Chandragupta Maurya | |
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A modern statue depicting Chandragupta Maurya, Laxminarayan Temple, Delhi | |
Emperor of Magadha | |
Reign | c. 322 – c. 297 BCE[1][2] |
Coronation | c. 322 BCE |
Predecessor | Dhana Nanda |
Successor | Bindusara[3] |
Born | c. 350 BCE Pataliputra, Magadha (Present day Bihar, India) |
Died | c. 295 BCE Chandragiri, Maurya Empire (Present day Karnataka, India) |
Spouse | Durdhara and
A Seleucid princess (name unknown) |
Issue | Bindusara |
Dynasty | Maurya |
Religion | Hinduism[note 1] |
Alma mater | Taxila University |
Maurya Empire (322–180 BCE) | ||||||||||||||||||||
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Chandragupta Maurya[a] (350–295 BCE) was Emperor of Magadha[4][5] from 322 BC to 297 BC and founder of the Maurya dynasty which ruled over a geographically-extensive empire based in Magadha.[6] He reigned from 320 BCE to 298 BCE.[7] The Magadha kingdom expanded to become an empire that reached its peak under the reign of his grandson, Ashoka the Great, from 268 BCE to 231 BCE.[8] The nature of the political formation that existed in Chandragupta's time is not certain.[9] The Mauryan empire was a loose-knit one with large autonomous regions within its limits.[10]
Prior to his consolidation of power, Alexander the Great had invaded the North-West Indian subcontinent before abandoning his campaign in 324 BCE due to a mutiny caused by the prospect of facing another large empire, presumably the Nanda Empire. Chandragupta defeated and conquered both the Nanda Empire centered in Pataliputra, Magadha and the Greek satraps that were appointed or formed from Alexander's Empire in South Asia. Afterwards, Chandragupta expanded and secured his western border, where he was confronted by Seleucus I Nicator in the Seleucid–Mauryan war. After two years of war, Chandragupta was considered to have gained the upper hand in the conflict and annexed satrapies up to the Hindu Kush. Instead of prolonging the war, both parties settled on a marriage treaty.
Chandragupta's empire extended throughout most of South Asia, spanning from modern day Bengal to Afghanistan across North India as well as making inroads into Central and South India. In contrast to the Jain legends which developed 900 years later,[11] contemporary Greek evidence states that Chandragupta did not give up performing the rites of sacrificing animals associated with Vedic Brahminism; he delighted in hunting and otherwise leading a life remote from the Jain practice of Ahimsa or nonviolence towards living beings.[12][13] Chandragupta's reign, and the Maurya Empire, set an era of economic prosperity, reforms, infrastructure expansions, and tolerance. Many religions thrived within his realms and his descendants' empire. Buddhism, Jainism and Ājīvika gained prominence alongside Vedic and Brahmanistic traditions, and minority religions such as Zoroastrianism and the Greek pantheon were respected. A memorial for Chandragupta Maurya exists on the Chandragiri hill along with a seventh-century hagiographic inscription.
britchandrag
was invoked but never defined (see the help page).Chanakya's diplomatic moves ensured Chandragupta's victory over Magadha. King Dhana Nanda was killed in the war. Chanakya declared Chandragupta as the Emperor of Magadha, who was warmly welcomed.
We may, therefore, take it for granted that between 323 and 321 B.C., Chandragupta made himself the ruler of the Punjab and Emperor of Magadha. We may take 322 B. C. as the date of his accession to sovereignty and of inaguration of the Maurya Dynasty
We are assuming that the basic historical-geographical configuration of the Magadhan power was achieved before the beginning of the Maurya dynasty, whose founder Chandragupta Maurya simply added to it the stretch from the Indus valley to the southern foot of the Hindukush, giving the Mauryan India a strong foothold in the Oxus to the Indus interaction zone of Indian history. The evidence is in some cases, as in the cases of Gujarat, Bengal, and Assam, shadowy, but if Chandragupta had undertaken expeditions in these directions, there would have been echoes of these expeditions in the literary traditions.
Chandragupta (r. 320 – c. 298 BCE) led a rebellion that seized power in Magadha and founded the Maurya Dynasty. He located his capital Pataliputra (today's Patna) at an especially strategic trading and defensive location, on the south bank of the Ganges where the Son River joined it. The actual origins of the Maurya family remain uncertain, but consensus holds that Chandragupta was low-born. One popular account asserts he was the previous king's son by a low-ranked queen or concubine and overthrew his royal half-brothers. Maurya means "peacock," and some Jain texts identify his family as low peacock herders, ranked by Brahmans as Shudra at best.
The political history of the centuries following the rise of Buddhism and Jainism saw the emergence and consolidation of powerful regional states in northern India. Among the strongest of these was the kingdom of Magadha, with its capital at Pataliputra (near the modern city of Patna). The Magadhan kingdom expanded under the Maurya dynasty in the fourth and fifth centuries BCE to become an empire embracing almost the whole of the subcontinent. Chandragupta Maurya founded the dynasty in 322 BCE, just a few years after Alexander the Great's brief foray into northwestern India. The Maurya empire reached its apogee under the reign of Ashoka (268–231 BCE)
Around 270 bce, the first Indian documentary records, issued by the Buddhist king Ashoka, were added to the Greek source. Though Ashoka's inscriptions were deciphered in the nineteenth century, we still cannot be sure about the political formation that existed under this Mauryan king, much less under the kingdom's founder, Ashoka's grandfather Chandragupta, who was possibly a contemporary of Alexander. Evidence in the form of a Sanskrit treatise called the Arthashastra – depicting a centralized, tyrannical, spy-ridden and compul sively controlling regime – probably does not pertain to Mauryan times. If its political world was not pure theory, it could only have been achieved within a small city-state, not a realm as vast as that defined by the distribution of Ashoka's inscriptions, over some 1500 miles from Afghanistan to southern India.
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