The Maurya Empire, ruling from 322 B.C. to 185 B.C., was geographically far-reaching, potent and a political military empire in ancient India. Building up from the kingdom of Magadha in the Indo-Gangetic plains (present day Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh and Bengal) in the eastern side of the Indian subcontinent, the empire had its capital city in Pataliputra (present day Patna, in Bihar). Mauryan dynasty was established in 322 BCE by Chandragupta Maurya, who had overridden the Nanda Empire and speedily magnified his power westwards, spanning central and western India.

Chandragupta, the founder king of the Mauryan Dynasty appeared on the political scenario with the solemn aim to make an alliance with the Macedonian power in order to overthrow the Nandas from the northern part of India. This mission was achieved by taking solid advantage of the disturbances of local powers following the withdrawal westward by Alexander the Great’s Greek and Persian forces. By 320 BCE the empire had fully overwhelmed North-western India, defeating and conquering the satraps left by Alexander. Chandragupta Maurya represents the quintessence of the Mauryan kings, who materialised the very idea of political unification of India. With the ubiquitous Chanakya always by Chandragupta’s side, background and history of Mauryan dynasty is one unusual chapter, absolute stuff for legends.

At its greatest extent, the Mauryan Empire extended to the north alongside the natural boundaries of the Himalayas and to the east, unfolding into what is present day Assam. To the west, it reached beyond modern Pakistan, appending Baluchistan and much of what is now Afghanistan, encompassing the modern Herat and Kandahar provinces. Mauryan dynasty was amplified into India’s central and southern realms by the emperors Chandragupta and Bindusara, but it debarred a small portion of uncharted tribal and forested regions near Kalinga. The Mauryan Empire was perhaps the largest empire ever to dominate the Indian subcontinent. Administration of Mauryan dynasty emoted a stupendous instance, in which the top order established solemn groundwork for their descendants. Although, its downfall began fifty years after Ashoka’s rule came to a close and was dissolved in 185 BCE, with the foundation of the Sunga Dynasty in Magadha.

Chandragupta Maurya conquered Magadha (south Bihar) and in 321 B.C. founded the Mauryan Dynasty with his capital at Pataliputra. He proceeded to annex various parts of northern India and campaigned against the Greek, Seleucus Nicator, the former general of Alexander. The successful outcome of this campaign brought him the trans-Indus region and areas of Afghanistan. His son, Bindusara, continued the campaign into peninsular India. But it was his grandson Ashoka who, inheriting the subcontinent, established an all-India empire and discovered both the advantages and problems inherent in such a political structure.

Under Chandragupta Maurya, the Mauryan dynasty had appropriated the trans-Indus region, which previously had served under Macedonian rule. Chandragupta then crushed the invasion led by Seleucus I, a Greek general from Alexander’s army. Under Chandragupta and his successors, both internal and external trade and agriculture as well as economic activities, flourished and expanded across India. The entire courtesy can be bestowed upon Chadragupta, who had formulated a single and efficient system of finance, administration and security. After the Kalinga War, the empire experienced half a century of prosperity and safety under Ashoka. India became an affluent and stable empire of great economic and military prowess, whose political authority and trade spread across Western and Central Asia and Europe. Mauryan India also relished an era of social concord, religious metamorphosis and expansion of science and of knowledge. Chandragupta Maurya’s espousing of Jainism increased social and religious restitution and regeneration across his society, while Ashoka’s espousing of Buddhism was the groundwork of the prevailing of social and political peace and non-violence throughout India. Ashoka patronised the spreading of Buddhist ideals in Sri Lanka, Southeast Asia, West Asia and Mediterranean Europe. Religion during Mauryan dynasty was never extremely stringent and severe in its attempt, with freedom and liberty entirely vested on the subjects’ shoulders.

Chandragupta’s minister Chanakya (also legendary as Kautilya) penned the Arthashastra, one of the greatest treatises on economics, politics, foreign affairs, administration, military arts, war and religion ever created in the East. Archaeologically, the period of Mauryan dynasty in South Asia falls into the era of Northern Black Polished Ware (NBPW). The Arthashastra and the edicts of Ashoka are principal references of written records of the Mauryan times. Mauryan Empire is considered one of the most substantial periods in Indian history. The Lion Capital of Ashoka at Sarnath presently serves as the emblem of Independent India.

Land revenue had been recognised as a major source of state income before the Mauryas. The proverbial wealth of the Nandas was doubtless due to their efficient collection of revenue from the fertile middle Ganga plain. That the legitimacy of taxation had been established by the time of the Mauryas and its potentiality in terms of income recognized, is evident from the references to land revenue and taxes in Kautalya’s Arthasastra and a significant reference in the inscriptions of Ashoka. According to the Arthasastra every activity, from agriculture to gambling and prostitution, might be subjected to taxation by the state. No waste land should be occupied nor a single tree cut down in the forest without permission from the state, since these were all ultimately sources of revenue. It was conceded that the main item of income was land revenue and this was dependent on correct assessment and proper collection. But other activities had also to be controlled and supervised by the state so that they would yield the maximum revenue.

During the Mauryan dynastic period, apart from trade and commerce, agricultural productivity also was accentuated to massive extent. As is recorded from the historical accounts of the contemporary era, the Mauryans were benevolent kings and during their epoch farmers were liberated of tax and crop collection burdens from regional kings. The fair system of taxation as advised by the principles of Arthashastra led the Mauryans to earn total respect from the subjects. Chandragupta Maurya had established a single currency across India and eliminated the gangs of pedlars, regional private armies and the powerful chieftains who tried to impose their own domination in the small areas. Mauryan dynasty also had patronised internal trade within India, which boomed profoundly due to political unity and internal reign of peace. Under the Indo-Greek political treaty, during Ashoka’s reign, international trade network attained a thriving prosperity.

The army and its role in the politics and economy of the Mauryan period are the major factors of the then society. A large army was not only essential to vast conquests, it was equally important as a means of holding the empire together. Mauryan rulers were aware of this. The estimated strength of Chandragupta’s army, according to near-contemporary, classical sources, was 9,000 elephants, 30,000 cavalry, and 6,00,000 infantry. Even allowing for a margin of exaggeration in these figures the Mauryan army was a large one by any standards. To maintain such an army would require a large state income, and this in turn would depend on taxation and the size of the kingdom. Thus it was the interdependence of taxation, administration, and armed strength which went into the making of a centralized empire.

Paternalism demands a continued contact between king and subjects. The Mauryan kings, we are told, were always available for consultation. Megasthenes, who visited India as the ambassador of Seleucus Nicator and stayed at the Mauryan court during the reign of Chandragupta, describes the king receiving complaints and discussing matters of state even when being massaged. Ashoka emphatically declares in one of his edicts that, no matter where he may be, no member of the ministerial council should be debarred from seeing him.

But the availability of the king was not sufficient. In a system as centralized as that of the Mauryas it was essential that communication be maintained with all parts of the subcontinent and with every level of society. This was done in part by building a network of roads linking the entire empire with Pataliputra. Ashoka’s justified pride in the excellence of the roads which he had constructed is corroborated by Pliny the Elder’s enthusiasm in describing the Royal Highway which ran from Taxila to Pataliputra, a distance of over a thousand miles.

Although agriculture provided the most substantial part of the state income it was not the sole source of revenue. An indirect source of income for the Mauryan state was the use of the sudras, the lowest of the four orders of Hindu society, as free labour when so required. The settlement of new areas, the opening of waste land to agriculture, the working of the state-owned mines such as the salt mines of the Punjab and the iron ore deposits in Magadha, were some of the activities for which sudras, in addition to prisoners of war and criminals, provided labour power.

Among the more significant changes which had taken place by the middle of the first millennium B.C. was the development of towns and urban culture. The coming of Aryan culture based on pastoralism and agrarian village communities. It resulted in the entire process of development from village cultures to urban cultures being re-experienced in northern India. Towns evolved from trade centres and craft villages, and consequently the dominant institution of urban life was the guild. By the end of the fourth century B.C. artisan and merchant guilds were an established part of the urban pattern.

During the Mauryan period, the improved economic status of the guilds introduced complications in the existing social pattern. Guild leaders became powerful citizens controlling large economic assets. But, in the caste-based society of this period, the trader or the artisan was not included among the most socially privileged citizens. The challenge which the mercantile community presented to the more established sections of society was yet to come, but the germinal tensions came into being at this stage. During the Mauryan era, religions namely Buddhism and Jainism, had won the sympathy of the artisans and the merchants. These are said to be the heterodox sects which challenged the established order. These new religions sprang from a considerable intellectual ferment which had begun earlier in the period, around 600 B.C. A healthy rivalry was apparent among a number of sects, such as the Charvakas, Jainas, and Ajivikas, whose doctrines ranged from pure materialism to determinism. This intellectual liveliness was reflected in the eclectic interests of the Mauryan rulers.

This then was the empire which Ashoka inherited. For many centuries Ashoka remained almost unknown to the Indian historical tradition. The proclamations issued by Ashoka were engraved on rocks and pillars throughout the subcontinent and these remained visible. It would appear that Ashoka aimed at creating an attitude of mind among his subjects in which social behaviour had the highest relevance. Fifty years after the death of Ashoka the Mauryan Empire had declined. Some historians have traced this decline to the policies of Ashoka, claiming that his pro-Buddhist sympathies led to a brahmanical revolt against the Mauryan rulers. As per the other scholars, his adherence to non-violence led to a weakening of the military strength of the empire and laid it open to attacks, particularly from the north-west. But evidence in support of these theories is far too slight. Other possibilities must also be considered, not least among them being that the later Mauryan kings may well have been weak and ineffectual rulers, unable to hold together such a vast empire. Furthermore the pressure of a highly paid bureaucracy and a large army could not have been sustained over a period of almost 150 years without a strain on an agricultural economy.

Apart from these, the art and culture of Mauryan Empire deserve mentioning though architectural heritage of the Mauryan dynasty were not momentous enough and did not attain prosperity to the extent trade and commerce had flourished. The architectural idiom of the Mauryas is the hypostyle kind of building, which has been excavated in the Kumrahar region of Patna. As historians have opined, Mauryan architecture is the replica of the Persian Achaemenid architecture. Since Buddhism and Jainism prospered during the Mauryan period, contemporary architecture had an aura of these religious sects. Apart from these, most widespread example of the Mauryan architecture is the rock edicts of Ashoka, traversing almost all the country.

The magnificence and prosperity which the Mauryan Empire had earned during the reign of Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusara and Ashoka, was destined to weaken during the later Mauryas. In 185 B.C. the Mauryan Empire ceased to exist. The immediate inheritors of the Mauryas in the Ganga heart-land, Magadha, were the Sungas, a Brahman family which had usurped the throne at Pataliputra. The Sungas were to give way to the Kanvas, to be followed by a series of minor dynasties until the rise of the Guptas in the fourth century A.D. During these centuries Magadha tended to remain somewhat isolated, and few attempts were made by its rulers to participate in events elsewhere.

After the death of Ashoka, an impenetrable darkness shrouded the history of Mauryan Empire. The Mauryan kingdom was disintegrated disastrously after the death of Ashoka and the later Mauryas were not effective enough to re-integrate the whole empire. Perhaps this is the sole cause behind the downfall of the Empire. The successors of Ashoka were more concerned to preach Buddhism and Jainism, rather than in the successful maintenance of the Empire. Hence after Ashoka, Mauryan dynasty lost its former glory, but continued reigning for 50 years after Ashoka’s death. After the death of Demetrius, his sons continued to conflict within the Mauryan empire. Then finally the Greek army captured Patna under King Menander, uniting the Indo-Greek realm. The last Maurya King Brahadratha was killed by the chief of the Shunga coup, Pushyamitra Shunga, who instituted the Shunga dynasty in 185 B.C.