The Mauryan empire

(Left) India c. 500 BC and (right) Ashoka's empire at its greatest extent, c....The accession (dated to c. 325-c. 321 BC) of Candra Gupta (Chandragupta) Maurya is significant in Indian history because it inaugurated the first Indian empire. The Mauryan dynasty was to rule almost the entire subcontinent (except the area south of present-day Karnataka), as well as substantial parts of present-day Afghanistan.

Candra Gupta Maurya

Candra Gupta overthrew the Nanda power in Magadha and then campaigned in central and northern India. Greek sources report that he engaged in a conflict in 305 BC in the trans-Indus region with Seleucus I Nicator, one of Alexander's generals, who, on the death of Alexander, had founded the Seleucid dynasty in Iran. The result was a treaty by which Seleucus ceded the trans-Indus provinces to the Maurya and the latter presented him with 500 elephants. A marriage alliance is mentioned, but no details are recorded.

The treaty ushered in an era of friendly relations between the Mauryas and the Seleucids, with exchanges of envoys. One among them, Megasthenes, left his observations in the form of a book, the Indica. Although the original has been lost, extensive quotations from it survive in the works of the later Greek writers Strabo, Diodorus, and Arrian. A major treatise on political economy in Sanskrit is the Artha-shastra of Kautilya (or Canakya, as he is sometimes called). Kautilya, it is believed, was prime minister to Candra Gupta Maurya, although this view has been contested. In describing an ideal government, Kautilya indicates contemporary assumptions of political and economic theory, and the description of the functioning of government occasionally tallies with present-day knowledge of actual conditions derived from other sources. The date of origin of the Artha-shastra remains problematic, with suggested dates ranging from the 4th century BC to the 3rd century AD. Most authorities agree that the kernel of the book was originally written during the early Mauryan Period but that much of the existing text is post-Mauryan.

According to Jaina sources, Candra Gupta became a Jaina toward the end of his reign. He abdicated in favour of his son Bindusara, became an ascetic, and traveled with a group of Jaina monks to South India, where he died in the orthodox Jaina manner by deliberate slow starvation.