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…
Indian Civilization
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…