Ancient India · Topic 7 of 17
Magadhan imperialism culminating in India's first pan-Indian empire
The Basics
By the 6th century BCE, four states stood out among the mahajanapadas as serious contenders for supremacy: Magadha, Kosala, Vatsa and Avanti. Kashi had once been powerful but had already been absorbed by Kosala. These four fought, allied and intermarried for roughly two centuries. Out of this contest, Magadha alone emerged as the paramount power of north India, setting the stage for the Mauryan empire.
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Magadha's rise to supremacy began with Bimbisara (c. 544-492 BCE), who ruled from the hill-fortress capital of Rajagriha (Girivraja), protected by five surrounding hills. He expanded Magadha through a three-pronged policy of matrimonial alliances, friendship with strong rulers, and conquest of weak neighbours. He conquered Anga and its trading town Champa, married into the royal houses of Kosala, the Lichchhavis of Vaishali, and the Madra clan of Punjab, and kept peace with his old rival Pradyota of Avanti, even sending his physician Jivaka to treat him.
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While Magadha was consolidating the east under its successive dynasties, the north-west frontier remained politically fragmented. The Mahajanapadas of Gandhara, Kamboja and Madra fought constantly among themselves. No Magadha-like power arose there to unite them. This disunity, plus the region's fertility and access through the Hindu Kush passes, attracted a rising power to the west.
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By 327-326 BCE, Persian control over the Indus provinces had become nominal or had vanished altogether. The north-west was no longer one empire but a patchwork of small kingdoms and tribal republics called gana-sanghas, each fiercely attached to its own territory and unwilling to unite against an outsider.
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After Alexander's departure and the Nandas' fall, Chandragupta Maurya built the first subcontinental empire. Dynastic lists like the Puranas give inconsistent details about how many Maurya kings ruled and for how long. To reconstruct this period, historians rely chiefly on three sources: the Arthashastra, Megasthenes's Indica, and Ashoka's inscriptions.
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Chandragupta Maurya ruled c. 324/321 to 297 BCE.
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In 1905, a scholar handed a Sanskrit manuscript to R. Shamashastry, librarian of the Mysore Government Oriental Library. The text, in 15 books called Adhikaranas, claimed to have been composed by Kautilya. Shamashastry published it in 1909 and an English translation followed in 1915, after which the work spread into many Indian and European languages, with R. P. Kangle producing a critical edition in 1960 to 1963.
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Chandragupta Maurya was succeeded by his son Bindusara, who ruled from about 297 BCE to 273 BCE. Jaina tradition says Chandragupta abdicated in favour of his son, whom it names Simhasena. This figure is usually identified with Bindusara. Greek writers called him Amitrochates or Allitrochates. The Sanskrit grammar text the Mahabhashya calls him Amitraghata. Both names mean destroyer of enemies, hinting at military campaigns during his reign.
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Bindusara died around 273–272 BCE, and Ashoka did not succeed him immediately. Buddhist texts describe a four-year succession conflict. The Divyavadana says Bindusara wanted his son Susima to be king, but Ashoka had the support of his father's ministers, especially one named Radhagupta. The Dipavamsa and Mahavamsa claim Ashoka killed ninety-nine brothers to seize the throne, sparing only Tissa. Historians treat these stories with caution, since Buddhist writers wanted to present Ashoka as an ideal king transformed by Buddhism, so his early life is painted as unusually cruel to sharpen the later change. Ashoka's own inscriptions never mention these events at all.
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After Kalinga, Ashoka wanted his subjects, and even distant peoples, to know of his change of heart, so he ordered his proclamations inscribed on rocks and pillars across the empire, becoming the first Indian king to speak directly to his people through writing.
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The Kalinga war was fought about eight to nine years after Ashoka's consecration, around 261 BCE. It left him remorseful over the killing, death and deportation it caused. Rock edict 13 records this remorse in his own words. It announces that true conquest is dhamma-vijaya, conquest by righteousness, not by arms. From this point Ashoka turned his energy to explaining and spreading dhamma. Dhamma is the Prakrit form of dharma, meaning a universal social and moral law rather than any one sect's belief.
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Ashoka's dhamma edicts addressed all his subjects. A smaller set of his inscriptions speak in a more personal voice, that of a devoted Buddhist layman writing to the sangha.
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Chandragupta Maurya inherited from Magadha's earlier kings a tradition of centralised, militarily backed rule. He and his minister Kautilya built this into a far more elaborate machinery of government than any earlier Indian state had attempted.
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The Mauryas kept a huge standing army with infantry, cavalry, elephants, and chariots.
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The Mauryan state regulated agriculture, mining, trade and crafts through many superintendents called adhyakshas.
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Megasthenes described Mauryan society as seven occupational groups, not the four varnas.
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Ashokan pillars are monolithic sandstone columns, quarried at Chunar.
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Ashoka died around 232 BCE after a reign of about thirty-seven years. The Puranas name several later Maurya kings but give them short reigns, and of all of them only one, Dasharatha, is known to have issued any inscriptions. This already tells us that central authority was crumbling fast.
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Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusara and Ashoka built the first subcontinental empire in Indian history. It covered nearly the whole subcontinent and reached beyond it in the north-west. No earlier Magadhan dynasty, including the Nandas, had achieved this scale. Governing such a vast territory needed new administrative strategies. The Mauryas built an elaborate bureaucracy to hold the provinces together.
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