THE MAURYAN EMPIRE

If there is one empire that united the entire subcontinent in Ancient Age, that was the majestic Mauryan Empire between 321 to 181 BC. 325 BC was when Alexander the Great finally departed from Patala (somewhere near today's Karachi) to Babylon and soon 4 years later the Mauryan Empire was established by Chandragupta Maurya, after defeating the Nanda Empire that had ruled the Indo-Gangetic plains for nearly a century. One key understanding we have here is a difference between 'kingdom' and 'empire'. There were several kingdoms under the Mauryan Empire whose capital was seated at Pataliputra (the ancient name for Patna). This map shall discuss the administrative structure and politics during the first major Indian empire.

The traditional names of the five major provinces (known as Desha or Rashtra) of the Mauryan Empire were - Udichya or Uttarapatha (northern), Madhyadesa or Avantirashtra or Avanti (central), Prachya (eastern), Aparanta (western) and Dakshinapatha (southern). In fact, the name Deccan is a corruption of the word Dakshina, which literally means 'south'. For all the empires that established in the Indo-Gangetic plains, the southern kingdoms were clubbed under 'southern country', known as 'Dakkhan' or 'Dakshina' or as how the Europeans spelled, Deccan. N.B., the Europeans replaced 'k' with 'c' in most of the places. Think about it.

Apart from the Provinces, the Mauryan Empire was divided into 4 Viceroyalties headquartered at Taxila or Taksasila (Takshashila, ruins near Peshawar), Ujjayini or Ujjain, Tosali (near Bhubaneshwar) and Suvarnagiri (in Koppal district, Karnataka). Each viceroyalty and province had a governor having a council of ministers (Mantriparishad) and heads of department (Adhyaksha). Interesting that these Sanskrit names are still in regular use. And all these were headed under individual governors (known as Pradesika Mahamatra or Rashtra Mukhya or Rashtrapala).

These administrative divisions were further broken down into divisions (Pradesh), districts (Ahara or Visaya), sub-districts, group of villages (headed by local revenue officers or Gopas) and villages (Gram). The villages were headed by a headman (Gramika) and elders (Gramavrdohas).

Basically there were only three Mauryan rulers - Chandragupta Maurya, Bindusara or Amitraghata and Ashoka or Asoka. Although the capital of Mauryas was at Pataliputra, but the origin of Chandragupta was from Pipphalivana (near today's Gorakhpur). This was the time when Buddhism was a fresh practice and its preachers were expanding the learning of Buddha all throughout Asia.

Magadha, Avanti, Kosala, Vatsa etc. were important kingdom while Mallas, Vrijis, Sakyas and Moriyas were the powerful clans. The lineage of Magadha - Bimbisara, Ajatasatru, Darsaka, Udayi, Nandivardhana, Mahanandi - all reigned between 519 BC to 408 BC, a span of 111 years. This entire dynasty was known as Haryanka Dynasty, which was succeeded by the Nanda Dynasty. The 9 Nanda kings - Ugrasena, Panduka, Pandugati, Bhutapala, Dashasiddhika, Rashtrapala, Govishanaka, Kaivarta and Dhana. It is said that both Chandragupta and Chanakya (his advisor) killed all 9 kings (technically, in a war raged by Chandragupta on the Nandas in 314 BC) and established Chandgragupta as the founder of the Mauryan Empire. All these successions and politics were happening in today's Bihar and Jharkhand region. Maybe that's why even today the region is deeply rooted in politics.

While the Mauryas were expanding, the traces of Greek conquests still lingered. On the Indus river valley, numerous Greek tribes (some mixed with the local cultures) still existed independent of any political territories. Selenoi, Osioi, Sembrakanoi, Hydrakai, Abortai, Casvri etc. are some of such names that sprung around the Indus river. They slowly either got displaced, dispersed or accepted by the local ethnicity. Some of them were already existing local tribes and the names appear as how the Greeks knew them as. For example the tribe Hastinayana were known as Astanenoi, Prakanavas were Parikanioi, Vasatis were Ossadioi etc. It was during the Nanda dynasty's times when Alexander had invaded the subcontinent.

Although the Mauryas were successful in dominating over the entire subcontinent, but southern tip of India was left untouched. The kingdoms in Malaya (Kerala) wasn't technically under Mauryan rule but it had its heavy influence though. Once the Mauryan army had sent aid to Satiyaputas to subdue rebellious chief of Mohur. Talking about today's Sri Lanka, the Vijayan dynasty then had important link with the Mauryas. It was here that Asoka's son Mahendra introduced Buddhism.

One of the several amazing but unknown events that occurred in this era was the building of a royal road, that connected Pushkalavati (Peshawar) to Tamralipti (near Medinapore). The royal road was also known as Uttarapatha and was later developed by various rulers - from Asoka to Sher Shah Suri. We know the popular version of Sher Shah Suri who named it as Sadak-i-Azam or Badshahi Sadak, now known as the Grand Trunk Road or GT Road. The road now connects Kabul to Chittagong and is the oldest road in the Indian subcontinent.

The map here shows boundary of the entire Mauryan Empire from Chandragupta to Asoka.