During the 19th Century, western states directly invented Asian and African nations. China, Japan, and the African States responded quite differently to the changing world conditions that confronted them, the nineteenth Century witnessed the decadence of the Manchu dynasty and the incompetence of the administration. Western powers exerted pressure. The objectives of the westerners at the…

Administration and Empire The Empire was split into four provinces, with Pataliputra as the imperial capital. According to Ashokan edicts, the four provincial capitals are Tosali (in the east), Ujjain (in the west), Suvarnagiri (in the south), and Taxila (in the north). The head of the provincial government was the Kumara (royal prince), who controlled…

Mauryan Society According to Megasthenes, there were seven social classes in Mauryan society: philosophers, farmers, warriors, herdsmen, artisans, magistrates, and councilors. Since no one can change professions or marry outside his division, these have been interpreted as castes. Only the philosopher is granted this privilege. Though, his perception of Indian society is not correct. These…

Chalcolithic Cultures of India In the Indian context, the chalcolithic period includes broadly three copper-using cultures — 1) The Harappan Culture, located chiefly along the river Indus and its tributaries; 2) The Chalcolithic Cultures situated outside the Harappan zone, covering a vast area extending from the western to the eastern part…

Ashoka, popularly known as Ashoka the Great, served as the third emperor of the Mauryan Empire. He reigned from 268 to 232 BCE. Alike with his ancestors, His Empire, which had Pataliputra as its capital, stretched across a sizable portion of the Indian Subcontinent, from what is now Afghanistan in the west to what is…

In South India, the emergence of Mysore as a significant power in the mid-eighteenth century was most spectacular. Originally a vice-royalty under the Vijayanagara Empire in the sixteenth century, Mysore was gradually transformed into an autonomous principality by the Wodeyar dynasty. Its centralized military power began to increase in the late seventeenth century under Chikkadevaraja…

Bindusara, the second Mauryan Emperor, a descendant of Chandragupta and Durdhara, rose to power around 297 BCE. Bindusara, who was just 22 years old, inherited a sizable kingdom that included portions of what are now Northern, Central, and Eastern India, as well as Baluchistan and Afghanistan. Bindusara expanded this kingdom to include all southern India,…

The Mauryas The Mauryan Empire, founded by Chandragupta Maurya, began in 321 BCE and ended in 185 BCE. It was the first pan-Indian empire that ruled across most of the Indian subcontinent. Certain parts of modern-day Iran, Afghanistan, central and northern India were in Mauryan Empire. Patliputra (Modern day Patna) was the…

THE MAURYAN ECONOMY The pre-Mauryan period it transformed the pastoral economy into an agriculture-based village economy. This stimulated exchange, followed by the development of exchange routes, taxation, currency, and administration. The Mauryan Empire was primarily funded by the tax collected from agriculture, i.e., land revenue. The administration's primary objective was the efficient collection of revenue…