TOPIC

THE MAURYA EMPIRE

NAME:

ROSHNI VISHWAKARMA

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1222222405096
he 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 185 BCE.[21] The Maurya Empire was centralized by the
conquest of the Indo-Gangetic Plain, and its capital city was located at Pataliputra (modern Patna).
Outside this imperial center, the empire's geographical extent was dependent on the loyalty of
military commanders who controlled the armed cities sprinkling it.[3][22][23] During Ashoka's rule
(ca. 268–232 BCE) the empire briefly controlled the major urban hubs and arteries of the Indian
subcontinent excepting the deep south.[21] It declined for about 50 years after Ashoka's rule, and
dissolved in 185 BCE with the assassination of Brihadratha by Pushyamitra Shunga and foundation of
the Shunga Empire in Magadha.

Chandragupta Maurya raised an army, with the assistance of Chanakya, author of Arthashastra,[24]
and overthrew the Nanda Empire in c. 322 BCE. Chandragupta rapidly expanded his power
westwards across central and western India by conquering the satraps left by Alexander the Great,
and by 317 BCE the empire had fully occupied northwestern India.[25] The Mauryan Empire then
defeated Seleucus I, a diadochus and founder of the Seleucid Empire, during the Seleucid–Mauryan
war, thus acquiring territory west of the Indus River.[26][27]

Under the Mauryas, internal and external trade, agriculture, and economic activities thrived and
expanded across South Asia due to the creation of a single and efficient system of finance,
administration, and security. The Maurya dynasty built a precursor of the Grand Trunk Road from
Patliputra to Taxila.[28] After the Kalinga War, the Empire experienced nearly half a century of
centralized rule under Ashoka. Ashoka's embrace of Buddhism and sponsorship of Buddhist
missionaries allowed for the expansion of that faith into Sri Lanka, northwest India, and Central
Asia.[29]

The population of South Asia during the Mauryan period has been estimated to be between 15 and
30 million.[30] The empire's period of dominion was marked by exceptional creativity in art,
architecture, inscriptions and produced texts,[3] 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.[31] Archaeologically, the period of Mauryan rule in South Asia falls into the era of Northern
Black Polished Ware (NBPW). The Arthashastra[32] and the Edicts of Ashoka are the primary sources
of written records of Mauryan times. The Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath is the national emblem of
the
According to some scholars, Kharavela' Hathigumpha inscription (2nd-1st century BC) mentions era
of Maurya Empire as Muriya Kala (Mauryan era),[36] but this reading is disputed: other scholars—
such as epigraphist D. C. Sircar—read the phrase as mukhiya-kala ("the principal art").[37]

According to the Buddhist tradition, the ancestors of the Maurya kings had settled in a region where
peacocks (mora in Pali) were abundant. Therefore, they came to be known as "Moriyas", literally,
"belonging to the place of peacocks". According to another Buddhist account, these ancestors built a
city called Moriya-nagara ("Moriya-city"), which was so called, because it was built with the "bricks
coloured like peacocks' necks".[38]

The dynasty's connection to the peacocks, as mentioned in the Buddhist and Jain traditions, seems
to be corroborated by archaeological evidence. For example, peacock figures are found on the
Ashoka pillar at Nandangarh and several sculptures on the Great Stupa of Sanchi. Based on this
evidence, modern scholars theorize that the peacock may have been the dynasty's emblem.[39]

Some later authors, such as Dhundhi-raja (an 18th-century commentator on the Mudrarakshasa and
an annotator of the Vishnu Purana), state that the word "Maurya" is derived from Mura and the
mother of the first Maurya king. However, the Puranas themselves make no mention of Mura and do
not talk of any relation between the Nanda and the Maurya dynasties.[40] Dhundiraja's derivation of
the word seems to be his own invention: according to the Sanskrit rules, the derivative of the
feminine name Mura (IAST: Murā) would be "Maureya"; the term "Maurya" can only be derived
from the masculine "Mura".[41]