Chandragupta Maurya

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Chandragupta Maurya
A modern statue depicting Chandragupta Maurya, Laxminarayan Temple, Delhi
A modern statue depicting Chandragupta Maurya, Laxminarayan Temple, Delhi
1st Mauryan Emperor
Reignc. 322 – c. 297 BCE[1][2]
Coronationc. 322 BCE
PredecessorPosition established
SuccessorBindusara[3]
Bornc. 340 BCE
Pataliputra, Magadha, Nanda Empire
(present-day Bihar, India)
Diedc. 295 BCE
Kalbappu (Chandragiri), Maurya Empire
(present-day Karnataka, India) (According to Jain tradition)
SpouseDurdhara
A Seleucid princess (name unknown)
IssueBindusara
DynastyMaurya
Maurya Empire
(322–180 BCE)
Ashoka pillar at Vaishali, Bihar Lomas Rishi, Barabar Caves
Chandragupta 322–297 BCE
Bindusara 297–273 BCE
Ashoka the Great 273/268–232 BCE
Dasharatha 232–224 BCE
Samprati 224–215 BCE
Shalishuka 215–202 BCE
Devavarman 202–195 BCE
Shatadhanvan 195–187 BCE
Brihadratha 187–180 BCE
Inscription
Mauryan Empire under Chandragupta Maurya

Chandragupta Maurya[a] (350–295 BCE) was the founder of the Maurya Empire, which ruled over a geographically-extensive empire based in Magadha.[4] He reigned from 320 BCE to 298 BCE.[5] The Magadha kingdom expanded to become an empire that reached its peak under the reign of his grandson, Ashoka the Great, from 268 BCE to 231 BCE.[6] The nature of the political formation that existed in Chandragupta's time is not certain.[7] The Mauryan empire was a loose-knit one with large autonomous regions within its limits.[8]

Prior to his consolidation of power, Alexander the Great had invaded the Northwest Indian subcontinent before abandoning his campaign in 324 BCE due to a mutiny caused by the prospect of facing another large empire, presumably the Nanda Empire. Chandragupta defeated and conquered both the Nanda Empire centered in Pataliputra, Magadha and the Greek satraps that were appointed or formed from Alexander's Empire in South Asia. Afterwards, Chandragupta expanded and secured his western border, where he was confronted by Seleucus I Nicator in the Seleucid–Mauryan war. After two years of war, Chandragupta was considered to have gained the upper hand in the conflict and annexed satrapies up to the Hindu Kush. Instead of prolonging the war, both parties settled on a marriage treaty.

Chandragupta's empire extended throughout most of South Asia, spanning from modern day Bengal to Afghanistan across North India as well as making inroads into Central and South India. In contrast to the Jain legends which developed 900 years later,[9] contemporary Greek evidence states that Chandragupta did not give up performing the rites of sacrificing animals associated with Vedic Brahminism; he delighted in hunting and otherwise leading a life remote from the Jain practice of ahimsa or nonviolence towards living beings.[10][11] Chandragupta's reign, and the Maurya Empire, set an era of economic prosperity, reforms, infrastructure expansions, and tolerance. Many religions thrived within his realms and his descendants' empire. Buddhism, Jainism and Ājīvika gained prominence alongside Vedic and Brahmanistic traditions, and minority religions such as Zoroastrianism and the Greek pantheon were respected. A memorial for Chandragupta Maurya exists on the Chandragiri hill along with a seventh-century hagiographic inscription. Today, Chandragupta is seen as a national hero in India for having first emperor to unify most of India under one government.

  1. ^ Cite error: The named reference britchandrag was invoked but never defined (see the help page).
  2. ^ Upinder Singh 2016, p. 330.
  3. ^ Upinder Singh 2016, p. 331.
  4. ^ Chakrabarty, Dilip K. (2010), The Geopolitical Orbits of Ancient India: The Geographical Frames of the Ancient Indian Dynasties, New Delhi, Oxford and New York: Oxford University Press, p. 29, ISBN 978-0-19-908832-4, We are assuming that the basic historical-geographical configuration of the Magadhan power was achieved before the beginning of the Maurya dynasty, whose founder Chandragupta Maurya simply added to it the stretch from the Indus valley to the southern foot of the Hindukush, giving the Mauryan India a strong foothold in the Oxus to the Indus interaction zone of Indian history. The evidence is in some cases, as in the cases of Gujarat, Bengal, and Assam, shadowy, but if Chandragupta had undertaken expeditions in these directions, there would have been echoes of these expeditions in the literary traditions.
  5. ^ Fisher, Michael (2018), An Environmental History of India, From the Earliest Times to the Twenty-First-Century, New Approaches in Asian History Series, Cambridge and New York: Cambridge University Press, p. 71, ISBN 9781107111622, Chandragupta (r. 320 – c. 298 BCE) led a rebellion that seized power in Magadha and founded the Maurya Dynasty. He located his capital Pataliputra (today's Patna) at an especially strategic trading and defensive location, on the south bank of the Ganges where the Son River joined it. The actual origins of the Maurya family remain uncertain, but consensus holds that Chandragupta was low-born. One popular account asserts he was the previous king's son by a low-ranked queen or concubine and overthrew his royal half-brothers. Maurya means "peacock," and some Jain texts identify his family as low peacock herders, ranked by Brahmans as Shudra at best.
  6. ^ Bose, Sugata; Jalal, Ayesha, Modern South Asia: History, Culture, Political Economy, London and New York: Routledge, p. 39, The political history of the centuries following the rise of Buddhism and Jainism saw the emergence and consolidation of powerful regional states in northern India. Among the strongest of these was the kingdom of Magadha, with its capital at Pataliputra (near the modern city of Patna). The Magadhan kingdom expanded under the Maurya dynasty in the fourth and fifth centuries BCE to become an empire embracing almost the whole of the subcontinent. Chandragupta Maurya founded the dynasty in 322 BCE, just a few years after Alexander the Great's brief foray into northwestern India. The Maurya empire reached its apogee under the reign of Ashoka (268–231 BCE)
  7. ^ Stein, Burton; Arnold, David (2010), A History of India (2 ed.), Wiley-Blackwell, p. 16, ISBN 978-1-4051-9509-6, Around 270 bce, the first Indian documentary records, issued by the Buddhist king Ashoka, were added to the Greek source. Though Ashoka's inscriptions were deciphered in the nineteenth century, we still cannot be sure about the political formation that existed under this Mauryan king, much less under the kingdom's founder, Ashoka's grandfather Chandragupta, who was possibly a contemporary of Alexander. Evidence in the form of a Sanskrit treatise called the Arthashastra – depicting a centralized, tyrannical, spy-ridden and compul sively controlling regime – probably does not pertain to Mauryan times. If its political world was not pure theory, it could only have been achieved within a small city-state, not a realm as vast as that defined by the distribution of Ashoka's inscriptions, over some 1500 miles from Afghanistan to southern India.
  8. ^ Ludden, David (2013), India and South Asia: A Short History, Oneworld Publications, pp. 29–30, ISBN 978-1-78074-108-6 Quote: "The geography of the Mauryan Empire resembled a spider with a small dense body and long spindly legs. The highest echelons of imperial society lived in the inner circle composed of the ruler, his immediate family, other relatives, and close allies, who formed a dynastic core. Outside the core, empire travelled stringy routes dotted with armed cities. Outside the palace, in the capital cities, the highest ranks in the imperial elite were held by military commanders whose active loyalty and success in war determined imperial fortunes. Wherever these men failed or rebelled, dynastic power crumbled. ... Imperial society flourished where elites mingled; they were its backbone, its strength was theirs. Kautilya’s Arthasastra indicates that imperial power was concentrated in its original heartland, in old Magadha, where key institutions seem to have survived for about seven hundred years, down to the age of the Guptas. Here, Mauryan officials ruled local society, but not elsewhere. In provincial towns and cities, officials formed a top layer of royalty; under them, old conquered royal families were not removed, but rather subordinated. In most janapadas, the Mauryan Empire consisted of strategic urban sites connected loosely to vast hinterlands through lineages and local elites who were there when the Mauryas arrived and were still in control when they left."
  9. ^ Jansari 2023, pp. 20–22.
  10. ^ Majumdar, Raychauduhuri & Datta 1960.
  11. ^ The authors and their affiliations listed in the title page of the reference (which has the Wikipedia page An Advanced History of India) are: R. C. Majumdar, M.A., Ph.D. Vice-Chancellor, Dacca University; H. C. Raychaudhuri, M.A., Ph.D., Carmichael Professor of Ancient Indian History and Culture, Calcutta University; and Kalikinkar Datta, M.A., Ph.D. Premchand Raychand Scholar, Mount Medallist, Griffith Prizeman, Professor and Head of the Department of History, Patna College, Patna


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