivers were low and they could be easily forded.[o] Other roads connected the Ganges basin to Arabian Sea coast in the west, and precious metal-rich mines in the south.[17]
The population of South Asia during the Mauryan period has been estimated to be between 15 and 30 million.[11] The empire's period of dominion was marked by exceptional creativity in art, architecture, inscriptions and produced texts,[18] but also by the consolidation of caste in the Gangetic plain, and the declining rights of women in the mainstream Indo-Aryan speaking regions of India.[19] After the Kalinga War in which Ashoka's troops visited much violence on the region, he embraced Buddhism and promoted its tenets in edicts scattered around South Asia, most commonly in clusters along the well-traveled road networks.[20][a] He sponsored Buddhist missionaries to Sri Lanka, northwest India, and Central Asia,[21] which played a salient role in Buddhism becoming a world religion, and himself a figure of world history.[22] As Ashoka's edicts forbade both the killing of wild animals and the destruction of forests, he is seen by some modern environmental historians as an early embodiment of that ethos.[23][24] In July 1947, Jawaharlal Nehru, the interim prime minister of India, proposed in the Constituent Assembly of India that Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath be the State Emblem of India, and the 24-pointed Buddhist Wheel of Dharma on the capital's drum-shaped abacus the central feature of India's national flag. The proposal was accepted in December 1947.[25]
Cite error: There are <ref group=lower-alpha> tags or {{efn}} templates on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=lower-alpha}} template or {{notelist}} template (see the help page).
- ^ Nath Sen 1999, p. 164, (215) 217.
- ^ Smith 1981, p. 99.
- ^ Dalrymple 2009.
- ^ Keay 1981, p. 85-86.
- ^ a b Bronkhorst 2020, p. 68.
- ^ a b Long 2020, p. 255.
- ^ Boyce & Grenet 1991, p. 149.
- ^ Avari 2007, p. 188-189.
- ^ Taagepera 1979, p. 132.
- ^ Turchin, Peter; Adams, Jonathan M.; Hall, Thomas D (December 2006). "East-West Orientation of Historical Empires". Journal of World-Systems Research. 12 (2): 223. ISSN 1076-156X. Archived from the original on 20 May 2019. Retrieved 16 September 2016.
- ^ a b Dyson 2018, p. 24 Quote: "Yet Sumit Guha considers that 20 million is an upper limit. This is because the demographic growth experienced in core areas is likely to have been less than that experienced in areas that were more lightly settled in the early historic period. The position taken here is that the population in Mauryan times (320–220 BCE) was between 15 and 30 million—although it may have been a little more, or it may have been a little less."
- ^ Cite error: The named reference
coningham-young-p451-megastheneswas invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Cite error: The named reference
michon-2015was invoked but never defined (see the help page). - ^ Stein & Arnold (2010, p. 73): "... another source that enjoyed high standing as a description of the early Mauryan state was the Arthashastra, a treatise on power discovered in the early twentieth century."
- ^ Kulke & Rothermund 2004, pp. xii, 448.
- ^ Thapar 1990, p. 384.
- ^ Stein & Arnold (2010, p. 73): "Knitting these regions together were important trade routes. The northern road (uttarapatha) extended from Bengal to Taxila; another branched from the Ganges near the juncture with the Yamuna, joined the Narmada basin and continued to the Arabian seaport of Bharukaccha (Broach). Yet another branched southward (dakshinapatha) from Ujjain to the regional capital of Suvarnagiri, a centre for the production of gold and iron"
- ^ Ludden (2013, pp. 28–29): "A creative explosion in all the arts was a most remarkable feature of this ancient transformation, a permanent cultural legacy. Mauryan territory was created in its day by awesome armies and dreadful war, but future generations would cherish its beautiful pillars, inscriptions, coins, sculptures, buildings, ceremonies, and texts, particularly later Buddhist writers."
- ^ Dyson 2018, p. 19 Quote: "Accordingly, as tribal societies were encountered by the expanding Indo-Aryan societies, so the evolving caste system provided a framework within which—invariably at a low level—tribal people could be placed. For example, by the time of the Mauryan Empire (c.320–230 bce) the caste system was quite well established and the Aranyachará (i.e. forest people) were grouped with the most despised castes. ... The evolution of Indo-Aryan society in the centuries before c.200 bce not only saw increased segregation with respect to caste, it also seems to have seen increased differentiation with respect to gender. ... Therefore, by the time of the Mauryan Empire the position of women in mainstream Indo-Aryan society seems to have deteriorated. Customs such as child marriage and dowry were becoming entrenched; and a young woman's purpose in life was to provide sons for the male lineage into which she married. To quote the Arthashāstra: 'wives are there for having sons'. Practices such as female infanticide and the neglect of young girls were possibly also developing at this time, especially among higher caste people. Further, due to the increasingly hierarchical nature of the society, marriage was possibly becoming an even more crucial institution for childbearing and the formalization of relationships between groups. In turn, this may have contributed to the growth of increasingly instrumental attitudes towards women and girls (who moved home at marriage). It is important to note that, in all likelihood, these developments did not affect people living in large parts of the subcontinent—such as those in the south, and tribal communities inhabiting the forested hill and plateau areas of central and eastern India. That said, these deleterious features have continued to blight Indo-Aryan speaking areas of the subcontinent until the present day."
- ^ Stein & Arnold (2010, p. 73): "In the newer view, Ashoka’s edicts trace out this spacious commercial domain as a gigantic zone of Ashoka’s moral authority. Ashoka had his Buddhist-inspired moralizing edicts inscribed on distinctive pillars or upon prominent rocks where people passed or congregated. They traced a set of trade routes along which commodities passed to and from the Mauryan heartland in the eastern Gangetic plain. ... Along these same roads went Ashoka. Having become a lay Buddhist, he embarked on a year-long pilgrimage to all the sacred sites of his new faith;
- ^ Kulke & Rothermund 2004, p. 67.
- ^ The Imperial Gazetteer of India: The Indian Empire, Volume 2, Historical. Oxford at the Clarendon Press. 1908. p. 286. "By his efforts Buddhism, which had hitherto been merely local sects in the valley of the Ganges, was transformed into one of the great religions of the world. ... This is Asoka's claim to be remembered; this is which makes his reign an epoch, not only in the history of India, but in that of the world."
- ^ Elverskog, Johan (2020). The Buddha's Footprint: An Environmental History of Asia. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press. p. 56. ISBN 978-0-8122-5183-8.
The imperial edicts of Asoka echo this commodity view of trees. In Pillar Edict V, Asoka decreed that "forests must not be burned without reason." The Buddhist community took this mandate further by declaring that in order to protect forests from such conflagrations monks were allowed to set counterfires
- ^ Fisher (2018, p. 72): "Following the Buddha’s message, he banned Brahminic Vedic animal sacrifices in his capital (although he evidently lacked the administrative control to stop them outside of it). Overall, Ashoka’s edicts proclaim his compassion for animals, perhaps motivated by an environmental ethic (in addition to his revenue or administrative goals). Consequently, today many environmentalists evoke Ashoka as an ancient Indian exemplar."
- ^ Vajpeyi, Ananya (2012). Righteous Republic: The Political Foundations of Modern India. Cambridge MA and London: Harvard University Press. pp. 188–189. ISBN 978-0-674-04895-9.