Patna > Pataliputra Bihar India

Contacts established with the Hellenistic world during the reign of Ashoka's predecessors serve him well.

He sends diplomatic-cum-religious missions to the rulers of Syria, Macedon, and Epirus, who learn about India's religious traditions, especially Buddhism.

India's northwest retains many Persian cultural elements, which might explain Ashoka's rock inscriptions—such inscriptions are commonly associated with Persian rulers.

Ashoka's Greek and Aramaic inscriptions found in Kandahar in Afghanistan may also reveal his desire to maintain ties with people outside of India.

Indian accounts to a large extent ignore Alexander the Great's Indus campaign in 326 BCE, but Greek writers record their impressions of the general conditions prevailing in South Asia during this period.

Thus, the year 326 BCE provides the first clear and historically verifiable date in Indian history.

A two-way cultural fusion between several Indo-Greek elements—especially in art, architecture, and coinage—occurs in the next several hundred years.

North India's political landscape is transformed by the emergence of Magadha in the eastern Indo-Gangetic Plain.

Under the rule of Chandragupta Maurya, Magadha begins in 322 BCE to assert its hegemony over neighboring areas.

Chandragupta, who rules from 324 to 301 BCE, is the architect of the first Indian imperial power—the Mauryan Empire (326-184 BCE)—whose capital is Pataliputra, near modern-day Patna, in Bihar.

Magadha, situated on rich alluvial soil and near mineral deposits, especially iron, is at the center of bustling commerce and trade.

The capital is a city of magnificent palaces, temples, a university, a library, gardens, and parks, as reported by Megasthenes, the third-century BCE Greek historian and ambassador to the Mauryan court.

Legend states that Chandragupta's success was due in large measure to his adviser Kautilya (Chanakya), the Brahman author of the Arthashastra (Science of Material Gain), a textbook that outlines governmental administration and political strategy.

There is a highly centralized and hierarchical government with a large staff, which regulates tax collection, trade and commerce, industrial arts, mining, vital statistics, welfare of foreigners, maintenance of public places including markets and temples, and prostitutes.

A large standing army and a well-developed espionage system are maintained.

The empire is divided into provinces, districts, and villages governed by a host of centrally appointed local officials, who replicate the functions of the central administration.

Ashoka, grandson of Chandragupta, rules from 269 to 232 BCE and is one of India's most illustrious rulers.

Ashoka's inscriptions chiseled on rocks and stone pillars located at strategic locations throughout his empire—such as Lampaka (Laghman in modern Afghanistan), Mahastan (in modern Bangladesh), and Brahmagiri (in Karnataka)—constitute the second set of datable historical records.

According to some of the inscriptions, in the aftermath of the carnage resulting from his campaign against the powerful kingdom of Kalinga (modern Orissa), Ashoka renounced bloodshed and pursued a policy of nonviolence or ahimsa, espousing a theory of rule by righteousness.

His toleration for different religious beliefs and languages reflects the realities of India's regional pluralism although he personally seems to have followed Buddhism.

Early Buddhist stories assert that he convened a Buddhist council at his capital, regularly undertook tours within his realm, and sent Buddhist missionary ambassadors to Sri Lanka.

The Maurya Empire is founded in 321 BCE by Chandragupta Maurya, who has overthrown the Nanda Dynasty and rapidly expanded his power westwards across central and western India, taking advantage of the disruptions of local powers in the wake of the withdrawal westward by the Greek armies of Alexander the Great.

Originating from the kingdom of Magadha in the Indo-Gangetic plains (modern Bihar, eastern Uttar Pradesh) in the eastern side of the Indian subcontinent, the Empire has its capital city at Pataliputra (modern Patna).

Chandragupta had gained control over the Punjab in the vacuum left by Alexander’s death in 323.

He devises a strategy for establishing a widespread empire, reasoning that "the food at the center of the dish is hottest," He begins harassing the outlying areas of large neighboring kingdoms, gradually moving toward and capturing their centers.

Around 321, Chandragupta takes his army to his native kingdom of Magadha (in present Bihar), slays the Nanda king, and occupies the capital, Pataliputra (present Patna).

Seleucus embarks in 305 BCE on an expansion of his kingdom throughout the Iranian east (the upper satrapies) as far as India, intent on recovering Alexander’s Indian province.

but his advance is eventually halted by Chandragupta (Greek Sandrokottos), the founder of the Maurya dynasty of India.

In a pact concluded by the two potentates, Seleucus agrees to territorial concessions in exchange for five hundred elephants.

By this time, Chandragupta controls the Indus and Ganges plains as well as far northwestern portions of the Indian subcontinent.

The Arthasastra, which describes the authoritarian regime established by Chandragupta, offers advice to a ruler as to how to keep the throne.

A treatise on statecraft, economic policy and military strategy, it identifies its author by the names 'Kautilya' and 'Viṣhṇugupta', both names that are traditionally identified with the Brahmin Chāṇakya (about 350–283 BCE), who was a scholar at Takshashila and the teacher and guardian Chandragupta.

The Arthasastra will become the pattern for succeeding Indian kingdoms.

Thomas R. Trautmann and I.W. Mabbett have hypothesized that the 'Arthaśāstra' is a composition from no earlier than the second century CE, but is clearly based on earlier material.

Their explanation is that while the doctrines of the 'Arthashstra' may have been written by Chānakya in the fourth century BCE, the treatise we know today may have been edited or condensed by another author in the second century CE.

This would explain, some affinities with smrtis (Sanskrit: literally "that which is remembered," referring to a specific body of Hindu religious scripture; it is a codified component of Hindu customary law) and references in the Arthashastra that would be anachronistic for the fourth century BCE.

Bindusara's death in 273 BCE leads to a war over succession to the Maurya throne.

According to Divyavandana, Bindusara wanted his son Sushim to succeed him but Ashoka, viceroy of Taxila and Ujjain, despite having several elder half-brothers from other wives of Bindusāra, is supported by his father's ministers.

A minister named Radhagupta seems to have played an important role.

Ashoka manages to become the king by getting rid of the legitimate heir to the throne through tricking him into entering a pit filled with live coals.

The Dipavansa and Mahavansa refer to Ashoka killing ninety-nine of his brothers, sparing only one, named Tissa, although there is no clear proof about this incident.

The coronation occurs in 269 BCE, four years after his succession to the throne.

Said to have had a wicked nature and bad temper, Ashoka submits his ministers to a test of loyalty and has five hundred of them killed.

He also keeps a harem of around five hundred women.

When a few of these women insult him, he has all of them burnt to death.

He also builds an elaborate and horrific torture chamber that earns him the name of Chand Ashoka (Sanskrit), meaning Ashoka the Fierce.

After ascending the throne, Ashoka spends the next eight years expanding his empire, from the present-day boundaries and regions of Burma–Bangladesh and the state of Assam in India in the east to the territory of present-day Iran and Afghanistan in the west; from the Pamir Knots in the north almost to the peninsular of southern India (i.e.

Tamil Nadu/Andhra Pradesh).

Ashoka gives up not only military conquest but also hunting, the royal sport.

He studies Buddhist scriptures and begins to govern according to Buddhist principles of nonviolence, philanthropy, and compassion.

He reforms the habits of the royal court, touring the country with his officials and instructing his subjects on morality and toleration.

He relaxes harsh laws, works to create an ordered economic expansion, and establishes principles of justice and morality.

He has many of his edicts, particularly those on practical morality and the way of compassion, carved on stone pillars and erected throughout India.

He also builds rest houses and digs wayside wells for travelers and constructs hospitals for both humans and animals.

Ashoka seeks to help common people and emphasizes nonviolence and kindness.

Although tolerant of other religions, he makes great efforts to convert his subjects to Buddhism and dispatches Buddhist missionaries abroad, particularly to Tamraparni (present Sri Lanka).

He is said to have held a third council at Pataliputra in 250 to settle certain doctrinal controversies among Buddhists.

He attempts to create a state religion incorporating Buddhism and other faiths as well as Hinduism.

By this date, Ahsoka’s empire extends to the south of central India's Deccan Plateau and west into Baluchistan and modern Afghanistan; in the southeast it includes the state of Kalinga, which he had conquered around 261, and, in the southwest, the state of Maharashtra.