The Mauryas and Ashoka: India's first empire

The Mauryan Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya in about 321 BCE after he overthrew the Nandas, was the first to bring most of the Indian subcontinent under a single administration. Chandragupta's adviser is traditionally identified as Kautilya, also called Chanakya, to whom the Arthashastra, a manual of statecraft, is attributed, though the text as it survives was compiled over a long period. In about 305 BCE Chandragupta reached a settlement with Seleucus, one of Alexander's successors, and the Greek ambassador Megasthenes later described the Mauryan capital Pataliputra and its administration.

Chandragupta was succeeded by his son Bindusara, and then by Ashoka, who reigned from about 268 to 232 BCE. Ashoka's own inscriptions, carved on rocks and pillars across the empire, are the earliest deciphered royal inscriptions in India and the main source for his reign. Major Rock Edict XIII records his conquest of Kalinga, on the eastern coast, about 261 BCE, eight years after his consecration, giving the edict's own figures of 100,000 killed and 150,000 deported, figures that are the edict's claims rather than a modern casualty count. The same edict records his remorse and his turn to dhamma.

Ashoka's dhamma was not simply Buddhism as a sect. The edicts promote respect for parents and elders, generosity to holy men of all sects, restraint in speaking ill of other religions, kindness to servants and animals, and practical works such as wells, rest houses, and shade trees along roads. Special officers called dhamma-mahamatras were appointed to promote these principles. Ashoka also supported the Buddhist sangha, visited Buddhist sites, and sent missions abroad according to later tradition, including the mission of his son Mahinda to Sri Lanka, which Sri Lankan chronicles record.

After Ashoka the empire weakened, and the last Mauryan ruler, Brihadratha, was killed in about 185 BCE by his commander Pushyamitra Shunga, founder of the Shunga dynasty. The Mauryas left a lasting administrative pattern of provinces, officials, and a capital-centred state, and Ashoka's pillars, including the Lion Capital at Sarnath adopted as India's national emblem, remain among the most recognisable symbols of ancient India.